ham radio aprs bike tracker
The ride back to the car tonight was very frigid indeed. I wore all my cold weather gear including sweat jacket, windbreaker, polar fleece skull/ear cap, ski mask, and ski mittens. I was not wearing my turtleneck base layer shirt nor hand warmers in the mittens. It was very cold the first 3 miles and then quickly got too hot in the chest and arms so I had to unzip both sweatshirt and windbreaker. That made me uncomfortably cool the rest of the ride, but it was better than getting even hotter and more sweaty and then colder with more freezing sweat.
Just after I turned East off the North Diversion Channel Trail onto the Hahn Arroyo trail, I was startled to hear someone saying "Hey!" I looked around, seeing nothing, and 3 more "HEY"s occurred before I noticed a blur to my left in the dark and it turned out to be another cyclist coming toward me, without lights, with dark clothing, and without even any reflectors. I barely missed him as I passed since he wasn't visible until I was on top of him. He was still spouting "Hey!" as I went past him, and I asked him sarcastically "Where's your light, Bub?"
I swear at least 3 our of 4 cyclists I meet in the dark are like this: Totally devoid of any lights, bright clothing, or reflectors. It must be a manly biker thing to charge through the night, relying on starlight, moonlight, passing headlights, and the occasional street light to see the path or obstacles in front of you. Walkers are even more rarely equipped with night gear, and it's a wonder we don't have more collisions and injuries for the media to go nuts about.
I REALLY appreciate the cyclists and walkers who use lights and reflective clothing of any kind. I've even met dog walkers with blinkies on their dogs, which is a wonderful thing at night.
Cold ride, but no ice encountered tonight..... a wonderful thing.
Evening stats from the GPS:
Overall average speed Moving Avg Max Speed
8.2 Mph 10.6 mph 22.7 mph
Total Trip time Moving Time Stopped Time
54:37 mins 41.59 mins 12.38 mins
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