Road to GOTO Chicago: Kit, Sorted
The April US “Road to GOTO Chicago: Chaos Tour” Kit Preparation is Coming Together…
One of the most fun parts of preparing for a road trip is getting your kit together. Luckily I have been building up to this year’s tours for, well, years and so I had a lot if things already in my closet and ready to go.
Decisions, decisions
The first decision on my list when it came to kit was an important one: Which lid (see Helmet) to take? I had four (yes, four, I like having different helmets) to choose from but, from past experience where I fought my way through rain, hail and snow, I quickly disregarded the open-face ones.
So I was down to two, my faithful Harley-branded touring helmet (complete with already-fixed GoPro attachment, more on cameras and GoPro in just a bit) or my wonderfully comfortable Shoei.
To the untrained eye these helmets look quite similar, but to the rider they are worlds apart.
The Harley-brand helmet opens up at the front making it easier to chat when stopped, already has the GoPro attachment so no need to additionally deface it there, but it weighs a metric ton in comparison to the simpler Shoei. It’s also been around the hills a few more times, not least to Berlin and back, and so it is getting towards the end of its life…
The Shoei is my favourite lid-of-the-moment. Lightweight, basic, no-frills, and with a double-pane visor that refuses to steam up even in the wet British winter. This should be the easy choice, but no GoPro attachment means I’d have to attach a lump of plastic to the top that would just make my heart ache with the lost aesthetics… Also, the tour has the potential to be so rough on all my gear that whatever lid I take is likely to take the beating of its (now short) life.
So in the end the decision was made and my faithful Harley-branded helmet is coming with me.
Next Stop, Drones and GoPros
I’m going to be recording much of thew journey across the US and, although I will have some friends along for the ride at times, nothing beats a shot from a couple of hundred feet straight up of a long highway, a city skyline or a barren desert. For these, it was time to get a drone.
I already have two GoPros (a Hero 4 and 5) all set for capturing my journey from my head or, occasionally, from the hand of a pillion. I also already have a drone, but the Parrot just didn’t include the mode I need… I need “Follow me” so I can trace my tracks along some of the more beautiful legs of the tour.
Enter the DJI Mavic Pro. This little bundle of power fits easily in my backpack, or the bike top box, and can capture gorgeous 4k video while following me around at up to around 20 miles an hour (it can do more, I’m just being careful).
I’ve already mentioned in a previous post about the maiden flight of the Mavic, plus it’s astounding ability to survive my ignorance of extreme weather conditions, but for those that missed it, here’s the video it captured:
Finally, the bike…
I already had all the gear to ride a motorcycle, even of the sorts of distances and potential weather conditions of the US tour. I have Rokker jeans for the majority, wet weather overalls just in case, and multiple layers (Berghaus is my favourite) to keep me warm and cool as I traverse from 25 degree down to around 2 degrees in the highest roads.
Now it was time to select the bike. Should I go bare-bones or full-dresser? In the end, it was once again an easy decision and the only bike that will manage to carry everything I’ll need for the 3 1/2 week journey is going to be a full-dresser Electra Glide similar to this one:
I’ll be hiring from EagleRiders as I’ve rented there before and the bikes are usually good quality and ready for the long roads. You never know exactly what you’ll get of course, but I’ve requested an Electra as I’m going to be needing those luggage options if I’m to remain anywhere near half-human by the end of the ride.
Only ~1 month to go!
So that’s the highlights of the kit covered. Lids, cameras and bike sorted. Now it’s just time to get the events announced so I can begin streaming out on Twitter my talks as I journey across the US for the Road to GOTO Chicago.
If you haven’t already, now is the time to get in contact if you’d like to host one of the events with your local development community user group.
The current list of locations and dates are available here, so please get in touch if you’d like me to roll by to talk about cloud native, devops, microservices or chaos engineering (and sometimes all at once!)
Looking forward to seeing you out on the road for the Road to GOTO Chicago: Chaos Tour!
Russ, the Geek on a Harley, ChaosIQ.io
