The smaller wheels on my Bike Friday presented a new problem. My computer wasn't receiving the signals because the magnet fastened to the spokes wasn't close enough to the receiver. Using a computer with a cable wasn't feasible because the cable or wiring would be in the way when folding the bike. Since I really like to check speed and distance while cycling, I wasn't ready to do without.

Janos already had a GPS and I had a few prejudices against one for myself. Too big, too heavy, have to change batteries all the time, too many extras that I'd never use, too expensive ... To make a long story short, I got one after all. It felt very extravagant, each of us having his own GPS, but I have never regretted it. In the beginning I felt it was a pretty expensive toy, but after a while I decided it was a very useful toy, so useful and sensible that you could hardly call it a toy any more except that it was still fun. Janos also convinced me the cheapest would not be satisfactory. So on his recommendation I bought the Garmin etrex Vista HCx. (Don't I have a nice husband?)

Of coure, the GPS shows distance, speed and other interesting statistics, but its primary function is navigation. Until then I had been happy using maps, but now I experimented with creating routes, or tracks, using www.bikemap.net or www.gpsies.com (there are several other sites for planning routes but I liked these two best), downloading them as gpx files to the GPS, and after the ride, uploading the actual route we rode with elevation profile to our Asus eee. Since there is a lot of information available online on bike routes in Germany, I was able to plan a route to Berlin that was near to perfect. What we were looking for was 1) the shortest route with 2) the least traffic and 3) a minimum of hills. As on past trips in Germany, I used www.radweit.de and again was very impressed with how good the proposed route to Berlin was. The route didn't just make a good compromise between the factors distance, traffic and hills, it was also beautiful.

Some might protest that it takes all the fun out of riding if you have everything planned in advance. In some cases this might be true. However, since we knew we were headed for Berlin and that roads with little traffic make a big difference, we wanted to be able to find them. Even good maps wouldn't have been as reliable as the tracks I was able to create using the information I had from radweit.de and google-based maps online.

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