As a follow up to that last post, here's a bit more info about the ride we're doing this Saturday. It's open to anyone that wants to. Meet at Hogle Zoo at 7:30am.
Map of the route: 
And here's an elevation plot to give you an idea of the "fun" we'll be having:
Unfortunately it's not every day that you find a company willing to help out a single user when it means making a global change to the product. In the case where that change will help other users, this becomes more common, but it is still rare for it to happen quickly. I came across a great service that did just that. TopoRoute is a route mapping software for runners and cyclists (and anybody else that needs to plot a route). The software works great and they've gone through some changes recently that have made it even better.
I was trying to plot a route that was 115 miles long with many curves (means the file size is relatively large). They apparently had a limit on the size of a file that could be created and I was over that limit. I emailed their contact and within the day, Martin (thanks Martin!) got back to me to tell me the problem and that he wanted to get it fixed. By the next day, he had doubled the size of file that could be created and my route worked perfectly. Here's the route (a ride that me and some friends are going to do this Saturday if anyone else wants to come!)
I thought that when I was done with school, things would slow down a bit. If anything they've been as busy as ever or busier!
Breakdown of what's happened:
1) Family trip back East - Philly, DC, and New York.
2) Started traveling with work a bit, been to St. Paul, MN
3) Prepping for the MS 150 bike ride (Please donate!)
4) Just got back from our annual 50 mile hike, this time in Southern Utah (pics to follow)
5) Taking pictures of friends
6) Working full-time
7) And last but certainly not least... I GOT A NEW BIKE!!
Now for some pics...
Cole and Tate:
Bike: 
Without a doubt, there are many gimmicks and suggestions for improving your fuel economy, more-so now than ever due to the recent increase in US fuel prices. Some of the gimmicks and suggestions work great, some work only marginally, and others don't work at all. One that is guaranteed to double your fuel economy is carpooling (when compared to driving alone). 
Roughly 99% of the cars I see on the freeway or on the road in general have only one person in the car. If you put another person in the car, you double the efficiency of the car, thus doubling your fuel economy. For example, let's take your average Toyota Corolla. We'll pick that car because right now I'm sitting on the bus in the express lane passing one that only has one driver in it. (Yes, that's right, I'm posting this using the free wi-fi that's available on the bus). If you have one person in that Toyota Corolla, the car is getting around 30 p-mpg (passenger-miles per gallon). Meaning you have one passenger multiplied by the miles per gallon. If you put just one more person in that car, the fuel economy jumps to 60 p-mpg because you now have 2 people multiplied by the miles per gallon (2x30 = 60). Put a third person in the car and you get 90 p-mpg, and so forth. Carpooling is the best thing you can do right now to lighten your wallet when it comes to fuel costs. And it's guaranteed to work, no gimmicks or tricks.
Now on to the reason for this post. The reason is that I found this awesome website that connects you to people that are traveling your same commute so you can easily find them and start cutting your fuel costs in half. It's called eRideShare. Go to www.erideshare.com for more information. Best of all, it's free! Happy motoring.
ps, pics of our trip back east are coming soon!
I couldn't help but post this when I saw it on the news tonight. We've posted about the "bakfiets" (cargo bike) before: See here, and here. But this takes the cake because it's an Orem family doing it. They stopped driving their car for short errands and just take the bike instead... complete with child seats, seat belts, and a convertible roof for the rainy days! See here for the complete story.
They're a bit pricey, but Mad Dog Cycles in Orem can get them in apparently. Now I want one even more!
We couldn't have asked for a better day to celebrate two Presidents' birthdays! The sun was shining, we have lots of snow, and the avalanche danger was low. So we decided to take advantage! We had a hard time deciding where to go, but we settled on snowshoeing to Donut Falls in Big Cottonwood Canyon. It's a short hike, but very scenic. The best part was how much wildlife we saw today. There was a huge herd of elk on the mountain by the side of our house when we left with one large buck heading up the harem of females. Then we saw a few moose while snowshoeing and later in the day we saw a bobcat dart across the road below our house. It's amazing that within 15 minutes of the city, you can see all that wildlife and simply "get away from it all." Now for the pics...
The Tongue
Leap of Faith
Mt. Olympus on my shoulder
Quiet Solitude
This is Donut Falls just to the right of the rocks (about 5 feet under the snow)
Moose Buddies (see the one on the right too?)
My little brother Dan just got home from his LDS mission on Feb. 5th. I am a little slow processing the pics, but here they are finally! It was so good to see him again after two years. We sure missed having him around, and now he's back and better than ever. I'll never be able to explain how much my mission has helped me in my life, and I'm sure Dan is the same way. He was a great missionary and it has been fun to hear about people that he taught while he was in the Philadelphia Pennsylvania mission.
I heard a good suggestion the other day. That is to start thinking about fuel economy in economic terms, i.e. to think about it in "Miles Per Dollar" or, MPD. It's all too easy to just stick in that credit card on each fill-up and just kind of forget about how much you're actually getting for that money. Some people just pour that money down the drain (or out the tailpipe for that matter) without even thinking twice about how much it's costing them. To other people, they couldn't care less how much it's costing them no matter how high the cost.
Now for some examples using $3.00/gal fuel:
A 15mpg (insert nearly any SUV here) would do roughly 5 miles per dollar.
A 22mpg Audi A4 (which I used to own and loved) would do roughly 7 miles per dollar.
A 25mpg (insert nearly any regular sedan here) - 8 miles per dollar
A 30mpg Honda Civic - 10 miles per dollar
A 45mpg Jetta TDI still only allows you 15 miles per dollar
So next time you're driving down the road in an "economical" car (e.g. Toyota Camry) doing 25mpg, just count mile posts! Every 8th mile post you pass, pull a $1 bill out of your pocket. For you locals, a normal round-trip drive from Provo to SLC (45 miles) costs over $10 in that "economical" 25mpg car! If you drive around town frequently, just try zeroing the tripmeter in your car at the beginning of the day and see where it ends up at the end of the day. You may be surprised. Let's just be glad we don't have the $6+/gallon fuel that other parts of the world have.
