Let’s Talk About Exploration.
One of the biggest reasons I fell in love with riding is because of where it took me. All of a sudden I was seeing things that other kids my age weren't seeing. I was learning how to navigate and read maps and plan in the age before google maps and strava and Ride With GPS. Riding also allowed me to start seeing the country and then the world and just fuel constant adventures.
Many of you know how much I talk about Wandrer Earth. As goals in my riding have changed it has really given me that same feeling of those initial days of riding.
Some of you might know the founder Craig Durkin and are very familiar with Wandrer. But if you don't, back in the mid-to-late Aughts (are we allowed to call the 2000's the aughts?) Craig was part of the crew that was running around the then empty urban Atlanta with FM24 and every local alley cat on the block. At the same time Craig was also involved with Concrete Jungle Atlanta and exploring around looking for urban fruit trees, from apples to figs and paw-paws and more. The USFS ended up giving Craig and his crew a grant to map and identify all the urban fruit trees in Atlanta. So that they didn't double up on riding down streets in search of fruit trees, Craig created a program based on his GPS tracks to show him what areas he had explored and not explored, and that was the start of Wandrer.
Wandrer Earth has evolved from those practical beginnings to the game it is today with over 70,000 users worldwide. If you thought pokemon go was fun and played it while riding your bike, Wandrer gives you credit for each unique mile you. Never gone down that cul de sac, or wondered where that road goes. Wandrer down there.
Are you competitive? Well, score bonus points by riding every street in a neighborhood or your city. Rack up enough points in a month, and you get bonus points for being the big boss on Wandrer in your locale that month. Or maybe even THE WORLD!
I'm proud to say, that even only riding about 800 miles last year I'm still managing to hang in the top few hundred of Wandrers in the world. I'm definitely excited to get back out there in 2024 and finish off a few cities I've been chipping away. Also there's the possibility of exploring even more roads that maybe I can show you Gravel Rollers at some point. Sign up and join me! We're going to do some fun interactions with Wandrer this year, and we'd love to have you a part of the adventure.
