GND42 published his brand new website about the “Anatolia Express 2009″ also known as “Race Across ANatolia”. Grab it while its hot!

Sorry, but I need to do an extra post about the “geo twittering” I told you about yesterday. Why? Because it’s actually pretty cool.
At our first tours, we created the corresponding google maps after the tour. At our last tours, we used GPS trackers (Christain & Jan) and postet them as we have had an internet connection. But now in Anatolia, we dont expect to have internet so regulary. So we tried twitter:

Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?

But the most cool feature ist that you can update your status via mobile. Just send an SMS to a twitter number, and they update your status. You can also change your location, but you dont have a location history. To solve this problem, we use the status update as location history. So we try to send our GPS coordinates at least once a day (maybe more often) and a status upate (short roundup of the day) via mobile (have a look at my twitter page to see what I mean).

<technical stuff>
Now I’m grabbing the latest status updates via the twitter api, parse the result via regexp for the coordinates and the status message and create a javascript file where I write all the selected data into.
Christian includes this file into his OpenStreetMap map. And shows the data as points on the map.
</technical stuff>

Now you can go to this map and track were we have been today and the days before.
Including time/date and the roundup of the day. You can also switch between different layers (yahoo, bing or google maps) and select the view you like most.

geo twittering, it’s eays as this.

• Geo twittering – map where we are

• flights booked
• trainings performed
• bike pimped
• geo twittering set up
• get vaccinations

Anything forgotten? Don’t hope so. T’bilisi here we come!

For more infos visit http://gnd42.blogspot.com/.

Hello from Istanbul,

we (Christian, Jan, Robert, Georg and I) arrived today in Istanbul. After 25 days and round about 2600 kilometers we finished our big tour without big problems. Now I have 3 days to enjoy Istanbul and prepare my bike for the flight back to germany.

See you all there again. Bye.

Today, I switched on the “out of office” reply for my emails, because I’m taking some weeks off.

I’m going to travel by bike from Salzburg to Istanbul. This isn’t a “vacation” for you? But for me it is. Relieve stress, see some new places and meet nice people is all I expect from my vacations. And I can hardly wait to get on the first stage.

So you want to know where we, yes I’m not cycling alone, are right now? You can find the current status regularly updated on our website: Orient-Express en vélo. A Google map is also available.

Like my last years 3 days – 3 passes – 3 countries tour, I made a similar one last weekend. I started in Buchs SG and went via Klosters, Davos and Flüelapass (2383m asl) to Susch. I camped there and had have to hear a lot of story’s about the brown bear in the Flüela area.

After a breakfest in the Hotel Rezia Posta, which is owned by a Saxon, I went on to Livigno, ITA. Livigno enjoys a particular tax status as duty-free area. This explains the mass tourism there. Never mind! I went on via the Forcola di Livigno (2315m asl), Berninapass (2330m asl) and Albulapass (2315m asl) to Tiefencastel. Where I took the train home.

Altogether a great, but too short, weekend.

I started into my cycling season like every year in the end of march. But this time I’m much better in shape than the last years, so two of my trips made it into the top 10 of my longest trips. I want to give you the list of the longest day trips i made by bike, including the google earth files for the last two:

And I’m positive that more will follow this year. Maybe in late summer ;)

Jan Ulrich won the Tour de Suisse. I visited the arrival on the 2nd stage from Bremgarten to Einsiedeln and shoot some nice pictures (e.g. Jan Ullrich, world champion Tom Boonen and the stage winner Daniele Contrini). But unfortunality I have some problems with my gallery and will publish them later.

Good luck for the Tour de France Jan, i’ll be there to support you again.

I was on the road again with my bycicle. I started in Buchs (SUI) on Thursday and wanted to reach Bormio (ITA) on Saturday to visit the Giro d’Italia. But the Passo dello Stelvio was still closed and will open again on 1st June. So I didnt reached the Giro. But the tour was absolutely great. My stages looked like this:

Thursday – Arlberg Pass:

• Buchs (SUI)
• Feldkirch (AUT)
• Bludenz
• Arlberg Pass (1793m asl)
• St. Anton
• Landeck

Friday – Resia Pass:

• Landeck
• Prutz
• Pfunds
• Zollamt Martina
• Norbertshöhe
• Resia Pass (1504m asl)
• Resia (ITA)
• Burgosio
• Laudes
• Glorenza
• Prato allo Stelvio

Saturday – Fuorn Pass:

• Prato allo Stelvio
• Glorenza
• Müstair (SUI)
• Fuorn Pass (2150m asl)
• Zernez
• by train to Klosters
• Klosters
• Maienfeld
• St. Luzisteig
• Balzers (FL)
• Buchs (SUI)

I’ve meet a Dutch on the Arlberg Pass and one day later again on the Resia Pass. He was on the way from Amsterdam to Rome. If the netherlands play football as they cycle, they will beat germany in the quarter final of the FIFA world cup 2006. But i dont hope so.
Photos of this tour can be found in my brand new gallery.

Der dieses Jahr offiziell eröffnete Radweg entlang der weißen Elster führt durch die Tschechei, Sachsen, Thüringen und Sachsen-Anhalt, wo er nach 257km in die Saale mündet. Auf weiten Teilen ist dieser Radweg jedoch nicht fertig gestellt. Auf seinen letzten Kilometern (bei Döllnitz) wurde jetzt auf dem rechten Damm (flussabwärts) ein circa 2m breiter Asphaltstreifen gezogen, wie ich letztens sehen konnte. Somit wird mich nächstes Jahr eine meiner ersten Radtouren von der Mündung der weißen Elster in Richtung Leipzig führen. Werde dann natürlich berichten wie weit der Ausbau vorangeschritten ist und eine ausführliche Beschreibung des Streckenabschnittes beifügen.

• Private Homepage von Wolfgang Trommer
• http://www.elsterradweg.de/