Bike Stolen

Extremely busy week as usual... I'm working very hard with Martin on our Sila paper. Yet I promised to take pictures of the Sixth Harvard-Smithsonian Conference on Theoretical Astrophysics so I need to sit in the conference room for all time. Last but not least, I have to prepare my trip to Beijing for the KIAA Disk Workshop.

So Wednesday night, I biked back to CfA from the conference dinner (with > 300 pictures in my camera). I was hoping to go home early because I was so tired, but I decided to stay in order to edit the pictures, finish a section in the paper, and reply a few e-mails.

Around 3am, when I'm ready to leave, my bike was gone.  More precisely, most part of my bike was gone.  Only the rear wheel and rack remained there:

What should I do? :-(

Location:Garden St,Cambridge,United States

Galileoscope Arrived!

Yeah~! The Galileoscope I ordered a month ago is finally here! Here is how it looked like right after it arrived my office:

Opened the box... Here is everything inside.  As you can tell the Galileoscope is pretty simple.

There is a set of two lenses form the primary lens.  I just put them on top of each other and place it in the main tube.

The eyepiece is a bit more complicated but still it is very easy to put together.  It only took me couple minutes so I forgot to take pictures! Oops...

Anyway, I had my camera tripod in my office, so I simply screwed it on.  So here is my lovely Galileoscope working right there!

I have to say the image quality is pretty good.  I can even place my iPhone right next to the eyepiece and take this picture:

Location:Garden St,Cambridge,United States

Gear Day

Yesterday was my gear day. I picked up couple important gears for my trip.

The Wheelworks bike shop called me a few days ago saying all my panniers arrived. After the special ITC colloqium by Prof. Sunyaev and a meeting with a student, I dropped my bike to the Wheelworks Cambridge/Somerville store and have they installed the front rack for me.

While I was waiting for my bike, I went to the Boston Apple Store. The iPad Wi-Fi + 3G versions just came out. There was a short line outside the store

Fortunately it only took me half hour to get in and pick up a 32 GB version.

Then I went back to Wheelworks. My bike was ready with all the panniers. It looks super cool and I feel ready to go for my adventure! (Alright, I know I'm not ready...)

And for the iPad, I simply sync most of my setting by using MobileMe. It took another half hour to copy all my music to it. Other than that everything just works. I'm going to carry it, instead of my full size laptop, when I bike!

Location:Garden St,Cambridge,United States

Bicycle Touring Maps

I was so busy earlier this week. I applied a Savannah account to host my research code Sila (hence I need to worry about software licensing). Then I helped some postdocs and grad students to prepare their 3D stereo data visualization. Myself had a demonstration in Prof. Goodman's visualization class. And of course, there are few research papers that I suppose to finish...

Anyway, because my trip is going to start in three months, I better "be prepared". At the beginning of this week I ordered a set of totally 12 bicycle touring maps for the TransAmerica Trail from Adventure Cycling Association. The total for non-member is US$165.00. They are not cheap. But when I received the maps I was pretty happy about their quality.

The maps are not printed on normal papers. The feeling is the same as National Geographics' Trails Illustrated Maps, which are tear and water resistant. In terms of the content, I can find detailed direction of the TransAmerica Trail as well as campsite and post office! Post offices indeed play a key role in supporting my trip: I will need a couple of friends to ship gears to me.

There are more campsites along the trail than I expected. I'm hoping to do tent camping for most of the time. That will save more money for buying the Galileoscopes. Oh... by the way, I finally ordered one for myself so I can take it across America!

Belmont Wheelworks

Wheelworks has a Spring "SuperSale".  Everything is 10% off.  I went to their Cambridge/Somerville store a few days ago trying to get more gears.  However, the popular Ortlieb panniers were out of stock.  The staffs suggested me to stop by their Belmont store, which is twice as big.

So I took a little 12 km ride today.  I'm actually impressed by the fact that MotionX GPS can e-mail me my track!

I started from CfA, ride on Belmont St. and Trapelo Rd.  And then reached the Belmont Wheelworks store.  It was a easy ride in the suburban area with a short uphill section.  I ordered quite a bit of gears but I will talk about them in another post.  The return trip was all down hill so it's was even easier.  My average speed was 20 km/h ~ 12 mph without loading.

If I start my trip on July 1st and finish it by September 1st, I will have 8 weeks.  Say I take one day off per week, some simple-minded math shows I will need to ride more than 7 hours per day.  If I want to include the heaving load, going up hill, and all that... it is not going to be easy.

New Bike

I ordered the Trek 520 on Monday and picked it up yesterday.  So far I am pretty happy with it.  Here are few pictures:

Decision Made (for Job)

I decided to take the job offer from Nordita in Sweden.  The position starts in September so I will have about two months free time during this Summer --- perfect timing for biking across America.

I have been reading reviews about touring bikes.  My short list now includes the Cannondale Touring 1, the Trek 520, the Trek Portland, and the Surly Long Haul Trucker.

The Cannondale Touring 1, the Trek 520, and the Surly Long Haul Trucker are all classic and popular choices for long distance touring.  The Trek Portland is more like an urban bike but it has disc brakes.  I still need more time to consider...

I am heading to Aspen this weekend for a conference.  It will be fun!