Today's Tracking Thanks to KK4BYX, N4YH, and W4KCO
Last night, Monday, I was tempted to try a trike ride in the lengthy dusk - a nicely lighted sky lasts at least a couple hours after the sun goes down behind the trees on the horizon. BUT, since it was Monday, and normally time for Family Home Evening, I talked Jacque into letting me massage her feet. She didn't put up much of a struggle.
So, this morning, Tuesday, I decided to try riding early - before the sun got up above the tree line - and drove the Exploder down to the junction of Highway 68 and 27 and saddled up the trike and rode from there.
I've mentioned before that Highway 68 is a busy busy road with lots of logging and other large trucks all traveling over the speed limit.... AND there is no shoulder. Vehicles approaching a cyclist or other SLOW moving vehicle must slow down and wait for oncoming traffic to clear before going around.... or run over the offending slowpoke. I prefer not to give them such a horrible choice.... having to slow down is a criminal offence, after all. So I ride other roads and especially route 27, which has wonderfully wide shoulders all the way to Dayton TN.
On today's ride I hadn't gone more than a couple miles before I spotted a mule-drawn wagon coming the other way. We had seen this rig a couple days ago and I wanted to hear their story, so I rode on until I found a crossover between the 4 lanes and turned around and chased them down. One of the few vehicles I have easily outrun. These mules were in no danger of overheating, just slowly plodding along. A middle aged Tennessean was driving the contraption and two teenage young men were accompanying him on separate horses. The teenager in the rear was pleased to see me as I rode up behind them, but his horse was severely spooked by my trike with its waving bike flags and clicking chain and weird driver (me). The youngster laughed and stayed mounted in spite of his horse rearing and shying from me. I pulled up alongside the wagon so I could talk to the driver and keep the wagon between me and the skittish horse. The mules pulling the wagon took no notice of me whatsoever.
The bearded driver was all smiles and answered my questions about his rig and purposes: "Ah have 7 days off work and we're just ridin' around enjoying life. We live just back thar a little ways." We exchanged Howdy's and I sped on around them after making sure I had a gap in the traffic behind me. Then I found another crossover and turned back around to complete my 10-mile goal for the morning. Blast. I shoulda gotten a picture to post.
Very pleasant riding this early... A few friendly beeps from passing cars and no rowdies encountered. It was cloudy and cooler than usual for this time of day and the sun wasn't up high enough to scorch me anyway. I noticed a couple of downed trees I hadn't noticed before. At church on Sunday another attendee who is a local mail carrier mentioned he had encountered several areas with obvious tornado damage from the Friday night storm. These downed trees were likely just victims of high winds during the storm.
Ride Started: 7:38 AM Ride Ended: 8:51 AM
Beginning Battery Voltage: 13.0 Ending Voltage: 12.2 Lowest: 12.2
Beginning Blood Glucose: 111 Ending BG: 164
(No breakfast; insulin pump basal rate cut back to 50% for the ride)
Lowest Temp 68 F Highest Temp: 68 F
Stats from the GPS: Total Miles: 11.08
Overall average speed Moving Avg Max Speed
9.2 MPH 9.8 MPH 18.5 MPH
Total Trip time Moving Time Stopped Time
1 hour 12 mins 1 hours 7 mins 4 minutes
No comments:
Post a Comment