Wooooooohoooooooo! Total distance covered: 450km over 10 days. UMPC, Phone, Camera, GPS and Torch all topped up from Solar energy. I made it!

Distance since last post: 65km
Weather: Dark and cloudy.
Notes: Don’t drink two beers at the finish line without having something to eat first!!!

Today at about 1700 (UTC+2) I crossed the unofficial finish line on the Solar UMPC tour. The official finish happens tomorrow with my sponsors, VIA, but that will be at the same place that I enjoyed the beer shown above. For me, the tour is complete and after I’ve posted this and used up the last hour of battery life on the Samsung Q1b, I’ll be connecting back to the electricity grid to charge up my phone and umpc for the first time in 9 days ago.

Finish line!

It has been a fun and challenging time trying to balance a 450km cycle camping trip with work and a solar powered UMPC experiment but its been fully worth it. And that includes that last three days of full cloud cover and zero solar power possibilities. I’ve learned a lot about how solar energy works, how it can be applied to mobile computing and how different battery technology affects the results. But it hasn’t just been about solar energy. Its mainly been about energy efficient mobile computing, mobile Internet connectivity and the balance of tasks between a mobile phone and a UMPC. Although I managed to perform a lot of tasks on my simple mobile phone, none of the mapping updates, images, GPS tracks and detailed postings would have been possible without a UMPC and the VIA-based Samsung Q1b has been a reliable and efficient partner all the way through. It hasn’t missed a single heartbeat.

The last 65km leg up here to Duesseldorf was a fun trip. Two friends of mine, Steve Carr and Ian Emmett, came with me and we had a good fun ride. Bessy managed to clock 38.2km/h, Steve lost a mudguard and Ian managed to get a branch stuck in his (overly complex, if you ask me!) gears. Bessy has been an absolute star too and she’ll be getting a good soft rub-down when she gets home. Thanks Bessy the Blue Bakers Bike.

As we rounded the last corner of the journey and saw the Vodafone Germany HQ and a long line of riverside bars I knew it had been worth it. I feel so happy that it would be impossible to describe it within the limits of my battery life here but its been a perfect week of work. I want to start planning the next project ASAP!

Goodnight Duesseldorf. see you tomorrow on the finish line again where I’ll be showing off the Solar-UMPC kit to the journalists. I hope it doesn’t rain!

When i’m fully charged up (personally) again in the next few days i’ll be posting all the photos, an overview of the trip and a detailed report on how things can be improved. There’s a lot to be learned from the Solar-UMPC tour.

No, this isn’t just another one of those keyword-seeking blogs that hang around waiting for a market and clogging up search results. This is one with a purpose. A real project! A working blog from day 1.

If you don’t know me, Hi! I’m Steve (aka Chippy) from UMPCPortal.com and in about a month from now I will be starting my Solar UMPC Tour and this site is where the project will be detailed and journaled from start to finish and beyond. Yes, a Solar UMPC Tour! I’ll be taking a bike, camping equipment an off-the-shelf UMPC and solar kit to South Germany, climbing on the bike and cycling down the Rhine for about 7 days while continuing to work on UMPCPortal.com and Solar-UMPC.com using a UMPC. No, not while I’m riding. I’ll be stopping at lots of cafe’s on the way! There’s one important rule I should mention though – No mains charging of equipment is allowed. Everything will run off solar power for a week. Camera, Mobile Phone, Lighting and UMPC.

Sounds like a challenge doesn’t it. It will be! Its one month away and I haven’t even started testing solar equipment yet. I don’t know how long I will need the UMPC each day. I don’t even know what UMPC to take. I don’t know how long my camera will last on AA batteries. What data connectivity should I use? Bike? Tent? There also the small worry that I haven’t done a bike tour in years. I need to get on a 4 week training program so that I can cover the ground between stop-overs and still have enough time to work. And then there’s the weather. More unpredictable than a UMPC manufacturers battery life figure! One thing is for sure, I won’t be going if there’s no sun forecast and if the weather breaks half way through I probably wont be able to go on. End of story!

All these questions will be answered in the coming weeks. The project starts today and I’m happy to say I’ve got the support of the best sponsor possible. VIA Technologies. I have been thinking about this project since last year and put the details to VIA some time ago. They came back very quickly with a positive feel and after our first project conference call this morning, we’ve agreed to do it and are all very excited about it. Its what the UMPC is all about of course. The combination of Ultra Mobility, power-efficiency, work and play. Ultra Mobile Life!

So there’s the introduction in plain text. Things will get more detailed and colourful from here on and I hope you’ll stay with me, help me, advise me and pass the word on about Ultra Mobile Computing. Help me. I’ll say that one again!

Steve.