Poor APRS Tracking Today
I had a lunch date today with some former co-workers and current friends, Mark K5LXP and Tai AE5HS. So in spite of the cold I decided to ride the bike there and back. Jacque was driving to Tijeras at the same time anyway so she offered to give me a lift there and let me and the bike go from there. That saved me a long hill-climb and about 9 miles on a 26-mile (each way) trip.
I was layered up and very glad of it as I rode into Albuquerque via Old Route 66 in the cool breeze. But it was GREAT to be back on the bike again rolling under my own steam.
When I got through Tijeras Canyon I was sufficiently warmed such that I removed my outer jacket and skull cap and switched from padded ski mittens to full-fingered bike gloves..... and almost immediately my fingers got too cold so I switched to my gun-mittens that have a velcro pocket that covers the fingers to keep them warm but easily fold open at the fingers so that such things as gun triggers, radio buttons, etc, can be operated. They were not so suffocating as the ski mittens but warmer than the thinner gloves so I had happy hands from thenceforth.
I realized about the time I got to Albuquerque that I had not turned on the beacon function on my handheld Kenwood TH-D7 tracker radio, so any tracking started late, and then it didn't seem to report very many positions. So it only tracked about 7 miles out of the twenty-something miles each way. BAH
My blood glucose was distressingly high during the trip into town, and was 227 - still way too high - when I arrived at the restaurant. I worried that my insulin pump's infusion site was boogered and not actually getting any insulin into play. I didn't have any way to change any of this on this trip so I just set the pump for the high BG and hoped for the best. I also didn't eat a whole lot, less than 40 grams of carbs, worrying about the elevated BG. After lunch as I was pedaling back toward home I thought I'd better check the blood glucose again to make sure it wasn't too high and it was too LOW for comfort, even though I'd just eaten. The BG reading was 107 or so at that time so I ate some stashed cookies and rode on. Before I left the city limits I'd stopped at least 3 times from feeling woozy and finding the blood sugar was 50-something. Each time I ate some more and kept riding, and just couldn't seem to get enough carbs in me to keep the BG up where it should be. This, even after backing the insulin pump way down to avoid insulin reactions. So evidently the pump is working well but I did not dose it correctly earlier in the day.
I took one of these breaks at the Eubank bike underpass and as I was eating my snack, a fellow walked out from the underpass looking like a street-person, and when I turned around to watch him pass he had disappeared. I spotted him climbing up the bank towards the Eubank off-ramp from I-40, a popular spot for panhandlers.... he had somehow scaled the chain link fence that was over 6 feet tall. When I looked at the fence a bit more closely I spotted an opening that had been ripped in the fence for evidently just this purpose, panhandling access to the aforementioned intersection. As I walked closer and looked at it to see if it had been cut with wire cutters, it evidently had been a joint in the fence that had been opened up by panhandlers..... and it had a PADLOCK hanging on the fence, to refasten it closed, obviously an attempt by some nervy panhandler to restrict this access for his own use. I've heard that panhandlers are quite jealous and protective of their favorite "Spots", but this was funny.
Coming eastbound, mostly gradually uphill, I was running out of steam. I called Jacque and asked for a rescue mission and she appeared a half hour later and I was saved. Again. I need to ride more regularly to keep my stamina up, though I'm finding it difficult to dedicate entire days to longer trips. I love cycling but I have other things to do, unfortunately.
Stats from the GPS: Total Miles: 32.71
Overall average speed Moving Avg Max Speed
6.6 MPH 9.3 MPH 23.2 MPH
Total Trip time Moving Time Stopped Time
4 hours 55 mins 3 hours 30 mins 1 hour 25 minutes
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