I spent a fun hour turning most of NCN2 along the South Coast into a relation. There looks to have been some recent accidental vandalism by new users of Gregory Williams' orginal work: my guess is new uesers just not understanding the ncn_ref tag and deleting it. I had to refer back to cycle map renders to follow the route sometimes.

user:jackchallen and I spent Saturday riding over the South Downs near Bignor and Amberley to fill in some more bridleways. WSCC need to put more signs up, as some seems to be signed only at one end. Awesome day with fantastic weather. Jack was doing the tracking as all my GPS gear is broken.

My cheap but functional SiRF III bluetooth GPS receiver ( http://www.elsc.com.tw/GPS-1210.htm ) has pretty much failed, turning on only once in a while and staying on for now more than a few minutes, so long as the battery is wedged in just so. No great surprise given my falling on it. (A fall which also destroyed the screen of my Palm TX PDA).

What next? I have a SiRF II module which does the job in the open given sufficient time to get a fix, but it doesn't cut it under any kind of cover. I've been considering various Garmin devices for the OSM (cycle) map support, but Garmin themselves have done bugger all for the OSS community. The only device I'm aware of that can display OSM maps and actively supports Free software is the Nokia n8[01]0, something I'd be a little wary of mounting on the handlebars.

I'll probably buy http://www.storagedepot.co.uk/Handheld-GPS/sc893/p75.aspx as some of the profits go to the OSMF.

I was nosing around the map in Poland and noticed some oddities, what appears to be an import from some other DB alongside some manual mapping, giving rise to lots of redundant ways. Mostly the user-contributed stuff looks to have more detail for curved roads, but most of it has perfectly evenly-spaced nodes, suggesting a GPX-to-way conversion, and consequently there are hundreds of redundant nodes for arrow-straight roads. There a lot of name= where ref= should have been used too. The bulk-imported stuff neglects a highway= tag for roundabouts, meaning they're not rendered. I've done a wee bit of fixing up but as I discover more and more of I get the feeling I shoudl leave it for the local users to deal with the results of the bulk import and fix up their own stuff.

While riding, my PDAs have a habit turning off/switching away from the GPS software on accidental button presses while in my bag, so I've been experimenting with ways of mounting them on my bike. I tried a plastic-and-metal blanking panel from a computer which was an almost perfect fit, but after a few miles of rough riding the metal started to come away from the plastic. Scratch that idea. I've now attached a cheap clear plastic pencil case to my handlebars with sticky tape and double-sided velcro straps (precision engineering this is not). That's working quite well but for the fact that hard knocks on the front (common on many off-road trails around here) can cause the Zodiac to reboot. I'll experiment with some padding.

Rode some mopre of the South Coast Cycle Route from Middleton to Aldwick. Either the peopel who put the signs up were deranged, or the local Bognor Chavs have been rearranging them creatively, so I'm not 100% I have the right route. On top of that confusion, I got soaking wet on the way back and had to stop off and ask a friend for a lift (yeah, I know, wimp).

courtesy of Neil Newell http://hazeii.net/sdw/ I have uploaded two tracks for the whole of the South Downs Way. I've filled in map data those parts that I at least have a vague idea about. I will leave the rest for people who know the area better.

Yesterday we did some more cycling around the Angmering park estate. The land is used for (small scale) commercial forestry, so there a few tracks and even tarmacced roads with no public right of way. We tracked the Monarch's way (bridleway and footpath) up to Arundel.

While riding I've been using User:jackchallen's Tapwave Zodiac http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tapwave_Zodiac instead of my Palm TX as the transflective display is far easier to see in daylight. Unfortunately the hardbuttons on the Tapwave are easier to press accidentally, exiting cotoGPS or turning the device off. I've lost a few tracks by the buttons being press just from movement in my backpack, which is very annoying. Putting the Tapwave in a hard case stops it happening.

From playing with CetusGPS it seems that app. wont respond to button presses while in tracking mode, only to a specific screen tap, which is exactly the right behaviour for a being used as a datalogger.

The only thing I need now is a program that will display maps, trekbuddy (running under IBM J9 java VM) would be ideal but it causes PalmOS to reset :/

Sunday was easier: residential roads around Kingston Gorse and Ferring with my wife. The basic shape of the major roads and a few paths around that are is now done.

I did a fair amount of biking (20-25 miles) on Saturday and Sunday, some of it with User:jackchallen and my sister to fill in some bridleways and tracks around the Fittleworth, Sutton and Bignor area. Cycling up Bignor Hill is hard work.