This project is slowly coming together. I have ironed out most of the details and technicalities. However, as with any project, changes will happen – but overall I think that I have fundamentals in order. Now all I have to do, is to get on with it and start cycling. Today is the first trip, one of many to come. It has been planned carefully. I am calling my trips sorties, a military term for a mission.

“Sortie is a term for deployment of one military aircraft or a ship for the purposes of a specific mission, whether alone, or with other aircrafts or vessels.”

I like the idea of going on a mission, although I am not manoeuvring a ship or flying an aircraft – but cycling. The term also entails that each trip has been carefully planned. On today’s mission I need to figure out whether using a GPS device will enable me to pin-point my way to where I want to go, as opposed to using a regular paper based map for navigation.

Photographically I also need to work out the exact details of my picture making. At the moment I don’t really know what to photograph once I actually get to a waypoint.

The GPS device requires reception from a minimum of three satellites to be successfully used as a navigation device. If it can catch more than that the signal and precision of my location will be more exact. I will be using the GPS for two things:

- Let it guide me to my waypoints that have been pre-programmed into it. – To track my path through the streets of London.

Today’s trip starts with a ride down Kings Avenue. At the end of the road leading to Clapham North, the condition of the road changes considerably to what I called paved hell (bits of road up by Kings Road are in a similarly bad shape). It has been repaired so many times that it is impossible to spot an original piece of asphalt. The English, I think, seem to be particularly keen at ripping up a perfectly good road and re-asphalting it again, for what seems no reason. Maybe I am wrong, but it’s very peculiar and perhaps worth investigating.

Waypoint number one is called richy and is neatly nested in a small council estate. There is nothing particularly interesting or fascinating about the place except for what appears to be a piece of corporate sculpture that decorates its entrance. The streets around it are empty aside from a couple of lone teenagers kicking a football around. I stop and get off my bike to take some photographs of the waypoint. Just above me a British Airways Airbus is making its approach into Heathrow Airport.

I leave richy behind and cycle almost straight ahead to point number two, 1.4 nautical miles away. The point is called pilok. I circle around a bit and a woman asks me whether I am lost. “No, no, I know exactly where I am”, I answer – which I do, but I am just having difficulties getting as close as possible to my waypoint. I take my picture pointing the camera in the general direction of Heathrow.

I leave quickly. Traffic on the road is good. The next waypoint is somewhere in the Peckham area, which I locate quickly. I find it tucked between a couple of apartment buildings. A family with a couple children are carrying their groceries from the car into their apartment. They completely ignore my presence, which is fine by me. Point number four of the day is called bekum and is in Denmark Hill. I locate it tucked away on a small side street at the entrance of a small private housing estate. In the distance a man is cleaning his motorcycle. He keeps looking suspiciously in my direction throughout my stop. I take my picture and leave the scene. From thereon onwards it’s a straight drive home, hitting Coldhabour Lane to Brixton.