Biking & Geocaching - What could be finer?

After work today, I thought that I should get some fresh air and decided to go for a nice ride along Riverside Drive to Orleans. I checked Geocaching.com for caches along my route, grabbed my GPSr and an apple and headed out the door. I was a little concerned about the heat, but there was a nice breeze to keep the temperature down. I made good time until I reached the first stopping point (Twin Oaks Cemetery) where I stopped to admire the view, and to search out a Geocache that had two recent DNF's logged. Since it was on my way to Orleans, I decided to stop. I found the location, but the cache was missing.


I drank some water and chatted with Sweet for a bit, and then mounted my wonderful new (old) Specialized MTB that my Uncle gave to me. I've been enjoying riding this bike and have slowly been removing items off of my old MTB's and adding them to my new bike.

I continued down Riverside Drive for another .65 miles to the Orleans cemetery and began to search for the Geocache (Dead Man's Curve) that I was pretty certain was still in place. Before long, I was signing the log. As I prepared for the ride home, I decided to try out Mariah's MP3 player that I had loaded with a Podcacher podcast. I figured that the run time would be just the right length for my ride home. I cruised home and enjoyed catching up on the podcast.

Below you will see my route. As I'm an avid le tour de France watcher, I've come across this new site (MapMyRide.com) which is advertised on Versus (the television channel). One can ride their bike (or even walk/run) and upload routes and training information to the site. During the TDF, if you upload a route, you are entered into a drawing for some great prizes.

What makes the process so easy is using a GPSr to upload your track file to the site. With a Garmin GPSr, one can connect directly to the site with a built-in conduit. Unfortunately with my Magellan, I have to use the Magellan MapSend software to pull the track file off the GPSr, and then use GPSvisualizer to convert the proprietary TRK Magellan file to a universal GPX file the the site can use. It only takes a few moments, but it is still a pain.



All in all, it was a great way to get out and enjoy the beautiful weather, and to partake in two of my favorite activities.