My key requirements for the solution were:

- Ideally it should be free
- Ability to upload photos to Flickr
- Ability to tweet about new blog posts
- Ability to record bespoke statistics like distance travelled, GPS co-ordinates, weather etc.
- Ability to easily maintain and develop offline ideally the solution should be PHP and/or .Net based

Ideally all of this data should be tied together to provide a rich view of our trip. So the search began, as is usual with me, not for the perfect software but for something to act as the “glue” between the requirements.

Windows Live Writer

Reading around online I quickly found that there was less software available than I had expected (testament to the constantly connected world in which we live). One article I found here listed a few options with some useful comments on pros and cons of each type of software. I quickly identified that Windows Live Writer (WLW) met a few of my key requirements:

- It was free and in fact I already had it installed
- It was extensible using programming skills I already had (.Net)
- Additionally it was still under development and had a recent release along with a community (all be it a small one) of people actively producing plug-ins

Having settled on the software my next stop was to start learning a bit about how WLW plug-ins are constructed. Finding this interview with Charles Teague the lead WLW developer was a great start as he demos a basic plug-in example and talks about the overall framework WLW provides for offline blogging. I found the Twitter Notify plug-in that was perfect for my requirement to add a tweet whenever I posted a new blog entry. I was now left with my requirements for Flickr uploading and bespoke statistics

Flickr Upload

Browsing through the available plug-ins for WLW I discovered Flickr Upload which seemed perfect for what I was after except that it required an active connection before the plug-in would initialise. As I ideally wanted to be able to build my whole post offline this wasn’t quite what I was after and I decided to write a new version.

My version scans the post code before submitting to locate any images, then for each image it displayed a dialogue (title, description etc), uploaded to Flickr and my intention was to replace the original post image tag with the new Flickr upload location. Unfortunately due to the fact that the PostInfo.Contents property was read only I was unable to update the post content with the new Flickr locations. Undaunted I considered my work not bad as a first stab at a WLW plug-in. I then came across the Flickr Uploadr tool and realised it suited my purpose far better than the plug-in I was working on. I could use the Uploadr to organise and tag my images while offline then upload them when I was connected and use the regular image insert function in WLW to add them my pre-written post.

Statistics Insert

Having cut my teeth on messing around with Flickr I moved onto my next challenge to pass statistics with my blog posts. To do this I created a new plug-in that used simple REST to retrieve options and submit values via a PublishNotificationHook when a blog entry is submitted. The statistics are entered into the post using a SmartContentSource that also allows for a contextual menu for any further updates.

To provide access to the contextual menu the statistics are shown in the blog within WLW but are not actually included in the published HTML. So if you want to update or amend any statistics then you just select the statistics and use the context menu.

When the post is submitted my plug-in is called and an XML message is sent to my PHP code containing the relevant statistics. The PHP code then stores the blog details and statistics into a database structure that is based upon the statistics schema for the  Going Slowly site that Tyler very kindly sent to me.

Summary

What I have ended up with is a nicely tailored solution to allow me to build all of my blog posts offline including the association of statistics with each post. When I find an internet connection I can then upload my photos to Flickr, add them to the blog post in WLW, submit the post enter my Twitter message and job is done. I have been working this way for the last few weeks tweaking things here and there before we hit the road and have so far found it works fine.

I haven’t included any code in this post as there are plenty of samples at the locations below, however if you would like a copy of the .Net and/or the PHP code then just let me know and I’m happy to email it out.

Useful Links

http://scottisafooldev.spaces.live.com/
http://www.devx.com/codemag/Article/38214/1763/page/1
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-ZA/wlwdev/threads
http://www.live-writer.net/2008/07/01/how-to-write-a-windows-live-plugin-charles-teague-interview/

The remainder of our weekend was taken up with some bike maintenance including:

• Changing our brakes over to our new Koolstop V Brakes
• Rotating a new chain onto my bike, my chain onto Emma’s bike and her chain into the spares kit
• Getting our commuting bikes into a fit state to hand over to Mark and Andi so they can enjoy a summer of London cycling fun
• Carrying out our first full gear pack!

Packing our Gear

Over the last few weeks we have been slowly selling our belongings, giving them to charity, agonising over if we should store them or add them to the pile of gear we plan to take with us. When we went winter camping a few weeks back we took most of our cooking and camping gear in two rear panniers without a problem but this still left a lot of gear that we hadn’t tested packing at all. The boxes holding our gear have been sitting ominously in our room waiting for us to go through them for our first test pack.

Sunday saw us lay out all our gear and then pack it into what suddenly seemed like eight very small panniers. After an hour or so of careful packing, rolling, re-packing, discovering our laptop dry-bag was a tad to small and general organisation we had all our gear packed. Pleased with our work so far and also needing to test our brakes and chains from the day before we decided to go for a quick test ride. Living up three flights of stairs means “quick” is not a word we normally associate with our bikes, so after another half hour of carrying panniers and bikes we were fully loaded for the first time.

The test ride around the block a few times proved our maintenance from the day before was worth it with our brakes performing really well with the additional load. Getting on my bike for the first time I thought “What am I doing? This thing is way too heavy, I’m never going to make it to the end of the street let alone Turkey!”, but once the bike was rolling my confidence returned and after no time I was leading the way on some additional circuits of the block. In summary the bikes felt good with the extra load.

To get an idea of all the gear we are taking check out our gear section which has a new roll-over navigation image I added today.

Gathering of Adventurers

Earlier in the week we had attended an evening organised by Alastair Humphreys for a bunch of people interested in cycle touring and general adventuring to get together. The evening was great giving us a chance to catch-up with a few cycling folk we hadn’t seen for a while, meet some new helpful contacts (thanks Lander!) and take comfort in the fact we aren’t the only people crazy enough to think strapping our belongings to our bikes and heading into the sunset.

Storage

When deciding to leave the UK one of the hardest things for us has been figuring out what we want to do when our trip is over. We both know that cycling will present us with new opportunities and fill our heads with unexpected ideas but quite how that translates into things like where we live, what we do for work, what we plan for after this trip is hard to figure out. At a more basic level this also means that we weren’t quite sure whether to store our belongings in the UK or ship them back to New Zealand. Luckily for us our good friends Laurie and Anita offered to store our couple of boxes in their garage. This gives us the freedom to decide at a later date where we want our belongings to end up. Just last weekend we piled all our worldly goods into the back of a car and deposited them into Laurie’s garage. I cant believe that after six years in the UK most of our stuff still fit in the back of a car. 

Justin and I wandered Camden on a late Saturday afternoon, looking for a venue for leaving drinks and decided we should have done this same walk as new arrivals. We’ve tried to get as much of London’s grit under our fingernails, spent as much time in pubs and in parks as we can before we go.

One evening on dusk, I found myself daydreaming on my bike and only realised I forgot my turn as I cycled past those steps leading up to St Pauls. I’ve since started cycling past it on purpose, because it won’t always be in line of sight.

Our room in the flat still feels like home, but every day it feels less “ours.” Now pictures have come off the walls and the things we value have been packed and stored. The big space above the landing outside our room which fitted our map of London perfectly is bare and that’s how it sinks in a little that we’re actually leaving for more than a holiday.

After having our heads down, planning this trip and learning about gear for most of the winter, we’ve been trying to catch up with those who will have babies, buy houses, get new jobs while we’re away. Like when we left New Zealand six years ago, we’re acutely aware that life continues.

It will be hard to say goodbye to London. There’s a list of things that we never did, or never did enough, that we definitely don’t have time for now: visiting the Transport Museum, watching a 3D movie at the Imax, wandering some of the other museums one more time; but with limited days left, time with friends is more valuable than any of that.

We’re not sure where we’ll end up when we stop cycling and we hope we’ll sort of figure that bit out along the way. Having spent six years in London, part of me likes leaving unfinished business here. Its a good excuse for coming back.

Overall we are making good progress though as shown by the picture of just a few of the various lists we have been working through. We have lists for things to do, lists of gear, lists of tasks for a specific day and sometimes when we feel particularly disorganised we have lists summarising the other lists. All this serves to reinforce that while there is a lot to do we have done a hell of a lot of organisation to date.

A brief sample of some of the things that have filled our days for the last week or so:

• Turning our room from a cycle repair shop and storage area into a lovely tidy homely loft so we could show it to new housemates. Luckily this is mostly sorted with 4 potential couples all keen to take it.
• Visiting the dental hygienist which was terrifying for Emma and interesting for me. I got a new dental tool called the TePe.
• Purchased a bunch of new gear including helmet, Paramo Quito jacket and gloves.
• Ordering all our bike spare parts as well as upgrading our brakes to Kool Stop salmon
• Donated Emma’s old Mac G3 via freecycle.org to earn some Karma.

We are continuing to find things in our room to recycle or throw out. Both of us are enjoying the feeling of de-cluttering our lives and I’m amazed at how much stuff we kept that on reflection isn’t important at all.

Since the last blog I have finished off our new route map so thought I would plug it here. The map shows our planned route, actual route (when we start travelling) and allows you to make suggestions for places we should visit. Check it out and let me know if you have any comments on how it works.

Being one of a handful of free weekends before we depart, we had decided we should go for a test camp, as long as it wasn’t going to be too cold, or snowing, or raining and with the forecast promising sunny intervals and maybe even a high of 10 degrees, we packed rear panniers with enough to keep us warm for the night. Cue Emma telling Justin: ‘Pack a woollen jumper, it’ll be cold, assume it will be really cold.’

We cycled a familiar route to Hammersmith before turning the GPS on only to find that it was unable to locate any satellite signals. Cue Justin cursing GPS and wondering if he’d have to use the backup maps which we hadn’t even looked at. We tried again at Putney Bridge, this time with success and placing our trust in its automatically calculated route we headed south.

The endless suburbs of South London soon merged into the sprawl of Redhill, and busy roads through Gatwick and Crawley before the countryside opened up. We hit the hills (as well as geese, and sunshine) for the final 25 km to Streat.

Blackberry Woods is a tiny site with only 20 pitches, but its pretty special, being both open all year and allowing campfires. We weren’t really prepared for our outdoor excursion, half expecting that we’d head down to a nearby pub as soon as it was cold and dark, but as we sat in the fading afternoon light in our own private glade starting dinner, we decided to stay put and make a campfire. The sun set with the afternoon’s bird calls morphing into owls and you could see other tiny glows of fire in the distance until the last of our wood burned down.

The night was cold – so much so that in sleeping bags with all of our clothes on we woke up in the early morning because our noses were still freezing. Justin rolled into the hood of his sleeping bag, Emma pulled down her hat. In the morning the tent was dripping in condensation but we realised that we had forgotten to open any vents when setting it up.

Birds were up early but we emerged just after 9, grabbing breakfast at a cyclists tea shop in Ditchling before retracing our steps to Balcombe where we caught a train back to London. All new pieces of kit seemed to do the job so on the camping front at least, we’re feeling pretty well prepared.

a. Cable ties….Wait Em says we have enough….Phew!
b. Zip-lock bags
c. AAA rechargeable batteries etc.

So as you can see we are getting down to the real detail of trip preparation now. Our last major purchase was last Thursday when we picked up a new Katadyn pocket water filter off ebay.

Day 1 – Friday

On Friday I finished the build of the Samsung N140 netbook we will be travelling with. The netbook is now running a full development environment for the websites I support. I’m also able to maintain things like the Windows Live Writer plug-in I have written (more on that in a later post). So we are now working solely off the netbook which I have to say is suprisingly easy to adapt to. My main gripe is the need to use a “Fn” (function) key to enable the “Home” and “End” keys as I use these continuously when programming.

In the evening there was a break from chores and a possibly final dinner at local Indian restaurant Vijays where they yet again amazed us with the wonderful south Indian food. Almost as good as the food from our trip to India in February 2009.

Day 2 – Saturday

Saturday saw us fitting front racks to our bikes. Emma’s front rack is a Tubus Tara which feels very solid and was a breeze to fit. It stays in line with her silver accessory theme and will be completed at a later date with a dashboard bouncy head ornament on the tyre hoop.

My rack is the Thorn MK5 Low Loader which feels incredibly sturdy and looks really slick with its matte black finish to tie in with the overall colour scheme of my bike. Note I seem to be only talking about colour schemes in relation to the racks at the moment but don’t worry I will post a more detailed account of how the racks perform once we have been using them for a few weeks on the road.

Day 3 – Sunday

Today we have fitted bike computers and double sided flat and clip-less pedals along with making a new ground sheet and cover for the bikes. In the afternoon we started making a few plans for how we want to spend time with Emma’s Dad and Judy when they visit France and Italy in June next year.

Day 4 – Monday

Tomorrow Em has taken the day off work and we are visiting the Hospital for Tropical Diseases. We are expecting to get Rabies and maybe Tick Borne Encephalitis injections, so hopefully there wont be to many other vaccines recommended otherwise we will be out of arms for needles to be stuck into.

March – April 2010: UK / North West Spain / Pyrenees

Depending on weather vs levels of excitement we may cycle from London down to Portsmouth for our ferry on the 24th. In Spain we’ve allowed five weeks to get across the length of the Pyrenees. As that’s ample time we’ll first head west to Picos de Europa and might amble west a bit further / head inland towards Madrid / stride out for Portugal.

May: France

We’ll stick to the South but won’t stick too closely to the coast. With some days up our sleeves we may head into Switzerland or get into Italy before the end of the month. Or we’ll find a good spot to go swimming for a couple of weeks.

June: Italy or Italy / Croatia

Either cycle the length of Italy then catch a ferry to Greece or do a loop in the north followed before heading over to Croatia. Hopefully a liaison with my parents sometime this month. 
 

July / August: Med

Option A: Croatia – Bosnia and Herzegovina – Serbia – Bulgaria – Istanbul

The many countries option – we’d get away from the sea and head into some of the countries we know little about.

Option B: Greece through to Istanbul

The coastal route – a quick hop by ferry at Bari or Brindisi in Southern Italy to Greece before continuing East along the landmass of Greece.

September / October: Turkey

We’ll hang out in Istanbul for a while, decide where to spend winter and finalise plans for the next leg. Should be able to fit in some exploring of Turkey by bicycle. We could high-tail it from here across Russia by train at this point but chances are we’ll stick around for the winter.

November – March / April: Wintering

We’re keen to spend a ski season working in Bulgaria (or any other big snow filled mountains in Europe). Know anyone who would have us? Get in touch!

Spring 2011: Onwards to Asia

Our options are either Central Asia towards Tibet and the west side of China or Eastern Europe / Russia / Mongolia / China, some of that by train. Cycling the length of Mongolia sounds pretty amazing so we’re leaning that way at the moment. After China (which we haven’t even thought about yet) we’ll head for Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam, hopping off the bikes by March 2012 at the latest.

Panniers

We gambled on sending our older scuffed up pannier set back to Ortlieb just after Christmas. They had been well used as commuter panniers over three years or so, but Em noticed a stitch unravelling around the trim of her bag which she thought might be covered by the manufacturing defect warranty. We wrote a nice letter and thought, at best, they might fix it for free, and at worse they’d charge us more than the £10 quoted by canvas specialists in Camden to stitch it up. An email this week from wiggle said that Ortlieb have deemed that our perfectly usable panniers are un-repairable, but that replacements would be sent free of charge. We asked by reply if we could pay to upgrade to the lighter Plus version and wiggle said that they’d do that for free!

Bank account

Joint bank account opened with only one lost cheque and two lost applications however as the bank was making up for mistakes with above, the process moved along much more swiftly than the rumoured 6 – 8 week wait that we were anticipating.

Computer

Samsumg N140 Netbook brought from Ebuyer despite silly online purchase shenanigans which saw Justin almost buying same computer for £30 more than his original order. Ebuyer eventually redeemed themselves, delivering package next day and refunding overcharge. Drive partitioned and Windows XP replaced Windows 7 started after only five attempts – not that Justin’s a perfectionist.

Cell-phone

We did a quick search on the net for a reliable cell-phone with good battery life and the Samsumg D500 was the 5 minute research winner. We looked at a photo of one and realise it looks a lot like Emma’s – on checking it’s a D600, but it will do the job nicely. We brought a second battery for £2.50 on ebay instead of a whole new cell.

Also…

Justin’s mum’s Christmas package arrived containing the mugs we had our eyes on in Kathmandu, sealed top drink bottles and nice bamboo tee-shirts. Thanks Mum.

Pro cyclists can cycle LEJOG in less than a week. Most cyclists seem to take around two. We had to ask our workplaces nicely to get three weeks off work but we thought this would allow us to amble up the country, leisurely spinning at a speed suited to a summer holiday. In practice, we found it was just enough time to get us to the top, turn into a headwind and return to Wick for our train back to London.

We had a great time, but with some extra days up our sleeves we would have been able to climb Ben Nevis on a cloudless Scottish summer’s day. We could see ferries to the Orkney Islands from our campsite at Thurso and we might have managed a few days tracking puffins on this remote part of the UK. We definitely would have made time to catch up with friends we missed in Bristol, Hay-on-Wye and Liverpool.

We won’t really know how fast we’ll be travelling until we’re on our bikes, but we’ll do our best to make sure we have enough time to take opportunities when they present themselves; whether its a chance to catch up with friends and family, to stay another night at a tranquil campsite or the chance to lie on the grass in the sun for an afternoon.

I can’t wait.

After many months of researching, reviewing and studying our gear options the last few weeks have seen a flurry of activity from me on the purchasing front and a flurry of snow outdoors.

Snow

So its been snowing a bit the last week. I say a bit but judging by the meltdown in the First Capital Connect service maybe I missed something as I couldn’t get to work two days last week due to “adverse weather conditions”. Funny it had snowed for one day and all other train services I checked were operating even if the service was a little disrupted. On a more positive note though the kids school next door had a massive snowball fight which was fun to watch.

Eyes

Since I was first prescribed with glasses for driving 10 years ago I have lived my life as a “glasses agnostic”. Since living in London for the last 6 years I haven’t really driven so convinced myself I could see fine. I have finally given in though and between Christmas and New Years I visited Optical Express for a laser eye surgery consultation. The consultation was very thorough and I’m really glad I finally got it done as it was interesting to find out what type of treatment I was suitable for. I freely admit I was lured in by the tagline of “prices from £349” however the end result for me was that due to the size of my pupils I’m only suitable for the most expensive Wavefront procedure.

Being in full cost saving mode for the trip ahead I decided the cost was above budget and  to get myself a new pair of glasses instead. So using the brilliant service from Glasses Direct I had a few frames delivered to home for free and tried them out for a few days on friends. Decision made my new glasses should arrive in the next week or so.

Emma has also been looking at prescription sunglasses anticipating weather warmer than the snow covered ground outside has in mind, and today found herself a nice set of frames so should be able to get lenses for these in the next few days.

Feet

On today’s shopping trip we visited a few outdoor stores where I tried on a bunch of different light hiking boots. I’m planning to take a pair of MTB cycling shoes which have a good tread and I’ve used for walking, a pair of Teva sandals and a pair of boots that will be my multi-purpose hiking and walking shoes. I decided upon the Salomon Mission GTX boots after trying on a few other pairs of Salomon and one pair of Keen Targhee  boots. Putting the Keen’s on I initially felt very comfortable in them with the wide front giving my toes a lot of room. The Salomon Fastpacker was very light (around 400gm per pair lighter than the Mission) but had quite a “sneakerish” feel to it and although a high boot the ankle support was less than the Mission. So the Mission it was although surprisingly I found a size 8 to be the most comfortable when I normally take an 8.5 or a 9.