Trail Genius is working on applying our technology for ski resort maps, and what better place to collect some data then Winter Park, CO on a blue bird day. Enjoy this quick edit of me dropping into one of the many Alphabet Chutes, this footage along with more is getting crunched as I type and will be in a new map to come.
Our first Nordic race mapping project was a success! It all started with making a pre-race map for the Great Bear Chase Ski Marathon (GBC) organizers, and finished with the Trail Genius (TG) crew racing the event.
We could not have asked for better conditions for filming the pr-race map, it was cold but the sun was shinning and the trail crew took extra care to make sure the trails looked and skied great. The plan was to ski and film the 25k course with two skiers from the GBC crew and Chris from Trail Genius. One of the GBC crew used his striding gear for a short section at the beginning of the course, and then switched to his skate gear for the remainder of the course. One of the trail grooming crew was kind enough to follow our every move in the snowmobile/groomer with one our our TG cameras, and Chris wore a backup camera on his head. In the end the footage came out great, and the map we created is available on the TG site and embedded in the GBC race map page.
Our new fat bikes are here, and they are twins! Two identical (accept for size) custom bikes from our boys over at Schlick Cycles. You can get all specs over at Schlicks Blog. We will be racing them this weekend, a map and video to come.
The TG crew just keeps getting love from the snow gods! This time we got, special delivery, 20+ inches of snow in 12 hours, and with a ski hill right outside our front door, that was closed because of the blizzard, we had the place all to ourselves. Needless to say our cameras were rolling and we got some of the best turns and footage of our lives!
Here at Trail Genius we have taken a liking to the new Contour 2+ cameras, and we finally got some great snow to test them out in. Here is a quick edit of some great ski footage we shot with our 2+ cameras, got to love the slow mow!
It was a big year at Chequamegon, Trail Genius had a lot going on, starting out with the expo on Friday. This was the second year we have had a booth at the expo, and we found time to make some upgrades to our display. Last year we have one LCD, this year we had three LCDs, and two iPads. Plenty of screen space to show off Trail Genius maps. The expo was super successful with TG making all kinds of new contacts. Because we were in charge of mapping for the event, we got VIP passes, which meant free meals all weekend, starting with the spaghetti dinner at the expo. As the afternoon turned to night, we finally had to pack it up so we could get some rest before the race the next day, but that didn't stop people from watching our video maps to the very end.
Trail Genius is not just for adults, my 6 year old daughter filmed her race this weekend at the Chain Drive Festival and made her first Trail Genius map.
It started with the idea, "Lets try filming a running race." Then we said, "Lets not do any race, lets film a marathon!" It sounded like a good idea at the time, but 18 miles into my first marathon, pushing a stroller with a bunch of camera strapped to it, temps in the 90s and the race officially called off because they were out of ambulances, I started to wonder if we were a little crazy. The whole race is documented with Trail Genius maps avaiable on the event page.
GPS is a big part of what we do here at Trail Genius, so it goes without saying that we have a lot of different GPS devises. Some of the cameras we use have GPS built into them, but for long events their shorter battery life can be limiting, plus the time it takes for the camera GPS to sync when you change a battery is frustrating. In the end we typically use a second external GPS as a backup to the camera, or run a non-gps camera with and external GPS so we get maximum battery life.
Can you believe we got in our first group ride on the year on April 1st! The trail clearing crew was out all last week and it showed, the trails were is great shape. We started the ride by heading up Manganese Rd to Ma Maki where we started the climb to the Mountain Lodge. Didn't take far to realize the lungs and legs had a few cobwebs that needed to be worked out, but we slowly made our way to the top. So many choices on how to go down, but the group agreed on Red Trail to Mango then down Manganese Rd back to town.
