Biking With iPhone 6 Plus In The Rain

Well folks I have yet one more update on biking with your iPhone 6 Plus in the rain.  This time around my setup survived a fairly heavy rain part of the rainiest May in the history of Austin.  I knew as I started the bike ride – in a very muddy and muggy weather — that I will most likely be caught in a rain at some point during the ride.

Nevertheless, I was determined to test the capability of my case.   In summary, I must report, the TigraSport did well — the phone survived just fine both the rain and the sputtering of mud from the trail and the tires of my mountain bike.

Here are photos from the aftermath – as I pulled into my driveway after the bike ride

Biking with iPhone 6 Plus

iPhone 6 Plus

 

 

 

 

 

iPhone 6 Plus Case

 

 

 

 

 

 

Right now the weather outside is fine – rain coming later this afternoon – so time for my next ride….

 

Here are links to earlier postings on this topic

Torrential Rains in Austin – Biking on Flooded Trails

Torrential rains in Austin – what do you do?

Well folks, Austin and Texas in general are in the South West…and usually that means dry and hot and certainly very rare instances of heavy rain down pour.  This May things have been different.  According to plenty of sources this has been also the wettest May on history – Austin received over 20-inches of rain.  What do you do in this weather in Austin? Go see a movie?  Visit a museum?  How about go for a bike ride …?   We just waited for the rain to pause and decided to hit the trails.

So, what does this do to trail and mountain biking experiences?  The reality is – very little.  Why ?  Because mountain bike trails are by definition are very rustic and easily covered with mud and otherwise messy conditions.

Given that, we decided to be adventurous and experience the trails along Barton Creek in the heavily rain saturated ground.  Included below are multiple photos – hopefully they will give you an idea how different the trails look after the heavy down pours.

Austin-Barton-Creek

 

Flooded-Austin-Barton-Creek-TrailCrawfish-on-trailBike-on-flooded-trail Austin-Flooded-Trail  Need to remind you that the rain came back with a mighty force only a couple of hours after we initially got on the trail

Biking in Berlin

Biking in Berlin – a nice experience

Last week I had the great experience of being in Berlin, Germany and taking advantage of the great biking and walking resources that great city offers.  Last time I spent any significant amount of time in Berlin was in 1989 and the Wall was still in place and so was the division between East and West Germany – you remember that…?

At any rate, I decided to provide a brief view of a good bike ride in the city – you will be really surprised at the interesting combination of trails in the Tiergarten and the bike lanes along Berlin’s tree lined streets.   I took the path from the Kempinski Bristol Hotel off Kurfurstendamm to the Brandenburg Gate – and it was a great experience.   Shown below is the map of that path – I put it in a image for ease of visibility

Map-Berlin-Kempinski-to-Brandenburg-Gate

The blue line shows the path I took – Google Maps showed a different bike route but this one went though the gardens and was a very pleasant one

 

Included below are also some photos of the great bike paths along the roads in the Tiergarten.

Bike-Path-Tiergarten

Bike-path-in-Tergarten

Berlin-Bike-Paths

 

 

 

 

The Tiergarten is an amazing park in the middle of the city – having built a tunnel for the transport under the park you can actually enjoy the huge grounds, many lakes and plentiful  flowering trees and bushes as well as occasional sculpture.   All in all, this park is a great asset for the city.

Overall, bike riding in Berlin is really very nice – the city is very flat so no significant effort is needed to make it thorough the town’s streets and get to various points of interest.  The city has many bike lanes and goes to the extreme of dedicated bike streets where the bicycles have priority and the cars are limited to 30 km/h speed.

 

 

Mountain Biking in Texas in May – Mud…mud…

Mountain biking post heavy rains

Rain is really needed and important for Texas!  The lakes are low, water is in limited supply….(I think in better shape than California, though…)

But, the rains have been heavy and causing really sticky mud on the trails in Texas.  If you are out to get exercise – there is nothing like biking on a muddy trail in the Hill Country.  Why?  Because the mud is REALLY sticky – and it causes you to exert quite a bit of both strength pedaling and skill navigating and staying on your bike in the slippery slopes.

Here are some photos from my Saturday ride – it was right after a Friday (and Thursday, and Wednesday…) heavy rains.  What was I thinking 🙂  Well, let me chalk it on the need to exercise….

Hill-Country-Bike-Trails

Hill-Country-Biking-TrailsBiking-TexasHill-country-biking-mud  Well you have seen it now.  The mud is pretty heavy even-though the trails look pretty compact and stony – in reality they are but there is also quite a bit of sticky dirt on the trail – and it gets everywhere including the derailleurs…making shifting gears more difficult.    And of course you need to be ready to spend time cleaning your bike post ride…

But as I said – it is all about the exercise…!

Hong Kong Mountain Biking – The Peak to Shek O

The Peak Hong KongThe Peak Hong KongHong Kong mountain biking – something to consider as a leisure time activity even in this overcrowded and bustling city.

The Peak to Shek O ride is a long one – approximately 25km route and is a combination of road biking and mountain biking – primarily along the Dragon’s Back trail, a trail along a ridge in Southeastern Hong Kong island between Wam Cham Shan and Shek O Peak;

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The map above will hopefully provide you with a visual indication of what is the actual path we have selected for this bike ride. It is not very challenging so relax – you will like the feel of the open road and wind while biking;

The Peak Hong KongAs I stated this ride will be a mid of mostly road biking and about 4-5km of real mountain bike ride. That ride starts at The Peak and pretty soon gets you to the challenges of Wanchai and Repulse Bay and then you will go along Stanley Road (Stanley itself is a relatively well known for its bits of history as well as Saturday markets), then you will get along Tai Tam Rd and pretty close to the Tai Tam gap you will have the opportunity after biking for about 100-meters along Shek O Road to get on the actual mountain bike trail.  If you do not find it – it may be challenging to spot – you can just stay on Shek O road.

This will get you to the Shek O village itself where you will have to decide if you are done or would like to proceed to Cape D’Aguilar Marine reserve at the very extreme Southern end of the Shek O / D’Aguilar peninsula.