It's getting to the point now where I'm going to have to plan my rides, simply heading out is not helping. On my 15 mile ride today I covered a lot of roads that were already mapped and took short cuts that weren't really of great trace use.

But all exercise is good exercise and I've added some new cycle paths and roads if not as many as I'd normally like to do on a ride.

Raising the saddle on the bike has certainly improved the comfort factor. The backs of my knees are fine now. I suspect I could do a much further ride now without too much effort.

I've just checked the step count/pedometer on my phone to compare with the results from the GPS. Now considering I started and stopped the GPS tracking away from my home it would appear that the pedometer is pretty close to the results from the GPS.
This is using the pedometer in the Sony Ericsson W580i.

Roundabouts and car parks make up most of Bracknell in Berkshire, one of the side effects of it being a "new town". Built to be housing for those taking the train direct into London.
The OpenStreetMap is missing a lot of the parking around the town center. I've added a couple today and will add some more over the coming weeks.

At the beginning of the week I sent my BlueNext GPS receiver to my friend. He wanted to try it before getting one for himself. He got it, tried it, kept it.
It was easier for me to just buy another one and have him pay me rather than ship the other one back.
I ordered a replacement on Wednesday night and received the GPS unit on Friday.
Today I went out for what was intended to be a reasonable cycle ride.
I cycled from Bracknell to Ascot. The racecourse in Ascot is a prominent landmark on any map, on OpenStreetMap it was just a blank space. Now it's a blank space but with the outline of the course itself. There's a service road that runs around the inside of the track. On race meets this track is used by camera vehicles.
After cycling to and around the Ascot Racecourse I then cycled down to Virginia Waters. For those of you that are Harry Potter fans, Virginia waters is used for a lot of the woodland sets for the films.
From Virginia Waters I cycled along the London Road to Sunning Hill and cut up into Swinley Forest.
Getting lost and bogged down in parts of the forest I eventually headed back home to Bracknell.
On uploading the various GPS data files I found that the system had dropped in a couple of places.
I realise now that the phone does not like to run GPS Java software and shoot video. Next time I'll stop the tracking, shoot the video then re-start.
All in all, my cycle ride turned out to be 28 miles. I estimate that the "short cuts" where the data is missing would actually add another couple of miles, making it 30 miles.
Now the bath is calling me.

I noticed some roads that I'd missed on my cycle ride yesterday so this evening, I took the dog for a walk up around the same area to fill in the blanks. The poor dog was wondering why we were walking up dead end streets just to turn around and come back again. Plenty of new smells to keep her happy though.
Now that I'm having fun with my new GPS toy I'm packing it up and sending it to a friend. If the GPS works OK with his PDA and/or phone then I'll be ordering another BlueNext later this week, hopefully in time for the weekend.
So there's no updates or diary entry from me for the next few days.

Six mile ride today, not very far and all within about a half mile from my home. I've mapped a great deal of the local housing estates now.
Cycling around I met several people that I know through the store that I work in. The weather this morning was nice enough that people were out washing their cars. It was a community feeling that I was out in roads that I didn't know, many of them dead end roads that I'd have had no reason to go down, and people knew me.
I made a similar post to this in my regular journal once and somebody asked if I was Ned Flanders. Well if this is what it's like to be Ned, then "Howdly Doodly".
Todays tracing is viewable to all.

When I checked my post this morning I had a note from the post office saying that I had to collect a parcel from the local post office as there was excess payment due.
I thought that this was the phone bracket that I'd ordered, or possibly something from Barbara.
I set up my GPS software and took the scenic route over to the post office after first checking which local areas were not yet covered on OpenStreetMap.org .
When I got to the post office I find it was actually a DVD which C2it had sent me a couple of weeks ago. Seems that a second class stamp is insufficient for sending a DVD in the post. Oh and by the way dad, I like the old Virgin Interactive address label :)
On the ride back I again took the long way home.
My main computer (The Battlebox) is not wanting to play nice, failing to get to the bios start up screen so I am using the work laptop at the moment.
Thankfully because all of my mapping stuff is done online I was able to upload the data I'd collected and map it out.
It turns out that my little detour was just over five miles.
When I got home, I found a parcel on my doorstep. While I was cycling to the post office and back the postman had delivered the bracket to hold my phone on the bike.
I've stripped off the old speedometer that has not been working for a while now. Took off all the cables and sensors and fitted the new bracket.
The phone is held nice and solid on the bike and I'm now able to use that in conjunction with the GPS unit, as a speedometer, compass and route recorder.
I will most definitely be going for a ride tomorrow!

To be honest, if I'd remembered my gloves I'd still be out there mapping now but I was starting to lose sensation in my finger tips. Just a little diversion on the way home took me along one of the larger roads missing from my local area.
I'm getting a lot done and it's still only my first week and I've not yet spent a full day mapping, Depending on the weather I may do that on Sunday.

I've ordered a clamp to hold my mobile phone on my bike
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B0018BBYDC
I will, of course be attaching the wrist strap as a safety should the clamp rattle itself apart.

Added a couple of new roads in my area while cycling to the local greasy cafe for breakfast this morning.

Am now getting away from my house before starting the tracing so have posted my trace from this morning and will be posting more from now on.

No editing today but I've put a few miles of traces in to help with the general number crunching.

I've set up shortcuts on the W580i to easily turn off the Bluetooth, shutting it off between traces has meant that I've still got 3/4 power at the end of the day with over four hours of traces recorded.

The GPSed software is good but I still want to try software that will download portions of the OpenSource maps.

The community here is also great. Thanks to everyone for your continued help, support and suggestions.

Daz

Having the GPS I feel compelled to add new content to the site every day, This is easy enough to do at the moment since so much of my local area does not have much detail. Before going to the store, I check what needs mapping and take different routes to and back from the store to make sure I get the most of the journey. Even on the way back from work I went down roads that I know are dead end just to get the GPS data.
All my traces are private so far as they all start or stop at my front door. Once I've got enough detail around my home and I'm adding detail further out then I'll make those traces public.
Thanks for the recommendations for software to put maps onto my phone. I couldn't figure out how to bundle the packages up but I was trying to do several other things at the same time. I'll dedicate some time to this hopefully soon as it will make the logging of new areas a little easier.
Oh and since I don't have a car and am doing this logging on my bicycle or on foot I'm finally getting some exercise!

Today I got my Blue Next Bluetooth GPS receiver and it's turned my Sony Ericsson W580i into a GPS data recorder. I had to upload the firmware version on my phone to get it to recognise the GPS but once I'd done that it worked like a dream.
I'm using GPSed software on the SOny Ericsson phone, it gives a nice clear display of the regular stuff, direction, speed and/or location. I don't have a data allowance with my mobile account so I'm purely using the phone to log information of where I've been, this is then uploaded to my computer when I get home.
I've been adding some detail to the maps around Priestwood in Bracknell, Berkshire, UK. I hope to be a regular contributor to the OpenStreetMap project.