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05/10/2012

Entering a city with a GPS

We weren't exactly looking forward to entering Krakow on a bike, but we just hadn't realised how amazing Open Streetmaps is.
The turn by turn navigation took us down small side streets and through parks in the most unbelievable way. The only stress was how mad the route was....

29/08/2012

Eastern Europe by bike

In the summer of 2012 we flew from Stavanger in Norway to Split in Croatia and cycled back:
The journey was one of 4200km and took 54 days during our summer holiday. Isabelle was 5 months pregnant at the beginning and was showing her lump towards the end.

We travelled through 15 countries:
Croatia, Bosnia Herzegovina, Montenegro, Albania, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine, Slovakia, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Sweden and finally Norway.

Some of the journey through Poland was on a train and we got a ferry from Tallinn to Stockholm to get back to Scandinavia. The ride across the centre of Norway was a challenge although the hardest and most spectacular bit was the Romanian 'Alps'

15/03/2012

Son Dynamo hub

We have started using a GPS in Norway to explore on our road bikes and found it really useful. The idea of doing a long cycle ride with a GPS appeals so when I discovered that I needed a new front wheel because my rim was really concave we decided to order a new wheel from SJS Cycles with a SON Dynamo hub built in.
We then bought a Busch and Muller 'E-werk' which allows the dynamo to have USB output and to change the voltage to charge lots of different things. So far we have used it effectively on mobile phones, USB and also an Android tablet.
The freedom given by the use of a GPS is amazing. It is especially useful when entering a city because thanks to the amazing free maps from Open Street Maps which you can just load on your GPS you get a perfect turn by turn guide to reach some of the most difficult parts of a city.