August 08, 2000
Photo of the Day More: 2003 Dogwood 2003 Technology Two 2002 Backyard Lights Tree Hunting 2003 Subaru WRX Pumpkin Carve #3 9/11/02 Bloomin' Oink! Window Boxes Beach and Parade Dogwood 2002 Gina The Slide Got Milk? Pizza Face First Word 2001 Walking Pumpkin Carve Crawling Raspberries Highwire Mr. Good Times Dogwood 2001 The Smells City Smoke Central Park Food Shopping Chelsea Skyline Times Square Uncle Max The View Sunday Ride Dreamin Good Fences March Lion The Pacifier Birth Story Snow Day New Millennium 2000 Festivus Prenatal Prep Painting Who's There? The Beagle Beach Day Halloween Perfect Fall Day Pumpkin Carving Water Gap Peek-A-Boo Cake Smashing Got Lost Bad Connection Pedro gets Shaved Summer's End New Cruiser Sick Kitty It's a... The iPuppy Summer's End In Season Wet Wood Technology The Sunset Strange Sunday Hole in One Pregnant Dirt Track Atlantic City Dog Walking Necessity Bicycle Racing Falling Down Murder Noah and the Ticks Ode to Our Pets Bubba Share the Road Dogwood Preview Thunder Exercise Ridglea Gardensize Thumbnails Playtime The Zoo Lacie Cat Chasin Chester County Nintendo Wall Building Easter Sunday |
I got this mapping program last week that has detailed topographical maps of the entire United States on several CD-ROMS. The maps have impressive detail and with the accompanying software, you can outline routes, see them in profile, 3-dimensions, or as a list of directions.
So the first thing I did when I got this program was trace several of my usual bike rides. The level of accuracy is quite amazing. I traced one of my typical routes, a hilly 18 mile loop south of town that takes me about an hour to ride. I found our street on the map and followed the roads for the length of the ride. According to the profile view, the total riding distance was 17.77 miles, measured down to the nearest hundreth of a mile. I was impressed and figured it was probably a good estimate. The next day, I rode the loop. Like usual, I reset my odometer as I got on the bike in front of the house. As I finished the ride and pulled back up to our house, the computer read 17.77 miles. Impressive indeed. But the best of the program was yet to come. Once I mapped all the usual routes and studied the size of all the climbs, I went to work designing the most difficult loop I could muster. When I was done, I had a 55 mile ride mapped out with over 5000 feet of climbing, including three climbs with slopes of 15% or more. Somehow, I managed to convince a friend that this ride was a good idea for our usual Sunday ride. We spent four hours out on the route today, getting pelted by rain as we suffered up one climb after another. I had figured the ride would be painful. It was. My next task, now that I've managed to find the most difficult terrain the area has to offer, is to find the easiest. That's actually harder than it sounds in the rolling hills of Chester County. It's amazing the level of accuracy and detail offered on a regular desktop computer these days. The sophistication of that mapping program is something that, just a few years ago, would only be found on high-end workstations manned by overpaid government contractors. We've come a long way. And speaking of coming a long way, check out the latest ultrasound. The little one has doubled in size over the past month and now includes such recognizeable features as a heart and spine. (Unfortunately, the spine is not pictured) Watching the groowth progress is pretty cool. |
