Follow Ross To Work Day #4 – Alarm Clock to Train

Those of you who have followed my twitter feed, Facebook, or read the (unfortunately now defunct) SacraFrisco Commuter blog will be familiar with Follow Ross to Work Days (FRTWD).  Here, I chronicle my normal commute from my home in Sacramento, CA to my place of employment in Palo Alto, CA.  For those of you already doing the jaw drop “oh my gawd” expression – hold on.  I don’t actually do this every single day.  It averages about 3 days a week.  I also don’t drive it – instead opting for a Bike-Train-Bus-Train-Bike combo.

Why is this FRTWD different or better than previous ones?

One word – technology.  A second word – Droid.  This time around, I’ll be including GPS maps and video along with the normal photo work.  As mentioned above, the most up-to-the-minute information and photos will be on my Twitter feed – which is also replicated to my Facebook status.  If you’re looking for more of a “digest” form than this blog is the place for you.  Here goes….

Alarm Clock sounds…

This morning was a 2-snooze-button morning, but I managed to make it out of the house even a little early. I knew the streets were wet from rains last night (but it wasn’t raining at the time) and that I’d loose some time as I juggled gadgets trying to capture as much content as possible for these posts.  The plan was to get a little video of the ride in, as well as map the route.

For the GPS stuff I’d actually decided to use two apps on the Droid.  One – CardioTrainer – is the one that I’ve been playing with to track my training rides.  I was planning to use this for the shorter segments (like the house to the train station).  It tracks cool information like calories burned, etc.  The second I’d just downloaded the night before – EveryTrail.  The plan was to use this to track the entire trip – from leaving my driveway to arriving at the office.

Well – I kinda blew it on the CardioTrainer portion.  I simply forgot to hit that uber-fancy “Start” button to make it actually record my trip.  Oh well.  EveryTrail is recording the overall trip, however.  It still remains to be seen if I’ll have an uploadable map to share when this is all done.

6:10am: So now we’re out the door and on the bike.  Things are going as normal for my commute.  The streets are pretty wet, but there is no rain falling.  I’ve got about 5 different variations on the trip to work, and I choose the easier one (as far as effort on the bike) to give myself ample time to play with the camera.  It also happens to pass through Land Park – which is where I plan my first video.  Unfortunately, before I get to the park the rain starts to fall.  In the interest preserving the Droid from electronics-unfriendly moisture – no video.

Not sure there is much else to really say about the ride in.  The rain got harder and I got wetter, but arrived at the train with ample time.  I skipped my normal Starbucks Espresso for the morning – more out of laziness than anything – and boarded the 7:00 am train at about 6:43.  Let the train ride begin!