Archive for the ‘Outdoor’ Category
Tuesday, November 1st, 2011
Since my 40th birthday passed by recently, I invited a couple of friends for a 20 kilometers black forest hiking trip. It led us from Forbach over the Rote Lache pass to Baden-Baden/Oberbeuern, where we took the bus to the station to get back to Karlsruhe.
The weather was warm and sunny, reminding us of the indian summer. Between Forbach and Bermersbach we followed the Ziegenpfad (Goat’s path), which is often used by families with children:
Obviously the inhabitants of the black forest take hunting very serious:
The Holzschuhrank is a locality and a shelter with a fountain and sleeping facilities, sited at a crossing:
Fortunately there were lots of details along our way which were missing in the OSM database, so all kinds of gadgets (such as Garmins, N900s etc.) came to play:
That’s deer ragout with croquettes and brussels sprouts. No, I didn’t take a picture of everyone’s dishes :) :
As we were late and the daylight saving time ended last sunday, it got dark while descending to Oberbeuern. At least the male participants appreciated the displays of the bus booting Linux 2.x :) :
Here’s the trip:
Posted in Gadgets, Openstreetmap, Outdoor, Pictures | Comments Closed
Sunday, October 30th, 2011
Hiking trail near Slevogthof
After a warm spring and a wet summer, the golden autumn fades out. Today it was cloudy though warm, and we grabbed the occasion for a hiking trip to the Palatinate Forest. The trip lead from Annweiler to the Trifels Castle, the Madenburg Castle and back to Annweiler. We needed almost seven hours for this 25 kilometers trip, due to several rests :) .
The Trifels castle is a well known tourist destination, though it was reconstructed during the infamous Nazi dictatorship. The Madenburg is a well known destination either:
The Madenburg Castle
It’s a great viewpoint towards the upper Rhine plane:
View from the Madenburg castle towards the upper Rhine plane
I was surprised by the local gastronomic specialities provided. This is Bratwurst, Saumagen, and yes, Krauts actually eat what they are named after ;-) :
Bratwurst, Saumagen, and Sauerkraut
I missed the liver dumpling, but that would have been too much.
The wood was relatively dry, so I didn’t find much fungi. Here is one anyway:
And finally, here’s the trip:
Unfortunately two of us needed to leave after Trifels castle due to some severe flu. Get well soon!
Posted in Openstreetmap, Outdoor, Pictures | Comments Closed
Sunday, August 28th, 2011
There are several web resources for the Oder-Neisse-Cycleway. (Oder-Neiße-Radweg in german) Here’s the variant from Zittau to Wolgast I have chosen as a GPX track.
The file is purged, so it just contains the route. It does not contain deviations or markers to viewpoints, museums etc. Its length is about 547 kilometers, and it contains 6014 trackpoints, so it should fit into the memory of current Garmin devices easily.
Posted in Outdoor, Products, Travel | Comments Closed
Friday, August 26th, 2011
Vielleicht haben wir gestern den letzten hochsommerlich warmen Tag des Jahres 2011 genossen – zumindest soll es die nächsten Tage weiterhin kühl bleiben. Wir haben den Tag genutzt, sind um 6:40 in die Bahn gestiegen und haben den Stromberg-Murrtal-Radweg in Ost-West-Richtung bereist, zumal er in Openstreetmap noch nicht vollständig erfasst ist :) .
(more…)
Posted in Openstreetmap, Outdoor, Travel | Comments Closed
Saturday, July 30th, 2011
I’ve just edited and uploaded the Oder-Neisse-Cycleway in GPX track format. See its dedicated page for details and download.
Posted in Outdoor, Products, Travel | Comments Closed
Thursday, July 28th, 2011
The Oder near Frankfurt
As the last trip from Zittau to Frankfurt (Oder) (german language posting) was interrupted by bad weather conditions, I went to Frankfurt again to complete the trip. The trains partly were well crowded. In Sangerhausen the next train was delayed by half an hour, and the train in Magdeburg didn’t wait for 5 minutes, so I (and others) lost an hour waiting for the next one. Fortunately I left Karlsruhe quite early, so the delay did not show any impact.
(more…)
Posted in Openstreetmap, Outdoor, Pictures, Travel | Comments Closed
Saturday, July 9th, 2011
Though I do not want to complain about the weather this year, it often is accompanied by some light wind of about 15 kilometers per hour. Today it got even worse. Some heavy weather was brewing near Wissembourg. Heck, cyclists who rode the opposit direction had better luck :) .
(more…)
Posted in Lifestyle, Openstreetmap, Outdoor | Comments Closed
Sunday, May 8th, 2011
Today my way led from Darmstadt to Aschaffenburg, where I visited some relatives and friends. MoNav did a very good job guiding me. As it chose a route which led along major roads, I set a via point in Messel, and got really great results.
The trip info page I recently introduced was very helpful. Well, it’s like a progress bar on computers. It does neither shorten the remaining distance, nor does it beam you to the destination. But anyway, it’s very useful to have some figures right at your fingertips during the tour, so you know whether you should hurry or you can enjoy a short rest.
The trip was about 50 kilometers which I planned to cope with in 2 hours. Though the terrain is completely flat, some head wind caused an average speed of 20 km/h only – I needed 30 minutes more as I planned.
Once again, I really enjoyed to have MoNav’s excellent offline routing available during the trip. Before I used MoNav, I spent hours in front of my computer to prepare a trip. Today, I just check what MoNav suggests before I leave and help it with some via points – that’s it. An issue of minutes, not hours.
I’d like to thank all Co-Mappers who contributed the data I used during today’s trip. Thanks girls and guys.
¹ According to echo $RANDOM
Posted in Coding, Openstreetmap, Outdoor, Products, Software, Travel | Comments Closed
Tuesday, April 26th, 2011
On sunday (easter 2011) I got up early for a trip I was planning for some time now. I left cloudy Karlsruhe before 6AM, passing rainy Heilbronn and reaching sunny Lauda at 9AM. A nice trip along the lovely valley of the Tauber river began.
(more…)
Posted in Openstreetmap, Outdoor, Pictures, Software, Travel | Comments Closed
Friday, April 22nd, 2011
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 :) :
Posted in Openstreetmap, Outdoor, Pictures, Travel | Comments Closed
Monday, April 18th, 2011
The minster of Strasbourg, with its unfinished right tower
What a great april, at least concerning the weather! I decided to visit Strasbourg, the great medieval city where I haven’t been for over a year or so.
(more…)
Posted in Gadgets, Openstreetmap, Outdoor, Pictures, Software | Comments Closed
Sunday, April 10th, 2011
Just as yesterday, I grabbed the occasion for a black forest trip. Again I wanted to test the via points for routes I recently hacked for MoNav. I was creating the route while using the public transport to Baiersbronn, giving MoNav a couple of points I wanted to pass. With this new feature, MoNav more and more becomes the perfect companion for osm-addicted cyclists.
(more…)
Posted in Lifestyle, Openstreetmap, Outdoor | Comments Closed
Sunday, April 3rd, 2011
The biking season finally started. April 2nd and 3rd 2011 were warm and sunny days, providing temperatures far above 20°C. Thus I used the bike to get to a birthday party 30km away. I used MoNav for bike routing, which served my very well thanks to our collaboratively collected openstreetmap data.
The party itself was held outdoors, thanks to the excellent weather conditions.
BTW: If you ever get a chance to play with GeoMag, then grab it. Even if you’re not a chemist:
GeoMag
Today I visited my favourite weekend destination, Wissembourg, France, using the great cross-border map I just created a couple of days before. A great day to enjoy alsacien food as a reward:
Posted in Lifestyle, Openstreetmap, Outdoor | Comments Closed
Saturday, February 12th, 2011
Wissembourg, Saint-Pierre-et-Paul
What a winter! Early snow in November (disappeared before Xmas). Fresh snow during Xmas (meanwhile disappeared even at the Black Forest). And now a warm and sunny day providing up to 13°C!
(more…)
Posted in Openstreetmap, Outdoor | Comments Closed
Tuesday, January 4th, 2011
During the winter months, the mapping activities usually decrease, but I’m not completely in hibernation mode.
(more…)
Posted in Openstreetmap, Outdoor, Pictures | Comments Closed
Tuesday, January 4th, 2011
Aeolus did all friends of white Xmas a favour and brought fresh snow right at christmas eve. Many streets (except for motorways) have not been salted by the winter service and are still covered by snow and ice, so the trips to visit family members and friends have been demanding.
Thanks to the early snow, the black forest had open during the holidays and allowed for all kinds of winter sport activities.
According to the forecast, the snow will probably melt the upcoming weekend, at least in the lower regions. I’m curious what weather conditions the rest of this winter will bring.
Posted in Lifestyle, Outdoor | Comments Closed
Sunday, November 28th, 2010
This year’s winter is an early bird, and some snow offers an excellent opportunity for all kinds of winter sport activities across the black forest.
(more…)
Posted in Openstreetmap, Outdoor, Pictures | Comments Closed
Monday, October 11th, 2010
Klingenmünster as seen from the Landeck castle
The golden october continued. It allowed for an after work biking trip to the river Rhine last week and yesterday. Today I went to the Landeck castle near Klingenmünster by car. This was not the best idea. There was some wind, but there were no clouds at all. The streets were completely overcrowded, and additionally all the villages growing wine in Rhineland-Palatinate sold their goods along the way.
(more…)
Posted in Lifestyle, Openstreetmap, Outdoor, Pictures | 4 Comments »
