schwiiz.org

In a few hours a small group of us will depart on our “Tour de Schwiiz” bike tour through Switzerland.  My bags are packed and the weather forecast looks good.  I’m ready!

This is the fifth “Tour de Schwiiz”, which has evolved into an annual tradition with my friends.  This year we’re cycling down the Rhein Valley to Chur before turning west and into the Alps.  We’ll go over the Oberalppass and Furkapass and continue along the Rhone River in Wallis.  Our final destination is around Lausanne or Geneva, some 500km later.  Here’s a Google Map of the approximate route.

I’ll be posting updates from the road at mapmytour.com.  Stop by if you’d like to monitor our progress.  Wish us luck!

The excitement of what lies ahead comes in waves.  On June 3rd, in just under a week, we’ll be departing on “Bike Tour 2008″; a 3-4 week tour through northern France.  There’s a nice symmetry to this destination:  In 2006 I biked north to Stockholm and in 2007 I biked east to Vienna.  This year it’s west!

The tour will begin in Basel and go west through the Loire Valley and to the Atlantic Coast.  We’ll then turn north and continue along the North Sea coast to Brussels before turning south back towards Switzerland.  Here’s a rough sketch of the route.  I have no illusion about completing the full 3′000km circuit, so we’ll only go as far as motivation and time permits.  I’m particularly excited about the Loire Valley, which is full of gorgeous castles and wine estates.  However, my touring partner is more excited about the cheeses.

I’ll be updating our progress on mapmytour.com, so bookmark the link if you’d like to keep up with us.  Wish us luck!

On previous bike tours I’ve wanted to keep friends and family informed on my progress by updating a Google Map. It’s an easy thing to do, but updates only happen as often as I have internet access. The silly thing is, my mobile phone has a web browser, but I don’t know of any website for updating a map that is compatible with a mobile phone. That is, until now.

Map My Tour is the name of a new website that I’ve created. Updating a map is as simple as visiting the add waypoint page with your phone (see picture), copying the coordinates from your GPS, and submitting. The map is immediately updated. Have a look at a sample map from a bike ride last week, and feel free to create an account.

This will be a fun way to keep people updated on the progress of my tours. It now looks certain that I’ll get the extra leave from work so that I can go cycling through France this June. It’s time to start relearning French!