Saturday, February 12, 2011

Friday's Evening Ride Home

The days are getting slowly longer and that, as they say, is a wonderful thing.
Another repeating mild irritation occurred:  As I doodled along through the Hahn Neighborhood, I came up behind 3 people, dressed in dark clothing, walking abreast and blocking the trail.  I called out from about 50 feet behind, "Passing on Your Left!"  Whereupon they stopped, turned around to look, then shuffled to the LEFT, so I called again, this time saying "Okay, Passing on your RIGHT".  I guess they were listening to some degree because they laughed at this statement and I passed them, on the right, without incident.What frustrates me is that all the ABQ trails have frequent signs detailing a few easily understood "Rules of the Trail":
-Keep to the Right
-Pass on the Left
All of which are routinely ignored by walkers in particular and even the occasional cyclist.  Ya wonder if people can't read, don't read, or just think they don't need to be bothered by silly signs OR rules.
I really enjoy  my radio, GPS, etc, up on the handlebars where I can view them.
A couple of issues I'm cogitation about:
-The new color Garmin 350 GPS is great, but the display is a bit too bright at night and partially night-blinds me, even though it dims itself automatically at sundown.  The whole electronics display reflects enough of my headlamp light to irritate me at night and  I'm trying to figure out how to hinge the mounting plate so I could fold them horizontal, more out of view, facing either forward or back, to minimize glare.  Maybe a better solution is to mount a headlight in FRONT of the electronics, so the headlight glare does not shine on it at all but only the view in front of the bike. I haven't had great luck with handlebar mounted lights, with the light wobbling and shining only where the handlebars happen to be aimed.
With the lamp on my helmet the light turns with my head and I have light where I'm looking , which comes in handy.  If you notice a faint smell of smoke, it's probably only my brain grinding away on such deep subjects...

Evening stats from the GPS:
Overall average speed     Moving Avg      Max Speed
9.4  Mph                           11.0 mph          21.9 mph
Total Trip time                Moving Time     Stopped Time
47.255 mins                     40.39 mins          6.46 mins

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