June 24, 2021
Day 50: Gackle, ND to Napoleon, ND
No Waterloo For Us
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Climbing Today; 815 ft Climbing to Date; 73,819 ft
The Honey Hub was okay. The door doesn't seal well so there are a lot of bugs. The place is an apartment on a house, and it consists of 1 room with a couple of beds and a bathroom. It would work well for 2 cyclists; we ended up with 4 of us inside, with 2 on the beds and 2 sleeping on the floor. There is a separate "shed" room where you can store your bike inside if you want, and so we did. There is no other inside lodging option in Gackle, and so we were very glad that the Honey Hub exists. There is a laundry in the room, and we did laundry. There is wifi and we did a bit on this journal. So it's a good place for a couple of cyclists. When there are too many, tent space is available in the yard outside.
Doc and I got up a bit after 05:00, which is late for us. We had breakfast outside on the picnic table and got our bikes ready to roll. The wind was calm this morning, far different than yesterday.
We purposefully scheduled a short day today, knowing that yesterday could potentially be tough - we were right about that. So today we only have 38 miles to Napoleon, and with the calm winds it was easy rolling. Deer are out and about in the early morning, and I caught a couple on the GoPro as they crossed the road in front of me.
The Journal Workflow. I thought perhaps you would be interested in knowing how this journal gets published each day. If you are considering doing a journal, and especially if you want to incorporate video, this may be helpful. If not, then you can save some time and just skip ahead.
The GoPro. You have to have a video camera of some sort. I use a GoPro mounted on my helmet, but I suppose you could use anything, including your cell phone. The GoPro is an incredible technological wonder. It has IBIS (In-Body Image Stabilization) that helps to keep a steady video by moving the image sensor to compensate for vibrations as I ride along. It has GPS, but I keep it disabled to save battery. It has voice activation - I can turn it on and start recording by voice commands, and I do. However, it often takes several tries due to the wind and road noise, so sometimes it's easier for me to just reach up and push the shutter button. It's ruggedized, and that's a good thing cause I have dropped it a couple of times. There are several mounts available for it, including a handlebar mount - I find it easiest to use a helmet mount so I can aim it by just turning my head. It's completely waterproof, and I have recorded with it during heavy rain.
The Video Production Workflow. There's a bit of work involved in getting the video out of the GoPro and into this journal. There are many ways to do this; here's how I do it. 1.) Using the GoPro USB cable, I connect the GoPro to a computer and copy over the .MP4 files to the computer's internal drive. This is done because it would be very slow to try and do the processing through the USB connection. GoPro produces a lot of other files for it's own software - I ignore these and just grab the .MP4 files. 2.) I use Filmora software to do the video compilation. We bought it and learned how to use it on this journey - there may be better software available, but this seems to be a pretty common software that is widely used and it works for me. Once the .MP4 files have been copied onto the computer (this can take several minutes), they can be imported to the Filmora software for a new project. When all the video snippets are in Filmora, I insert a title, and then place each video snippet on the timeline - in between each video clip I insert the same title for a "transition" piece - when the last video clip is in place I insert the title once more and change the text a bit to indicate that the video is over. Getting the video set up can take 15 minutes or so depending on how many clips were shot that day. Once it's all set up, then the next step is to "export" the project - this is the computer-processing-intensive portion of the workflow where the video is actually made by combining all the titles and video clips into 1 video file. On the small tablet that Doc has, it takes 3 times as long to do the combining as the finshed video is long - in other words, for a 12-minute video, it takes about 36 minutes of computer time to produce it once you have it all set up.
The Video Publishing Workflow. Once the video is produced, it has to be uploaded somewhere so that it can be included in the journal. CycleBlaze does not host the actual video - but if it exists on Youtube or Vimeo, then Cycleblaze can link to it and have it show up embedded in the journal. So once the video is made, I upload it to my Youtube channel. Prior to this trip, I didn't have a Youtube channel. It isn't hard to get set up with a Youtube channel - you need a "verified" channel to be able to load large videos (such as the ones you see here daily), and this happens via a cell phone text message. So then, when the video is done, I upload it to my Youtube channel. The videos we have been making are around 1 gigabyte in size, so it can take 5 - 15 minutes or more to upload depending on the wifi strength. Once it is uploaded, Youtube runs it's own checking and processing algorithms on the video before you can publish it - this can take 15 minutes or so. Unfortunately, youtube's processing does degrade the quality of the video you uploaded, but it's still respectable. Once it's all done, you can get a shareable link from Youtube that can be embedded in this journal so that the video can now be played from here.
The Photos. Most of my photos are taken with a DSLR camera that I keep in my large Arkel handlebar bag. I have the camera with a normal zoom lens, and a separate telephoto zoom lens. I also have a small tripod that I can attach to my bicycle seat and mount the camera on it for "selfies" at state boundary signs and such. At the end of the day, I use a cable from the DSLR to my computer to import the day's photos. Then I do some quick sorting/deleting/cropping and decide which photos to use in that day's journal. Then I import the photos to Cycleblaze - each photo I import is about 5 megabytes in size, and Cycleblaze does it's own processing and reduces that to what you see in the journal. Then I add the captions to each photo. Occasionally I take a cell phone picture; I email those to myself to make it easy to get them into the computer. I could use the cell phone and import those pictures to Cycleblaze, but I prefer working with the keypad and larger screen of a notebook computer.
The Maps and Profiles. I like the Ride With GPS maps and profiles. To get them into the journal, first I have to create them. For me, that involves manually creating the map by entering points after I have ridden the route. It takes about 15 minutes to make the map, and the profile is generated automatically. After the map is created on RWGPS, it can be shared by getting the embed code - this is a paragraph long HTML code that I copy and then paste into Cycleblaze such that the map shows up in an interactive window as an "embedded" map. Doc uses a Garmin gps to record his rides, and then imports that data to Strava to generate maps. Early on we tried to share his Strava maps, but they were never interactive and just weren't as good as what I could get using RWGPS. I'm sure that someone more technologically fluent than me could do it, but I figured out an approach that works for me.
The Narrative. Honestly, I often find myself with little time left to work on the narrative. Creating a RWGPS map and embedding it into the journal, loading up the photos and doing some brief editing and culling and captioning them, and producing and publishing and linking to the video takes a lot of time and effort. By the time that is all done I often have to rush and don't have the time to really tell the story of the day. Now you know why.
Okay, now back to today's story. The calm morning allowed for reflections from the many lakes along the way.
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Although we only had 38 miles to ride, this was a "no-services" ride, so there was no place to stop before we reached Napoleon. I'm beginning to feel like a High Plains Drifter once again. The last time I felt this way was in 2015 when I rode across Montana on the Transam route. It's awe-inspiring to realize how small and insignificant you are out in these vast plains.
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3 years ago
No one lives there, it was empty. Maybe you could buy it?
Buddy
3 years ago
3 years ago
Prior to reaching Napoleon, we came upon a rather unusual collection of old farm machinery. It did indeed look like dinosaurs on the plains.
We were hungry when we entered Napoleon, and lunch was the first order of business. Then we checked into the Mozy Inn, which is actually a very nice room for a cheap price. Now it's time to eat dinner - local bar is the best option.
We have decided to stick with the "new" ACA route even though we have some concerns about the construction zone in Montana. We will quiz any eastbound cyclists we meet to see what their experience was, and we have looked at a Google bike route around the work if we decide at the last that we need to avoid the construction zone. So we have a plan. We are slowly marching through the plains of North Dakota, then we continue the march through the Montana plains. The plains concern us more than the mountains ahead. If yesterday is as hard as it gets, we will make it. If it gets harder than that - well, we need to prevent it from getting harder than that.
I hope your own plans are working to keep things under control. Video snippets follow (and now you know how they were made). Good night all...
Today's ride: 40 miles (64 km)
Total: 2,596 miles (4,178 km)
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Do you follow a ridewithgps route during the day? If so, that can be linked here, no need to recreate a map. That is one of my favorite features here on Cycle Blaze.
3 years ago
I just follow the ACA cue sheet and their maps during the day. I don't really know how to follow a RWGPS map - are there route maps for the ACA rotes already created? I'm not a pro with RWGPS, just started using it to make maps for this journal. Thanks,
Buddy Hall
3 years ago
3 years ago
It sounds like RWGPS gives you a routing like Google maps - is that what you are doing? What if you know the route you want to follow (like say an ACA map) - wouldn’t you have to manually input it? If there’s a better way I’d like to find it.
Buddy Hall
3 years ago
I've also tried searching for 'Northern Tier - town name' and used several of the towns you've just been through and maps have come up.
The part I like about ridewithgps is that they give me verbal cues and also that I can see where I am on the map - my dot moves as I move. In the mountains you can also watch the elevation profile and see where you are on the climb. For me, that is handy to help conserve my energy.
I think switching mapping methods mid tour would be stressful . . . I thought you were already following ridewithgps and I just wanted to point out that it is very easy to link your ridden route to be published in your journal. It's one of the best cycle blaze features, IMO.
3 years ago