STAYING CONNECTED

Next month we roll, just about five weeks from now. When Jim and I did our west coast tour from Canada to Mexico, I was the technical support with my PC, my Garmin, and my Verizon hotspot. Of course, Dennie was driving SAG (Support And Gear), so weight was not an issue. We just put everything in the car in the morning, rode light during the day, and then blogged in the motel at night. But on this east coast ride, we will be unsupported. We will be carrying everything on our bikes and no one will be driving SAG for the two of us. I will not be hauling my very large laptop, or my Canon SLR cameras on my bike. But never fear, I remain committed to blogging as often as possible. My "PC" this time will be my iPad

and I will use the on screen keyboard rather than a Bluetooth keyboard. That will be a considerable weight savings. Editing on the blogspot.com site, if you don't post photos, is pretty straight forward. BUT, photos are important. IPads are a bit more cumbersome, compared to a PC, when it comes to editing and filing and posting photos. But between my Photogene app, and my Blogger app, I hope to be blogging with photos while we are slogging down the east coast, so stand by. I am practicing by only using the iPad to post this blog.

In addition to blogging, it has always been important for me to record and post our daily rides using my Garmin GPS, my PC and the Garmin MyConnect application. However, the iPad does not have drivers for the Garmin, so this was going to be a big problem. I was considering buying an ultra thin ultrabook PC, but this was going to be a pricy solution. I even considered contacting Brian Krzanich, one of my friends from my beginning Intel dayside Fab 7, and now he just happens to be the CEO of Intel. I was going to ask, "Bryan, how would you like to sponsor an old man's bicycle ride from Bar Harbor, Maine to Key West, Florida using Intel technology? All you would have to do is provide the technology, one of those solid state drive, ultra thin ultrabooks with Intel inside? Huh, how about it? Whaddya think?" But my solution turned out to be much more elegant, even though it did not require Intel inside. The newest Garmin GPS, the Garmin 810, has Bluetooth. 

And it can download real time to my smartphone. And my Android smartphone has a Garmin Connect app that downloads to Garmin's MyConnect. So all our rides will be recorded and I can post them every evening. Even better than that, if anyone wants to follow us while we are actually riding during the day, like family and friends, the Connect app on my phone updates and tracks and publishes to anyone I invite by email when we start our ride each morning. By the way, invites are not that exclusive. If you are interested in following us, send me your email. Instead of 'Where's Waldo?', you could play 'Where's Marvin and Jim. 

    In addition to blogging and tracking, we of course will be texting (NOT while we are riding), phoning (NOT while we are riding) and Skyping (also NOT while we are riding).