Points of Interest

I tend to visit some medieval castles in spring. I usually approach them by car and use the rest of the distance for some hiking. This year, I wanted to know whether I can reach Wasigenstein by bike, and once again, I wanted to test the bike routing capabilities of MoNav.

Here are some observations:

• I always thought that printed maps are still more useful when it comes to hiking, as they provide a far better overview of the area. But today I met two couples with printed maps who asked me for the right way. In one case, the printed map was simply wrong. In the other case, they followed some signs and passed the destination without noticing it. I guess that two male hikers will buy some kind of personal navigation device soon, and I also guess that the woman acceptance factor will not be a problem ;) . If you are searching for a great business idea, invent printed maps which are capable of displaying the current location on top of the map.
• The LCR is not made for hiking trails covered with roots and stones. But it’s a great bike on paved ways. I guess we will soon need more than one routing set for bikes…
• I took the train to Wissembourg and used MoNav to create the route to Wasigenstein. It really created a nice trip – though I wished it avoided some of the inclines :) . We have been discussing the integration of SRTM data into the preprocessor more than once. Technically it’s not an issue, but it would require some coding work, and the SRTM data set is rather huge.
• I recently hacked track logging for MoNav. What I need to do next is a trip computer, which provides information about the time and distance already traveled, and the remaining distance and duration. What would be excellent was the calculation of a height profile for both the track and the route. Did I already mention the size of the SRTM data set? Maybe I should search for online services to accomplish that.
• We have a lot of trails of that area in our openstreetmap data already. But there are still a lot of bits missing. Partly we have the smaller hiking trails available, but some forestal tracks are missing.
• The N900 and MoNav are a great combo. I switched the N900′s display off when not needed – the battery powered the device for about eight hours. Not that bad, especially when you take into account that MoNav recomputes the route every second.
• Being a bit tired, I took the road back to Wissembourg, where I entered the train after some supper. The section between Lembach and the Col du Pigeonnier (see the marker) broke my neck due to the incline. As a reward, the rest of the route down to Wissembourg was completely declining. A great joy :) .

Here’s the trip (height profile would be marvellous :) :