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I don't know much about Instagram, but I created an account as an experiment to see if I like it for easily sharing adventure photos.

Sean and I are on a 7 to 9 day ADV in NM, CO, hopefully UT. Started in KS this morning and rode a bit of OK, too. Mostly on TAT so far, but that is not our plan for the whole route.

Feel free to check out the pics on Instagram.
https://www.instagram.com/troy.adv

Great pics, should be an interesting story to hear when you guys are done with this trip. CHK 666 ??? Must be a new Sonic, but what are the odds of pulling that number.

Like to hear how that African Twin performs on this trip, I'm thinking about selling the 690 and going with either the new KTM 1090 R or the Africa Twin for my big bike option.

Sean loved how the Africa Twin performed! I got to ride it on some rough stuff, and it is very nice. That automatic transmission is butter smooth and shifts a lot faster than a normal transmission.

When we encountered a closed forest road on the UTBDR, rather than back-track and re-route many, many miles, we opted for a "blue" ATV trail that went down the mountain to connect with a forest road. We hit an area that would break the rule of "don't ride down what you can't ride up". ...in fact, we couldn't even ride down it. So we walked the mile RT to see what else the trail had in store for us. Together, we walked the bikes down one at a time through the nastiest bit before riding the rest of the trail.

Sean broke off his right foot peg mount and I crushed my oil filter causing a slow leak. We made it into Moab, UT--probably one of the best places to be broke down if you need welding, etc. After an evening of repair and a fantastic meal at Pasta Jays, we were back on the road.

About 1,750 miles total, near perfect weather the entire trip, awesome camping, zero injuries, no show-stopping bike issues, and only near-misses with wildlife. #ADV!

We trailered my F800GS and Sean's Africa Twin to Hugoton, KS. From there, we quickly hit the TAT in OK and ran it into CO. Somewhere in there we connected to the N end of the NMBDR and ran it S for a day. In, NM, we routed W to Bluff, UT where we picked up the UTBDR and ran N to Moab. From Moab, we headed a bit N then meandered E across CO to spend a night with friends in Montrose, CO before making our way back to Hugoton, KS.

In all, 8 days straight on the bikes and about 1,750 miles. We hit all kinds of terrain from prairie, to mountain passes with snow to desert to pine & aspen forests to sandy washes and crossed hundreds of cattle guards!

https://www.instagram.com/troy.adv/

RE: https://www.instagram.com/troy.adv/

Follow-up regarding my "Instagram experiment". Instagram turned out to be a really easy, convenient way to share photos with family "live" during the adventure. More than once I went almost 24 hours without any cell coverage, so "live" meant as soon as I had enough data access.

While it's easy to go overboard with editing and various photo effects, I do think the simple filters helped to enhance several of my photos. I probably ended up using a filter on 50% of the photos I posted. For the other 50%, I felt the "raw" photo looked better or good enough. I definitely did not like the filters that altered the colors in a dramatic way--seems fake, which turns me off.

Now the downside. Turns out that once your photos are in Instagram, they are kind of held prisoner. Yes, there are ways to get your photos out of the system for use elsewhere, but Instagram does not make it easy. For example, Instagram does not provide a URL you can use to embed your photos in systems like RideForum or AdvRider. This leaves me needing to upload my photos to a different online photo hosting system in order to share them on AdvRider, etc. Ugh. I really want to share the Instagram photos directly since they have been cropped, filtered, etc.

What Instagram does provide is an "embed" code feature that gives you a "data URL" for your image, but most forum systems (like RideForum, AdvRider, etc.), won't play nice with data URLs. I understand why Instagram does this---they don't want any system resource being used unless people are directly viewing the Instagram system.

I don't really care about the ability of my photos to "go viral" or for hundreds of people to discover my photos socially through hashtags and social degrees, although it was interesting to see strangers and companies liking my photos or start following my account. I do care that it's something my family will use--that makes it almost automatic for them to see my photos. For example, I can send my family a link to a RideForum.NET topic where I post all my ride photos, but they are unlikely to make the effort to go there daily to see my photos. So it seems important that I put my photos into whatever streams they are already watching....which means one of the major social networks such as Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, MyFaceGram, etc.

So what do I do? I think I'll explore the Imgur app. Imgur is free and they do everything they can to make it extremely easy and flexible to use your photos anyway and everywhere you want. I don't know how successful I'd be at getting people to "follow" me on imgur, but for a big multi-day ride event, I think those that care to know if I'm alive (my wife and daughter) would be willing to install imgur and watch my photos--at least temporarily during the event.

It does not appear the Imgur app provides any cool effect filters like Instagram, but I bet I can find an app just for that so I can touch photos before uploading in Imgur.....but if it's too many steps, it means I'm less likely to add photos.


Technology is a love/hate thing with me for sure!

SmugMug is probably a great choice, but it's not free...not that EVERYTHING has to be free if you receive value from it. Luc, if you are reading this--I know you use SmugMug. Do you use the app on your phone?

Just an FYI - There is a way, but quite cumbersome. Right-click on an image and "open link in new tab", then right-click on that page and "view page source", then search for jpg. Optional - Highlight all the link, right-click, then "open link in new tab". Copy and paste the link. Easy Peasy.

Thanks, OHjim. Yeah, it's possible, just not convenient nor supported by Instagram--meaning that link could quit working down the road. (I hit F12 and use the developer tool to get the image URL.)

The more I've thought about it, paying the small annual fee for Smugmug probably makes most sense for me and my picture needs in the areas of preserving, sharing albums, and embedding in other systems.

That AT looks nice!

Photobucket?

Quick follow-up. I have been using a paid SmugMug account for a few months now, and it could not be better. They make it VERY easy to get photos into the system, access your photos, share your photos, and link to them or embed them in every way possible.

More recently I installed the Android phone app and now my photos and videos auto-upload as I take them on my phone (once on WiFi). I set them to upload into a private gallery. Then it's easy on the computer or the app to curate the photos and put what I want to share in a public gallery. I signed up for the basic plan, and if paid annually, is $48 per year. Me happy.

You can be happy too: https://secure.smugmug.com/signup?Coupon=sZCxdT

troy wrote:Quick follow-up. I have been using a paid SmugMug account for a few months now, and it could not be better. They make it VERY easy to get photos into the system, access your photos, share your photos, and link to them or embed them in every way possible.

More recently I installed the Android phone app and now my photos and videos auto-upload as I take them on my phone (once on WiFi). I set them to upload into a private gallery. Then it's easy on the computer or the app to curate the photos and put what I want to share in a public gallery. I signed up for the basic plan, and if paid annually, is $48 per year. Me happy.

You can be happy too: https://secure.smugmug.com/signup?Coupon=sZCxdT

Good deal indeed!!!