Clinton to Osawatomie
Yesterday I rode from Clinton, Missouri to Osawatomie, Kansas. It was a nice ride, and especially nice to be back on hard pavement again. I started riding really early in the morning, about 4am. That meant I rode about an hour in the pitch dark, which was a little freaky. I have a 3-LED headlight on my bike, which is fine to see the way if there are no other lights around. There were often no other lights around. It was kind of cool to be able to star-gaze while cycling. I could just about make out where the Milky Way was before I'd start veering dangerously.
After that first hour, the sun very gradually brightened up my world. At first there is just a hint that something is different. Then I start seeing the lines on the road in places where my light isn't shining and seeing silhouettes of trees and cows and buildings. Eventually I turn off my headlight because I can see OK and want to save battery. Even at this point it is still at least an hour before I actually see the sun - all this light is just reflecting around in the sky above. It doesn't start getting noticeably hotter until the sun actually hits my back directly, and even then it takes a couple hours before it gets bad. By that time, I'm almost to my destination for the day.
This riding in the dark doesn't lend itself to lots of photographs, but I sure am happier riding during the cool part of the day.
If you click on this photo to look at the big version, you can see in the center that the road ahead of me is a long straight series of ups and downs. Lots of work.
In Osawatomie I bought a cheap mp3 player at a Radio Shack. I mean cheap in quality, not in price. Oh well, when's the next time I'm going to be in a town big enough to have a well-stocked modern electronic-doodad store? It's a discontinued model ("My Musix" brand), and I have already worked out its primary failing. It does not understand subdirectories! I'm using it with a 2Gig SD flash card, which represents about 600 songs, or 60 albums, give or take. That's a lot of files to have just in one big list. It's also a lot of songs to scroll through one-by-one to find the music you want to listen to. It's especially a lot of songs to scroll through when it does not know how to remember what it was playing when you turned it off.
All that aside, having music while I ride makes it a different trip. A better trip I think, definitely an easier one. Today I was struck by the surrealism of riding through countryside similar to that pictured above and listening to this. This means I miss (some of) the cicada sounds, the birds, the wind in the trees. It also means a lot of time flies by without me wondering what the hell I'm doing out there. You might think it means I don't hear cars coming up from behind me, but believe me it's hard to miss the sound of 60mph tires approaching on asphalt when you associate that sound with the possibility of sudden death. Besides, there is generally not much I can do... I already ride as close as I am comfortable to the edge of the road, and beyond that it is up to the driver to see me and avoid me.
Today I also started to use my little rear-view mirror which clips onto my glasses. It lets me see the cars and trucks approaching from behind, but all I can do is make sure I'm over to the right. I do tend to watch them approach up to the last second now, so I suppose I could dive off into the weeds if I noticed someone not avoiding me. It really adds an extra element of tension though, to be constantly aware of exactly where the cars are behind me. I don't know if it's a net benefit or not.
After that first hour, the sun very gradually brightened up my world. At first there is just a hint that something is different. Then I start seeing the lines on the road in places where my light isn't shining and seeing silhouettes of trees and cows and buildings. Eventually I turn off my headlight because I can see OK and want to save battery. Even at this point it is still at least an hour before I actually see the sun - all this light is just reflecting around in the sky above. It doesn't start getting noticeably hotter until the sun actually hits my back directly, and even then it takes a couple hours before it gets bad. By that time, I'm almost to my destination for the day.
This riding in the dark doesn't lend itself to lots of photographs, but I sure am happier riding during the cool part of the day.
If you click on this photo to look at the big version, you can see in the center that the road ahead of me is a long straight series of ups and downs. Lots of work.In Osawatomie I bought a cheap mp3 player at a Radio Shack. I mean cheap in quality, not in price. Oh well, when's the next time I'm going to be in a town big enough to have a well-stocked modern electronic-doodad store? It's a discontinued model ("My Musix" brand), and I have already worked out its primary failing. It does not understand subdirectories! I'm using it with a 2Gig SD flash card, which represents about 600 songs, or 60 albums, give or take. That's a lot of files to have just in one big list. It's also a lot of songs to scroll through one-by-one to find the music you want to listen to. It's especially a lot of songs to scroll through when it does not know how to remember what it was playing when you turned it off.
All that aside, having music while I ride makes it a different trip. A better trip I think, definitely an easier one. Today I was struck by the surrealism of riding through countryside similar to that pictured above and listening to this. This means I miss (some of) the cicada sounds, the birds, the wind in the trees. It also means a lot of time flies by without me wondering what the hell I'm doing out there. You might think it means I don't hear cars coming up from behind me, but believe me it's hard to miss the sound of 60mph tires approaching on asphalt when you associate that sound with the possibility of sudden death. Besides, there is generally not much I can do... I already ride as close as I am comfortable to the edge of the road, and beyond that it is up to the driver to see me and avoid me.
Today I also started to use my little rear-view mirror which clips onto my glasses. It lets me see the cars and trucks approaching from behind, but all I can do is make sure I'm over to the right. I do tend to watch them approach up to the last second now, so I suppose I could dive off into the weeds if I noticed someone not avoiding me. It really adds an extra element of tension though, to be constantly aware of exactly where the cars are behind me. I don't know if it's a net benefit or not.
posted by Dave at 4:25 PM
1 Comments:
I've often thought about getting one of those mirrors for when I'm riding in traffic. That's pretty different from what you're doing though.
It seems to me that it's mostly useful if you want to switch lanes or cross over to use a left turn lane.
curt
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