Monthly Archives: May 2013

“Tracking for Freedom”: First trip

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Today I went for my first “Tracking for Freedom” trip. Having not used my bike for almost half a year, it was pretty exhausting. I probably should have chosen a shorter distance. The first 20 kilometres were very nice and I didn’t have any problems. After changing from the left to the right riverside of the Danube in Greifenstein, I decided to return to Vienna via the Wienerwald instead of following the right river bank. The climb to Maria Gugging turned out to be quite exhausting and it also lowered my average speed. The following descent however was very nice. Nonetheless, my legs were tired and so the last kilometres from Klosterneuburg back to Vienna were rather painful.

Some figures:

Total distance 58.1 km
Average speed 24.0 km/h
Maximum speed 43.98 km/h
Total climb 312 m
Average heart rate 155 bpm
Maximum heart rate 184 bpm
Time active 02:23:15
Time resting 00:12:09
Energy consumed 2202 kcal

Note: The climb was measured using a non-calibrated barometric altimeter; the amount of energy consumed was calculated from the measured heart rate and physiological parameters.

The GPX file recorded with my eTrex can be found here.

The project: “Tracking for freedom”

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With summer coming up and my body weight being far higher that I want it to be, I’d like to start a project that should achieve two things: Reduce my weight and further Free Software. Since I like to go cycling every now and then (especially when the weather is fine), I’d like to combine this sport with fundraising.

I usually track my journeys with my GPS-enabled heart rate monitor (Garmin Forerunner 405) and a second GPS receiver (a Garmin eTrex Vista HCx I originally bought for Geocaching). Furthermore, my bike is equipped with a bike computer that measures the distance without GPS, which is useful in case I lose GPS signal. The measured distances of the GPS devices and the bike computer usually differ very litte, but when moving in narrow streets, the GPS sometimes gets a bit confused.

The idea now is to find sponsors who agree to donate a defined amount of money for every kilometre to FSFE at the end of the bicycle season. If a per-kilometre donation is not an option, everyone is of course welcome to donate whatever he or she thinks fits my performance when the season is over. My estimated yearly performance will probably be somewhere between 300 and 1000 kilometres, since I don’t have too much spare time and I’m not very athletic. Despite that, according to my doctor, my lung is currently reduced to 71 percent of its nominal performance (I’m on low medication because of that, so it will hopefully get better in the next months).

To keep you updated on my performance, I’ll post the GPX files of my trips here on my blog. If I manage to import the data from my heart rate monitor to pyTrainer, I might even be able to post some statistics :-)

I hope to go for my first trip tomorrow or during the upcoming weeks. If you’re interested in becoming a sponsor, please contact me. Of course you are more than welcome to spread my idea to others who you consider possible sponsors!