MBlog

Climbing with the Man

It takes a special kind of person to come up with a contest like the Hell Ride. A sinister spirit, love for climbing, and lactic acid pusher. Only Mark Weir would enjoy leading a days charge up countless mountaintops in the thin air of the Sierra’s.

For the second year, Weir and Santa Cruz Bicycles accepted applicants for Hell Ride 2. If you were lucky enough, "to get the wood", as Weir calls it, you’ll spend a day chasing him up 10,000 plus feet, over 65 miles. All on a new Santa Cruz, that’s yours if you survive the torcher test to Weir’s liking. Read the complete story with blow-by-blow details at Santa Cruz News.

It all went down in Downieville, CA, 60 miles northwest of Lake Tahoe. After an 8:30 start, they hammered out:

Miles                    68.41(mi)
Elevation Gain      14,497 (ft)
Total Time           10:55 (h:m)

 

We’re big Weir fans, and for good reason. Ever since Norcal got on MB, he quickly became a fixture at the top of the TrailNetwork > cycling > elevation gain report. (The TrailNetwork doesn’t reflect his complete Digest, since he often flies under the radar.) In a the Weir Dominates Downieville post, I mentioned his quest to climb 1-million vertical feet in a year. With two months and 100,000 feet to go, he’s on target to lay claim to the most vertical feet ascended on a bike in a year. More details to come…

International Support

It's official, you can now MB all around the world. We've quietly been releasing countries, working towards one last release. That last piece was just added and you can now use MotionBased anywhere on planet EARTH. Well maybe not every single inch/cm of the planet, but anywhere 99% of us will be. We've done our best to provide the same MB experience everywhere. Although, some countries have stronger support than others. Visit our International Support chart to see the what maps and services are available in a particular country or region. 

A few of our favorite activities from around the globe:

Taiwan - Road Ride
Israel, West Bank - Long run
China - Marathon (great photo background)
France, Mt. Ventoux - Road Climb
Chile - Mountaineering (awesome Google Earth)

Now you can tell your long distance friends about MB. Spread the word...email an activity and tell them MB's got 'em covered. So the next time you're packing for an international race, adventure, or business trip, don't forget your GPS device. Now let's get out there and track this beautiful world.

 

GPS Reception

We haven't posted much general GPS stuff on the MBlog, but I thought this was particularly interesting. I came across a post on gps tracklog titled, Does heavy cloud cover affect GPS reception. The post references Dave Patton's answers to some frequently asked questions about GPS reception.

The GPS signals will not be affected by clouds, rain, fog, snow, etc., because of the combination of their passing through water vapour, and the signal wavelength meaning they "pass through" rain etc.

On the other hand, water will block/attenuate GPS signals. For example, you can't receive GPS signals underwater, although having a GPS receiver antenna very close to the water surface may allow some reception.

Most cloth that would be covering a GPS receiver's antenna will pass GPS signals(e.g. backpack, jacket, etc.), but cloth with a metallic component will block/attenuate the signals.

Cloth that covers a GPS receiver's antenna and gets wet (e.g. from rain) can also block/attenuate the GPS signals. In fact, you don't even need the cloth - water on the case that covers the GPS receiver antenna can block/attenuate the GPS signals. That water could be drops, and/or a film of water. I've seen that happen myself, when using my etrex Venture in the rain - the signals were weak/blocked, but a quick drying-off of the GPS case over the antenna brought the reception back, which then degraded again as water accumulated on the case. Similarly, GPS signal reception is degraded in wet forest canopy conditions compared to when the forest canopy is dry.