Every time I leave on holiday with my friends, I get the same question: “What does your company actually do?” My answer in the past apparently hasn’t made a big impression to them as they never seem to remember the next year.
So this time I anticipated the question and I decided to give my friends a live demo of the Lucy Test Drive with the data I collected on our ski trip.
I dusted off an old phone that I could use as a dedicated GPS tracker (without draining the battery of my other texting, music playing and picture taking mobile phone). Taking an external battery would indeed have been the more up to date thing to do but as this old phone is a lot lighter than such a battery, I decided to go for the more old school option.
At the end of my holiday I had collected 6 GPX files (one for each day) with my tracks in the area around Flachau, Austria. When uploading the data in the Lucy Test Drive all data is displayed in green by default. I decided to display every day in a different color to better distinguish the data when for instance I went on the same slope multiple days. At first sight the data tells me where I skied, how fast I was and the distance I covered, but if you take a closer look the data tells you a lot more about my holiday, especially on those days I forgot to turn off the tracker.
Sunday Green Day
For the first day I kept the default green. In the beginning of the timeline at the bottom you can see a short bump. This was me and my wife going up with the lift and then, after checking out the slope, deciding to go down again to get some first experience on a smaller slope on the side.
You must know that this was my wife’s first ski trip and although she appeared to be a natural when we tried it indoors, this red slope seemed a bit too ambitious (that evening it would turn out we were right).
So after a few quick practice runs to gain some confidence, we were ready to go up again. We took two lifts up (you can see that from the little step in the way up) and once there we took a nice blue slope downhill. We skied very slowly and after lunch you can see me going straight up and down again a couple of times.
At the end of the first day there was only way down…via red slope we avoided in the morning! This was a very icy part with a lot of bumps so you can see it took us a while to get down safely. Clocking off at a total distance of 37 km it was a nice first day — time to switch off the tracker and head to the Après Ski.
Monday Grey Day
I displayed the track of my second day in the saddest yet visible color — read on to find out why. The day started very well with some new blue slopes in morning. Just like the previous day I took a more challenging red slope in the afternoon. We thought we’d still have plenty of time to ski the next day(s) so we finished quite early.
Unlike the day before, I forgot to turn off the tracker when the skiing was over, so if you have a look at the image below, you can see how we first passed by Penny (a cheap store where we got a Jägermeister Automat with 60 small bottles) after the roundabout, and then you can see us making a small detour by the apartment where some friends were staying to drop off the groceries. Then we went to our own place to drop off the car before going back to our friends for dinner.
That is where it all went wrong. After a nice dinner with the accompanying drinks from Penny’s we went out for a snow fight. It was great fun… until I realized I lost my keys somewhere in the snow! After about 15 minutes of searching I suddenly thought of the bluetooth tracker keyring I received at the Luciad User Conference in 2017. To my big relief we could hear a faint beep out in the field when I pressed the button on my phone (connected to the tracker). It took us another 20 minutes but finally we found the keys 20cm under the snow. We decided to call it a night and went back to our apartment, thinking to leave the bad luck behind but then my wife slipped and fell on some wooden construction.
Tuesday Blue Day
The third day we felt blue because of the accident the evening before. We spent all morning at the doctor who diagnosed a pair of bruised ribs. Luckily not broken but skiing was out-of-the-question. So my wife had to spend the remainder of the holidays watching Netflix (thank God for WiFi everywhere these days). From the overview image on the top of this post you might be able to tell I only switched on my tracker at 2pm on the same slope as the first day. Trying to limit the risks, I went up and down the same slopes for the rest of the day.
Wednesday Red Day
In case you’re thinking I was skiing at a very high speed by looking at the picture on the left, I’m afraid I’ll have to disappoint you. I had to drive my wife to the airport and I forgot to turn off the tracker again. Quite sure I never had a speed of over 100 km/h on skis. 🙂
Thursday Yellow Day
On the fifth day I had a lot of catching up to do, so you can see I did quite a broad coverage of a new area. On the timeline you can see a first hydration stop around 11am and a long lunch. Otherwise no special events for a change. Just a perfect day for skiing.
Friday Purple Day
On the last day we did a trip via some of the best slopes of the past few days through the whole domain. Being the most active day by far — confirmed by the statistics in Lucy Test Drive — this demanded extensive relaxation in the local “après ski” bar called the Kuhstall, German for cow shed, which gives an idea of the atmosphere. 😉
Despite the bad luck it was a great holiday I’ll never forget and if I do, Lucy Test Drive will help me to remember everything! Let’s hope that for once and for all my friends will remember what kind of software my company is developing.
If you also have GPX tracks, don’t hesitate to upload them onto the Lucy Test Drive because you can win a fitbit with it!
