2009-05-16 49 9
| Sat 16 May 2009 in Würzburg, Germany: 49.3770048, 9.7785416 geohashing.info google osm bing/os kml crox |
Location
In a small forest, near a small town. In Germany...
Check out the tracklog if want to know where I actually went
Expedition
Towards the Coordinates
thepiguy set out on his bike at 0600 and set off into the unknown. His brand-new GPS proved to be only slightly useful; getting him out of town easily enough, but promptly dumping him on the nearest no-so-cyclist-friendly highway.
He managed to get all the way to Bad Mergentheim without being squashed by a car and even found a few bike paths along the way. Travelling through the city was a bit of an ordeal. Instead of taking the well signed bike path, thepiguy decided to follow his GPS that wound him through a questionable set of streets that only made sense to whatever strange algorithm the Garmin research team had developed.
Leaving the city behind he began to wind his way down smaller and smaller road until his path was finally reduced to a single lane street that rolled up and down the country side. "Now this is biking!"
He finally made it to the side of the forest on the highway. The bushes looked impassibly thick, but with 250m to go the stupidity distance had long since been reached. A machete, however, was not required today for there existed a miraculous path into the forest from the highway!
There was a brief moment of concern when thepiguy ran across a very large and official looking sign on the path. A few moment later (with dictionary in hand) he was confident enough that is wasn't a "no trespassing" to continue. He walked down the path until the needle on his GPS pointed him directly into the forest again. This time though it was only 160m and the foliage was much less dense!
Victoria was parked against a small tree, the essential geohashing equipment was retrieved and the real fun began! With every meter closer to the coordinates thepiguy couldn't help but remember Robyn's warnings about how mother nature could stop a geohasher in their tracks. Fortunately, all was not lost and the geohash was achieved shortly in a small clearing!
Toward Home
Leaving the forest behind thepiguy cycled back to Bad Mergentheim along the quiet roads. There were a few hill where he managed to make it above 50km/h, which was a lot more fun than the 15km/h he had been travelling on the way there.
Remembering a few more sage geohashing words (this time from Arvid) he ignored the GPS and took a different route back that involved much less highway.
thepiguy made it home by 1700, giving him a total travel time of 11 hours, 6.5 of which were spent cycling, and a total distance of 141km.
All-in-all a very successful bike geohash!
I guess it could have been worse.
I still have trouble believing how big these things are.
About time!
This is really a road?
It was right there waiting for me!
Can't put it off any longer: forest time!
Good thing I brought the right footwear!
Mossy!
Tada!
New from Rio Grande Games: Camouflage Meeple!
Chalk'ED!
