Going Postal, Again

Today's Very Limited Tracking, only 3 Points Reported

Today's thrilling video (HAH) shows me as I approach our turnoff from Frost Road, a nicely paved roadway.
One might notice, upon close observance, the shoulder which is nice and wide and normally conducive to riding a bike or trike upon therewith.  However, with recent snowstorms, you can easily see the shoulder is full of rocks, sand, mud, and assorted debris, forcing cyclists like me to either risk life and limb riding to the left of the white shoulder line or take the nasty chances of sliding and slipping on loose rocks and gravel to the right of the line.  There IS a so called multi purpose trail along this stretch, leaving only a few hundred yards from Camino Alto to our turnoff without the "bike path", but it has cracked and heaved so much  over its short  lifetime that it is more difficult to ride than up on the main road, mixing it up with automobiles, trucks, and motorcycles.

All of these complaints fade, however, when I drop off the pavement onto our goat-path mile of dirt road leading to our house.  As can be seen, I can ride it except on the steepest hills (which make up only about a fourth of the mile in total) but it is indeed a rough ride.

I really got off late today for the ride, and wound up only doing the 5-ish mile ride to the Post Office and back.  I planned to do a late morning ride instead of a nearly-dark ride but just about the time I thought I was headed out the door, my darling daughter called and asked if I was on my way already to take her to her OB/GYN appointment.  ZOUNDS !  I had totally spaced out on my committment to drive her to ABQ today, so I zipped over to her place faster than the law allows and spent the next couple hours doing the Albuquerque-and-back commute.
Then, of course, after I arrived home, I wasted precious daylight putzing around the house, and wound up taking off on the ride at almost 5:00 PM already.  Thank goodness the days are getting longer now so I still had mostly daylight to contend with.
First thing I noticed was the battery pack failed to light up the electronics.  I was already in danger of not having enough time for even a short ride so I grabbed one of my emergency battery packs and plugged that in for the ride, and it had been sitting without a trickle charger so it was pretty much worthless too, although it DID keep my Garmin GPS running throughout the ride, all 5 miles of it.  Even though the available daylight was limited and low in the sky, the solar panel seemed to help the wobbly battery, as the ending voltage was higher than the beginning voltage.  None of which was high enough to keep both radios and GPS stuff lit up.
Then, when I arrived home to look at the GPS track on Google Maps, I saw I had only gotten 3 positions transmitted successfully.  So not only was my battery flat, but my home station Igate was locked up and didn't hear any of my low powered bike transmissions.  The 3 that got through came through Sandia Crest, which is very hard to "hit" radio wise with a low powered bike setup, because of all the TV and radio stations creating too much nearby background interference up there.  SIGH


Ride Started: 4:42 PM    Ride Ended:  5:47 PM
Beginning Battery Voltage:   8.9   Ending Voltage: 9.1  Lowest:  8.9
Lowest Temp  53 F      Highest Temp:  55 F 
Stats from the GPS:    Total Miles:  5.54
Overall average speed            Moving Avg               Max Speed
  4.9 MPH                                7.0 MPH                 25.5 MPH
Total Trip time                       Moving Time             Stopped Time
1 hour 7 mins                        47 minutes                  19  minutes