The Blaſphemous Bicycler

There’s a brand-new website from the evil geniuses who brought you the world famous Ride Lugged blog:

The Dirt Road Database is a gmaps-mashup type thing to share the locations of dirt roads that are nice to ride bicycles on.

I like the idea. I’m not thrilled about using gmaps-mashups generally^[1], but OSM isn’t quite in a state where this would work….yet.

Anyhow, if you are looking for dirt roads in your neighborhood, or want to tell the world about your favorite dirt roads, check out the Dirt Road Database.

_{[1] Richard Fairhurst’s talk, Why Mashups Suck (and Cartogrpahy matters) is an excellent discussion about this.}

I went for a hike on the Darlington Trail today. I did an out-and-back from Lamb’s Gap Road to Miller’s Gap Road.

It was very sunny out, and with all the snow (about 5″ on the north side of the mountain), all my pictures came out overexposed.

I bought that hat at a gas station for $3 this morning. It came in handy. It was a little cold on top of the mountain.

I had some GPS problems on the way out, but by the time I got to the turn-around point at Miller’s Gap, I had a strong signal, and got a nice GPS log on the way back.

You can see the fruits of today’s efforts on the map already.

I still have to do the section between Lamb’s Gap and Tower Road. Then, the Darlington trail will be completely mapped.

Klinutus and I made use of the President’s Day holiday to go wander around the Tall Timbers Natural Area, which has some of the only old growth forest left in the State.

The trees are very big. I’m not exactly a small person, but I’m hard to find in the picture.

It was kind of a winter wonderland in the woods.

I GPS logged our whole hike, and now the map is ever so slightly more complete.

If you like pictures, there are a few more in my gallery.

Resonance 104.4FM has a radio show about bikes called “The Bike Show.” Monday, they released a podcast of an interview with Andy Allen, the Grand Poobah of the OSM Cycle Map.

It’s pretty bad-ass. Check it out. (29MB MP3)

In other news, the same show is putting together a tribute to the late, great Sheldon Brown. To that end, they are asking for submissions of audio, video, or text remembrances of Sheldon.

The Appalachian trail pretty much runs right through my back yard. So, I hiked the section from Marysville to Duncannon on Saturday.

I made friends with this dog along the way.

He was supposed to be hunting foxes, but he followed me for about a half mile instead. We eventually found his owner, who was the one who told me about the fox hunt.

Near the end in Duncannon, is Hawk Rock, which has a pretty nice view. You can see the Susquehanna and Juniata Rivers, and a rather frozen looking Sherman’s Creek

I made a panorama of the view with Hugin.

The view from Hawk Rock (click for big)

The descent from Hawk Rock into Duncannon was an evil bitch. It’s steeper than hell on slippery, snowy rocks.

I fell on my butt 3 times.

Today, I ordered a pair of yaktrax, which I hope to try out next weekend. They are supposed to give better traction on slippery ice and packed snow.

Of course, I GPS logged the 8 miles of trail I hiked, and put it on the map.