Google Photos

If you got out riding the last two weekends you probably forgot it was the middle of winter. With temperatures in the 60s and 70s if felt more like spring time. Last weekend I went to Cranbury to do the Saturday ride with Tru. This Saturday I did a one way solo ride down the shore and met my wife there to do some work on the condo. Today's ride was sunny and warm enough that I didn't even need a jacket. When I got to the shore the clouds started to roll in. Then when I entered Seagirt the temperature dropped by 10 degrees and I was surrounded by a dense fog so I didn't get the scenic ride up the beach I was expecting. I'm glad I had my taillight and there wasn't a lot of traffic because it was hard to see more than a 200 feet ahead.

Whenever I ride I take a few pictures that I like to share. I usually just post them to the blog but sometimes I like to create an album especially for the trips I take. It makes it easier to share with friends and family. I have used Shutterfly and Photobucket to upload photos and create albums in the past but these services either don't have the features I want, have too many popup adds, or charge once you got over a certain limit of photos or views.

When I went to Alaska I knew I would be taking a lot of pictures that I would want to share so I looked for new photo sharing service. After looking over the choices I went with Google Photos. Google Photos my not be a very feature rich service but it does the simple things like storing photos and creating albums really well and being Google is also free with no advertising.

Google Photos are linked to your gmail account so if you have a gmail account you have access to Google Photos. There are apps for your phone or your computer that make uploading photos to Google Photos easy. Once you install these apps any photo you take on your phone is automatically uploaded. (If you are worried about using up all your mobile data you can set the app to only upload when on WiFi). On the computer once you set up the app it will automatically upload any photo put into the folders you choose. This make storing and accessing all you photos really easy.

What I do when I get home from a ride is to dump all my photos on to my Mac that I uses as a media server. The Mac is hooked up to my TV and I use it to stream content to my TV as well as store all my photos and music. A few minutes after I dump the photos they are available on Google Photos. I can now access these photos on my phone or any other computer with an internet connection.

When I write my blog no matter which computer I am using I can get to any photo I took and add it to the blog. From Google Photos I can search for photos,download a photo, edit it, or get a link to it to share with others. The search feature is kind of cool you put in an object you want to look for and it will actually look through you photos and find it. For example I entered the work "plane" and it returned any photo I had with a plane in it. The search is not 100% accurate but it pretty good.

Google Photos also allows you to create photo albums. You simple create a new album and just add photos to it. You can then get a link to share the album. For what I need Google Photos is perfect. There are two upload options High Quality or Original. Google offers unlimited space for High Quality which will compress photos over a certain size (16 M) and limit videos to 1080p. Original will not compress any photo or video but it limits your space to the space you have for you Google account. Unless you use a really good  DSLR you can go with the High Quality and probably won't see any difference since the photos from most point and shoot cameras are less then 16 M.

Because of the unlimited storage I have uploaded every digital picture I have taken since 1999. This means I have a safe backup for all my photos and I can now access them from any internet connected device. If you are looking for a good way to backup and save photos I highly recommend Google Photos,

Short Ride in the Snow

When it snows enough to make the road a hazard and the trails difficult there are really only two places you can ride Pennypack Park in Northern Philadelphia and Tyler State park in Newtown. Both these parks have paved trails that are plowed when it snows so even when it the roads and trails are not rideable I can still get out for a few miles.

I chose Tyler because it was closer and some of us had to be back early. I sent out an email and posted a note to the blog and got 3 takers Laura, Chris and JIM!!!

After many weeks off the bike because of a bad ankle and bronchitis he was finally ready to ride again. It was good to see him again.

Tyler has 5 or 6 main trails that you can put together to do a couple of loops. With the snow it is very scenic so we stopped a few times for pictures along the way. The first picture stop was at the covered bridge.

There is a small part by the bridge that is dirt and not paved with snow on it but it was easy enough to ride through.

The park is very hilly in fact coming backup from the covered bridge there is section with a 10% grade for about a quarter mile. This was in the first couple mile of the ride and I had to stop after the next small climb to recover a little. I had a similar problem the last time we did this loop. According to my heart I didn't go anaerobic so I think it was just a combination of not being warmed up before the steep climb in cold weather. On the second loop we did a similar climb and I felt fine.

The 2 loops took us just about 2 hours and ended up being a little over 12 miles. This is because we climbed around 1100 ft and had stopped to take pictures since this ride was more about scenery then getting in the miles.

At the end of our second loop we stopped at the boat house to use the facilities and took a few last pictures before heading home.

It was a good change of pace to get out in the snow and get a few miles in but I am looking forward to warmer weather and longer rides.

Exploring Both Sides of the Delaware

It was another below freezing weekend where it was too cold to get out on the road but just warm enough to hit a trail on the mountain bike. So far this year we have explored parts of the northern D&R canal we hadn't been on before. This week Laura decided to do both sides of the canal trail between Washington Crossing and Stockton.

Laura again had a very large turnout of 10 people probably because there weren't any other rides today and people are anxious to get out any way they can. Before the start of the ride one of the riders realized there was a large bolt missing from the rear suspension. There was some talk of trying to zip tie it to fix it but nobody had zip ties and this was one thing duck tape won't fix so he went is search of a bike shop.

We started up the NJ side which we have done many times before. There was a stiff north east wind in our face most of the way up. Although there were a few hardy people and dogs walking the trail for the most part we had it to ourselves. The most interesting part of the trail is the piece that goes through Lambertville as there are some small interesting houses right next to the canal and some art spread around (this time the theme seem to be metal fishes hanging from various spots)

At Stockton we stopped for quick bathroom brake before crossing over the bridge to the Pennsylvania  side.

From the bridge you actually have to go down a set of stairs to get to the trail on the Pennsylvania side. The trail on this side is not as wide but that didn't keep a pick up truck from driving down it. Peter and I had to step aside to let it through. It barely fit under the bridges of which there are many on this side and as it was a public works truck I guess he was just checking out the trail.

The trail is mainly red dirt and gravel. As we headed down the trail there were a number of bridges which we could either go under ducking our heads or go over and around. When we hit New Hope Laura when over a bridge only to realize there was no way to get back on the trail so we stopped to wait for her.

In the middle of New Hope we had to go down a set of stairs and cross Main street to stay on the trail

Another 5 miles or so as the trail bent away from the Delaware we made it back to Washington Crossing and crossed the bridge back to our starting point. It was still just below freezing but the foot warmers I tried out for the first time today really worked well so I was never really cold during the ride.

The Pennsylvania side of the trail was interesting so if the weather remains cold as that stupid rodent Punxsutawney Phil predicted then we may do more of this trail.