For this Explorer Tale we introduce you to a Stephan Geissler who put VeloViewer to good use during the pandemic to uncover tiles closer to home. Hear how Stephan’s tile hunting took off at Frankfurt airport.
Stephan’s Explorer Tiles experience
It was with the Pandemic coming over the world that I discovered Tile Hunting as a new “challenge” which can be done from home without any travelling. It played to the geekiness in me, as my profession is working for a company building digital maps (mostly used in Navigation systems).
I don’t have to tell you that the first Max Square extensions come in quite quickly and soon the first “obstacles” approach. The biggest logistical challenge was to get a Tile located in the middle of the International Airport of Frankfurt (Germany). At a certain point I had all the tiles around the airport, but the one in the middle was missing. Until one day I went “all in”!
One Sunday I went on my gravel bike to the airport, used some questionable roads to get to the terminal and went WITH my bike into the terminal – with facemask, since it was early 2021 with the “second wave” of Covid. It was not long before I lost GPS signal, but in the terminal there is a shopping gallery with a glass roof and there the GPS unit picked up the signal again, and the tile went green on my Garmin – there is an app for Garmin devices telling you if you get the tiles!
Since then, I am still getting out on the road and/or gravel to explore locations I have never been to yet (at least not by bike) to expand my Maximum Square (which is at 40 right now). Despite this most importantly it has shown me some “beauties” in my home region – a specific place or a segment of road/path – exactly what VeloViewer is about: Get out and explore!
Your bike of choice
It is mixed. Basically, I originally come from the road and always enjoy that. However this year I was riding more and more on my gravel bike – also since some tiles are not possible to reach by road bike gravel is a great option. I have to admit to being a BMC fan boy. Therefore my weapons of choice are a BMC TMR01 aero bike for the road, and a BMC URS gravel bike for off-road.
Your Explorer Score
My current score is 9692.
What’s your next planned adventure?
I’m still planning but for now I have a week of Mallorca in February (not sure yet, if any of my friends will join), and a week with friends in the Ventoux area. Both with road bikes and not very much tile related. Same for a trip to the Netherlands for a gravel ride in the Utrecht area. Regarding tiles for sure I try to extend still my MAX square (which is currently 40×40) which meanwhile does require almost every time an epic day in the saddle to reach some new tiles – maybe I am a bit “old school” in this, but taking a car to drive to the “border” and having rides there is not my cup of tea!
Do you have your own stories to tell about your own VeloViewer Explorer Tile hunting? Email us at veloviewer@gmail.com and you could win a VeloViewer casquette.