Freelance from the tent
For more than two years of my work in the office, I had a huge number of interesting tasks, which sometimes were even too interesting and dragged out more than gaming machines and computer games. Many people eagerly and tremblingly await every Friday and sadly accompany the resurrection evening in anticipation of the next Monday. In my case, however, Mondays were not particularly afraid, since I was doing what I liked, and it was very pleasant to realize that I chose a profession that I liked.
But no matter how interesting the work of a programmer is, sooner or later it inevitably turns into a routine. Due to the interestingness of the tasks, the daily eight-hour working day passed almost unnoticed and for more than two years in the office after the university flashed by, as if two weeks. Being careful not to miss another 10 years of my life, I decided that I needed to change something. In parallel with the main job, I sometimes freelance to expand the stack of technologies and a small additional income, so I had the idea to switch to freelancing for a while, travel around the world and work from different cities. At the same time, I wanted to visit as many countries as possible, and not just to visit cities and famous sights, but to get to know the culture of each country, the way of life and the peculiarities of the local population, to see what, for example, eastern Bohemia differs from the western ... I got a brilliant idea to go to Europe on a bike.
Googling the forums, I learned that the average speed of a cyclist is 20-25 km per hour, and one can freely ride a bicycle about 100 kilometers a day even to an unprepared person. The figure is very impressive! At times faster than hiking, but slowly enough to fully enjoy the pleasures of roads and countries. Unfortunately, the last time I talked with the great 10 years ago was in the village of my grandmother, so before buying this unit I had a couple of weeks studying modern bicycle realities and technical advances. The choice fell on a used Trek four-year-old bike, which I bought at one of the online auctions, as it turned out, from one programmer, about 3 times cheaper than a new counterpart. Great was in pretty good condition: you see, the work did not often allow his former owner to ride. Therefore, after a small MOT, my new faithful horse was ready for the first test drive.
The first trip was a trip to the suburbs of Kiev with my friend about 70 kilometers in length. At the end of the day there was almost no fatigue, but the pain in the fifth point after that trip was difficult to describe in words. It was obvious that before a long trip, more practice was needed, so I started riding a bike at least 3 times a week: once or twice to work and 2-3 times as a small evening or morning walk.
')
A month after the first train, it was decided to try a longer distance, and I suggested to all my friends, who had great, to organize a tent cycling trip from Kiev to Lviv. About eight people agreed, but at the time of the start, there were two of us left: me and the guy, Seryozha, who bought the bike with me a month ago. About a hundred kilometers from Kiev, Serezha’s friend joined us from his city. The trip was very successful. We drove 560 km to Lvov in 4 days, spent the night mainly in a headscarf, and cooked food on a fire. At the same time, by the end of the cycle day, we usually did not feel completely dead, as is the case in hiking cycling trips. Sometimes there was only a slight fatigue. After this campaign, the idea of rides on a bike across Europe no longer seemed so unreal. Began preparing for the trip. I will not describe in detail the intricacies of preparing a bicycle and tourist equipment, and, perhaps, I will focus on the most interesting honor for an IT audience: preparing for freelancing from a bicycle.
I planned to go to Europe with a tent, to cook on a stove, sometimes to stay with friends, and, in extreme cases, in hostels. It was supposed to work in most cases from the field, forest, tent, beach and other places not very suitable for this, therefore it was necessary to solve the issue of electricity and the Internet.
So electricity. Since I had to ride a bike, it would be nice to use rolling energy. Initially, I thought to use the dynamos well known from childhood, which served to power bicycle lights. Unfortunately, it turned out that the explosives during operation produce a very unpleasant sound, which certainly will not let you enjoy the beauty of foreign lands and eat up to 30% (!) Of the efficiency of a cyclist. A little googling, I discovered that the dynamos have long been replaced by the so-called dynamo-hubs: bicycle bushes for the front wheel, which generate electricity when rolling. Unlike bottle-type dynamos, modern models of dynamo-parts hardly create any significant resistance and sound when driving. Unfortunately, only very entry-level models were sold in Ukrainian bicycle shops at a price 4-5 times higher than in European stores. Therefore, I ordered a high-quality Shimano DH-T675 dynamo unit in one German online store.
The parcel went about 3 days before Ukraine and week 2 crossed the Ukrainian border. Also, it was necessary to resolve the issue of recharging gadgets on rest days and to have some kind of backup power source, so I decided to look towards the solar panels. As it turned out, in the Ukrainian stores the prices for more or less sane solar batteries, which are really capable of charging at least something, started from 150 euros. A little googling, I found a wonderful Aliexpress website, where you could buy a lot of all sorts of things from China. A 10 watt solar panel cost a ridiculous $ 20 on this site.
To my surprise, unlike in Germany, the package from China reached 6 days. The battery was very high quality. A phone with a battery of 1100 milliamps was charged in the bright sun in about an hour and a half. Charging took place even in cloudy weather. In addition, the battery had a very convenient form of a booklet, which made it possible to mount it on the bicycle bag and recharge the gadgets even while driving. In addition to power sources, it was necessary to accumulate the generated electricity somewhere. The choice fell on an Xiaomi Power Bank external battery with a capacity of 16000mAh. One I decided to order from China, the second, for safety, took the original in Ukraine. With a Chinese battery, less fortunate than with a solar battery. Its capacity and weight were about one and a half times less than the original.
The dynamo output gave out alternating current with a voltage much greater than the voltage in the USB output of the computer. In addition, the voltage varied depending on the speed of the bike. Therefore, it was necessary to acquire a device that would allow transforming alternating current into direct current and stabilizing the output voltage. This was helped by my friend Igor, who was a good friend of electrical engineering and brought me this miracle .
Thus, the dynamo was connected to Igor's hand-made, which connected to the USB hub, from which the phone, which is used as a navigator, portable speaker and external battery, was powered. A solar battery was fastened on top of the bicycle bag, which charged the second power bank. Everything worked like a clock.
As a working computer, especially for the trip, I purchased a ten-inch tablet with a Lenovo miix 2 docking station. It turned out to be an average workhorse with a full-fledged Windows 8, eight hours of battery life, and it was one of the few ten-inch tablets that could charge from USB .
The question of the Internet, I first decided to purchase SIM cards international operator Goodline. For $ 1 a day, I get 20 megabytes of full Internet per day in any country in Europe. As expected, 20 megabytes were catastrophically low, so I used Goodline only in extreme cases.
In some countries, I bought a SIM card from a local operator, in some there was enough public Wi-Fi (for example, in Switzerland, there was free access to Wi-Fi in almost every cafe and every railway station).
I usually start driving around 5-6 in the morning, finishing around 9 in the evening. In the afternoon I do 2-3 breaks for work for 2-3 hours. In rainy and very hot weather, I sometimes work for 4-5 hours in a row. Due to the fact that I live mostly in a tent, with friends and couchsurfing, and I cook food on a burner, with such employment it turns out to earn 2-3 times more than I spend.
At the time of this writing, I am in a continuous bike ride for about two months. During this time, I managed to visit 8 countries, drive 5282 kilometers and get a huge pile of emotions. In general, the impressions are only positive. Efficiency in nature is much more, procrastination is much less. After working for 3-4 hours in the field, in the forest, on the seashore, under a canopy in the rain, from a tent, you feel more fully rested than tired of work, and the variety of working conditions and places hardly allows you to turn work into a routine.
And lastly, some working photos:
But no matter how interesting the work of a programmer is, sooner or later it inevitably turns into a routine. Due to the interestingness of the tasks, the daily eight-hour working day passed almost unnoticed and for more than two years in the office after the university flashed by, as if two weeks. Being careful not to miss another 10 years of my life, I decided that I needed to change something. In parallel with the main job, I sometimes freelance to expand the stack of technologies and a small additional income, so I had the idea to switch to freelancing for a while, travel around the world and work from different cities. At the same time, I wanted to visit as many countries as possible, and not just to visit cities and famous sights, but to get to know the culture of each country, the way of life and the peculiarities of the local population, to see what, for example, eastern Bohemia differs from the western ... I got a brilliant idea to go to Europe on a bike.
Googling the forums, I learned that the average speed of a cyclist is 20-25 km per hour, and one can freely ride a bicycle about 100 kilometers a day even to an unprepared person. The figure is very impressive! At times faster than hiking, but slowly enough to fully enjoy the pleasures of roads and countries. Unfortunately, the last time I talked with the great 10 years ago was in the village of my grandmother, so before buying this unit I had a couple of weeks studying modern bicycle realities and technical advances. The choice fell on a used Trek four-year-old bike, which I bought at one of the online auctions, as it turned out, from one programmer, about 3 times cheaper than a new counterpart. Great was in pretty good condition: you see, the work did not often allow his former owner to ride. Therefore, after a small MOT, my new faithful horse was ready for the first test drive.
The first trip was a trip to the suburbs of Kiev with my friend about 70 kilometers in length. At the end of the day there was almost no fatigue, but the pain in the fifth point after that trip was difficult to describe in words. It was obvious that before a long trip, more practice was needed, so I started riding a bike at least 3 times a week: once or twice to work and 2-3 times as a small evening or morning walk.
')
A month after the first train, it was decided to try a longer distance, and I suggested to all my friends, who had great, to organize a tent cycling trip from Kiev to Lviv. About eight people agreed, but at the time of the start, there were two of us left: me and the guy, Seryozha, who bought the bike with me a month ago. About a hundred kilometers from Kiev, Serezha’s friend joined us from his city. The trip was very successful. We drove 560 km to Lvov in 4 days, spent the night mainly in a headscarf, and cooked food on a fire. At the same time, by the end of the cycle day, we usually did not feel completely dead, as is the case in hiking cycling trips. Sometimes there was only a slight fatigue. After this campaign, the idea of rides on a bike across Europe no longer seemed so unreal. Began preparing for the trip. I will not describe in detail the intricacies of preparing a bicycle and tourist equipment, and, perhaps, I will focus on the most interesting honor for an IT audience: preparing for freelancing from a bicycle.
I planned to go to Europe with a tent, to cook on a stove, sometimes to stay with friends, and, in extreme cases, in hostels. It was supposed to work in most cases from the field, forest, tent, beach and other places not very suitable for this, therefore it was necessary to solve the issue of electricity and the Internet.
So electricity. Since I had to ride a bike, it would be nice to use rolling energy. Initially, I thought to use the dynamos well known from childhood, which served to power bicycle lights. Unfortunately, it turned out that the explosives during operation produce a very unpleasant sound, which certainly will not let you enjoy the beauty of foreign lands and eat up to 30% (!) Of the efficiency of a cyclist. A little googling, I discovered that the dynamos have long been replaced by the so-called dynamo-hubs: bicycle bushes for the front wheel, which generate electricity when rolling. Unlike bottle-type dynamos, modern models of dynamo-parts hardly create any significant resistance and sound when driving. Unfortunately, only very entry-level models were sold in Ukrainian bicycle shops at a price 4-5 times higher than in European stores. Therefore, I ordered a high-quality Shimano DH-T675 dynamo unit in one German online store.
The parcel went about 3 days before Ukraine and week 2 crossed the Ukrainian border. Also, it was necessary to resolve the issue of recharging gadgets on rest days and to have some kind of backup power source, so I decided to look towards the solar panels. As it turned out, in the Ukrainian stores the prices for more or less sane solar batteries, which are really capable of charging at least something, started from 150 euros. A little googling, I found a wonderful Aliexpress website, where you could buy a lot of all sorts of things from China. A 10 watt solar panel cost a ridiculous $ 20 on this site.
To my surprise, unlike in Germany, the package from China reached 6 days. The battery was very high quality. A phone with a battery of 1100 milliamps was charged in the bright sun in about an hour and a half. Charging took place even in cloudy weather. In addition, the battery had a very convenient form of a booklet, which made it possible to mount it on the bicycle bag and recharge the gadgets even while driving. In addition to power sources, it was necessary to accumulate the generated electricity somewhere. The choice fell on an Xiaomi Power Bank external battery with a capacity of 16000mAh. One I decided to order from China, the second, for safety, took the original in Ukraine. With a Chinese battery, less fortunate than with a solar battery. Its capacity and weight were about one and a half times less than the original.
The dynamo output gave out alternating current with a voltage much greater than the voltage in the USB output of the computer. In addition, the voltage varied depending on the speed of the bike. Therefore, it was necessary to acquire a device that would allow transforming alternating current into direct current and stabilizing the output voltage. This was helped by my friend Igor, who was a good friend of electrical engineering and brought me this miracle .
Thus, the dynamo was connected to Igor's hand-made, which connected to the USB hub, from which the phone, which is used as a navigator, portable speaker and external battery, was powered. A solar battery was fastened on top of the bicycle bag, which charged the second power bank. Everything worked like a clock.
As a working computer, especially for the trip, I purchased a ten-inch tablet with a Lenovo miix 2 docking station. It turned out to be an average workhorse with a full-fledged Windows 8, eight hours of battery life, and it was one of the few ten-inch tablets that could charge from USB .
The question of the Internet, I first decided to purchase SIM cards international operator Goodline. For $ 1 a day, I get 20 megabytes of full Internet per day in any country in Europe. As expected, 20 megabytes were catastrophically low, so I used Goodline only in extreme cases.
In some countries, I bought a SIM card from a local operator, in some there was enough public Wi-Fi (for example, in Switzerland, there was free access to Wi-Fi in almost every cafe and every railway station).
I usually start driving around 5-6 in the morning, finishing around 9 in the evening. In the afternoon I do 2-3 breaks for work for 2-3 hours. In rainy and very hot weather, I sometimes work for 4-5 hours in a row. Due to the fact that I live mostly in a tent, with friends and couchsurfing, and I cook food on a burner, with such employment it turns out to earn 2-3 times more than I spend.
At the time of this writing, I am in a continuous bike ride for about two months. During this time, I managed to visit 8 countries, drive 5282 kilometers and get a huge pile of emotions. In general, the impressions are only positive. Efficiency in nature is much more, procrastination is much less. After working for 3-4 hours in the field, in the forest, on the seashore, under a canopy in the rain, from a tent, you feel more fully rested than tired of work, and the variety of working conditions and places hardly allows you to turn work into a routine.
And lastly, some working photos:
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/292970/
All Articles