This journey began as a bet between two friends. Would I cycle to Paris if my friend bought me a Monaco. That was just the beginning, it has evolved into a personal struggle to prove I can do what I set my mind to and an opportunity to raise some money for an organisation I'm involved with in Edinburgh.

To make a donation to the Beltane Fire Society click the button below. You don't need to have a paypal account to donate money as debit and credit cards are also accepted. Your donation is guaranteed by all of the security features that Paypal provide. For details see www.paypal.com. If you would like to donate to BFS directly, or if you have any questions about the process, just send me an email.

Alternatively you can get involved by sponsoring a bad song for me to listen to on the journey. Follow this link for details

Sunday, 29 March 2009

I Learned My Trade From B.A. Baracus

I have spent some time recently discovering the functions of my new PDA. I am, in fact, writing this blog from my bed. Such is the power of a tiny computer and WIFI. The question I hear you ask is, "what does this have to do with cycling to Paris? " Well, one of the many other features of this little box of magic is GPS and a full complement of Western European maps. This little baby's gonna get me to where I need to go.

The only real problem with it is that it wasn't designed for use on a bicycle. It comes with a car kit for sticking to a windscreen and can get power from a car's cigarette lighter (does anyone still use them for lighting cigarettes these days?) but it seems to be missing all reference to bicycle related matters. There's no 'stick it to the handle bars' bit and the engineers totally overlooked the problem of charging the device using pedal power. They just did not have me in mind when they knocked this thing together.

It was disappointing. All this raw power doomed to exist for its short battery life in my cycling shorts. That's when I heard George Peppard's voice in my head (that's Hannibal from the A-Team for all you kids out there). "Don't worry, have a plan!" he said to me. All those years ago, watching the A-Team build tanks whilst trapped in a garden shed, or my favourite, a tunnel boring machine whilst trapped in a coal mine, had prepared me for this moment. Admittedly, I didn't need to develop something that could fire off thousands of rounds of ammo without killing a soul, but I did need a way to fix this pda to my handle bars whilst still allowing me to remove it whenever I stop at a pub. After a quick trip to a DIY store I'd gotten what I needed. Using nothing more than a hose clip, a few nuts and bolts, a wing nut and half a rubber wrist band I'd adapted the car windscreen kit for the handlebars. Now all I need is something called a freeloader, a solar charged battery, to power the pda all the way to France.

Whoever said TV teaches kids nothing clearly never watched The A-Team.

at 10:15

1 comment:

  1. Shaun McDonald6 May 2009 at 08:43

    You'd be much better going for a Gamin etrex Vista/Legend HCx with OpenStreetMap maps, which do contain information about the cycling facilities unlike commercial mapping companies, who couldn't care less about cyclists. The Garmins use AA batteries, which are quite easy to get ahold of, and they last quite a while.

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