More Testing

There’s a local river (creek really) that I’ve paddled up and down several times in the kayak I’m using for biyaking, and I’ve paddled down it in my whitewater kayak plenty of times, so I knew what to expect as far as hazards…  I wasn’t familiar with the bike trail next to it, but knew it went for a few miles, and I didn’t know how the whole kayak would handle rapids, although small, with the added weight of a bike.

I’ve been testing out Endomondo as a fitness app since it allows for running, biking, and kayaking, and seems to be pretty good with all of them.  The only real complaint I have is that it often looses GPS even when other apps don’t, so I don’t alway get a good record of my trip.  It seems to be a flaw in the program though since it depends on the workout – If it works for a workout, it never misses, but if it misses, it misses a lot!  It even varies with different workouts back to back, such as biking and kayaking.

I had an audience as I was unloading and setting everything up to start the road portion.  I was pretty excited, and they were pretty curious.  Fortunately, a few people were able to give me some pointers on the bike trail.  There were a few places that were muddy, and a few tricky turns.  In the end, they weren’t really that bad, but it was a good test for the rig.  My bike trip was one of those GPS loss workouts:

My max speed was about 14.5 mph, with a 9 mph average.  Not too bad for pulling a kayak.  The few people I passed seemed interested in what was going on, and I had another audience when I started mounting my bike on my kayak at the put in.

The trip down the river was everything I had hoped it would be!  The whole thing handled a bit slower in tight water turns and rapids, but again…  It’s extra weight.  I was able to catch a few eddies and take a few pictures.

Endomondo did a much better job of keeping a hold of GPS this time, but I don’t trust it’s assessment of my altitude changes.

Final assessment:  Everything works great!  I’m ready to plan my trip!  Now I just need help figuring out a safe 2 day route.  I think I have a lot of planning to do!  I don’t know how far I can go in a day, how much food / water I’ll need, where I’ll go, and what accessory gear I’ll need.  The next post may be a list!