Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Weather?

Coming back to the car from work tonight I spotted one of my favorite irritations:  A guy on a motorcycle riding the bicycle path.  When I approached, he rode down into the drainage channel and waited for me to pass.  I stopped and dug out the cell phone and enabled the movie camera function and waited for him to come back up on the trail.  He wouldn't do it;  perhaps he realized what I was up to.  I finally started rolling and took the following video of him down in the channel:

I need to find a video toaster so I can edit out the upside-down portions of the video, wonderfully focused shots of my fingers and handlebars, pavement underneath the bike, etc.  Right after I passed this guy he started up the motorcycle again and rode up on the bicycle path and put-putted back and forth several times before disappearing down the trail.  BAH
I spent part of Sunday measuring my battery current consumption with my old and new GPS/Radio combinations.  I was a bit shocked to find the new GPS consumes battery juice at about TWICE the rate of the old Magellan:
Device measured                                                               Current Drain (amps)
Magellan GPS (old, monochrome, very little mapping)         .090
Garmin 350 GPS (great GPS, good color maps)                 .16
TH-D7 Ham Radio HT, receive only, no GPS                    .16
TH-D7 transmitting, 5 Watts high power, no GPS             1.60
TH-D7 transmitting, 5 Watts high power, with Garmin  on 3.20 (Ouch)
TH-D7 transmitting, 5 Watts high power, with Magellan    1.48
So no wonder my batteries go flat when I talk a lot on voice on the radio.  The Tracker / Locator beacon function only occurs every 30 seconds and transmits for about half a second each time so that doesn't eat the battery too terribly.  But yacking on voice.... Mercy. This certainly proves I would need much heavier batteries (or a hub generator, which is not only expensive but I fear would slow me down)  for  a bike trip lasting longer than 2 hours, UNLESS I turned off the voice function and just let the beacon run by itself.  BAH
BG before ride home:  223   BG after getting home, no snack yet: 136 
Evening stats from the GPS:    Total Distance Miles:  7.43
Overall average speed     Moving Avg      Max Speed
09.9  Mph                            11.2 mph            22.0 mph
Total Trip time                Moving Time     Stopped Time
  45:00 mins                       39:52 mins          05:08 mins                                                   


I was surprised at the scarcity of riders this morning.  Yes, the wind was gusty yesterday and it rained & snowed a little in the area (in the East Mountains we were surprised to find at least an inch of snow on the ground, with the temperature barely freezing at 31 degrees).  However, it was relatively sunny and clear in Albuquerque when I drove in this morning so of course I rode the bike.  It was coated with a couple inches of snow and slush when I left home but it was almost dried off when I got to my parking space.  Of course there was still a bit of ice and moisture in my webbed recumbent seat but it wasn't bad and seemed to  dry up in only a mile or so of pedaling warmth.  I passed maybe 3 other cyclists and ONE runner (who evidently stays slim and shapely by jogging even when it's a bit cold), compared to the usual 10 or more cyclists and dog walkers I usually see.
Awakening BG:  155      Post-Ride BG:  82
Morning Stats from the GPS:                       Total Miles:  7.43 Overall average speed      Moving Avg         Max Speed
10.1  Mph                          11.5 mph             20.9 mph
Total Trip time                   Moving Time       Stopped Time
44:05 mins                          38:49 mins            05:10 mins