Jim's blog: Cycling, Ham Radio, and Assorted Silliness

First Ride from ABQ to Home: Surprisingly Enjoyable

2012-02-22T18:21:00.002-07:00

Great tracking with APRS today...
What a wuss I turn out to be. For the last several years, since beginning regular bicycle-commuting, I have avoided the dreaded trip home from Albuquerque, east on Route 66, thence North on NM-14 from Tijeras to Frost Road and then the last 2-something miles east on Frost Road to home. I at first feared making the OTHER trip direction from home to ABQ but - once tried - it's become rather a favorite trip for me. So why haven't I tried coming back the other direction? Lots of hills, that's why.... going TO Albuquerque from here has about 4 miles of very steep climbing, all at the first, and then pretty much a downhill ride most of the way through Tijeras Canyon into town. I've thought for years that "Someday" I needed to make the return trip, at least once, so I could at least say I did it, at least, once.
Well, today I was scheduled for some lab blood work for my next week's doctor appointment. I decided that in spite of the windy warning weather reports, I would ride TO town with Jacque, since I was supposed to not eat anything prior to the lab tests, which makes it a bit difficult to ride the bike 20 miles TO the lab, don'tcha know. She was to do her regularly scheduled water aerobics and I would get my blood work done, chow down and break my fast, and ride home on the bike... weather permitting. Going to ABQ through the canyon was a bit worrisome because I could feel the wind buffeting us as we drove through the canyon. However, I kept watching the treetops and bushes along the highway and could see little evidence of high winds... I could see no swaying of the vegetation at all. So I unsaddled the bike and all my STUFF at the old Anna Kaseman hospital/lab and sent Jacque on her way. In no time at all I was done with the lab and outside eating my oatmeal/chocolate chip bar, a tactic designed to get me to the nearest Circle K so I could get some serious junk food stuffed into me for the 20-mile trip home up the canyon. Since there are TWO Circle K's on the corner of Constitution and Wyoming, only half a block from the lab, I fared OK in the food department. Constitution has a nice bike lane all the way to Tramway, and I only needed to ride to Moon, turn south and engage Easterday which leads to the bike overpass crossing I-40 at the Los Altos Golf Course, and then the bike path parallels I-40 up to Tramway and Old Route 66, which then takes me to Tijeras and home. What wind there was turned out to be a bit cold, BUT more importantly, it was a TAIL-wind, which lessened my grief considerably going east through the Canyon. I made quite a few rest stops this trip, including at least half an hour at the Tijeras Subway Sandwich Shoppe. I enjoyed their chocolate chip cookie but was underwhelmed with their "new" Buffalo Chicken Sandwich. I gave it a good try, needing to carb up for the uphill ride going north, but had to throw about half of it away. I didn't like the spicy sauce on the meat for some reason. I WAS pleasantly surprised when I started climbing NM-14 north out of Tijeras: Those long hills I've been avoiding turn out to be much less steep than expected. I ALMOST rode on farther east on 66 to Sedillo Hill and back home via Vallecitos Road, but Jacque expected me to pick up the mail at Sandia Park Post Office AND I still needed to do this route at least ONCE, so I rode due north, and am very glad I did. These northbound hills are long-ish but not bad at all. So I will be riding that route more in the future, now that I've "swallowed the frog" and found it tasted like bacon, so to speak. Just sayin'
Advice to car drivers who think nothing of squeezing close by a cyclist in the right hand lane..... you might check your paint job when you get home. Rumor has it that SOME idiot cyclists actually SPIT on cars that come too close .... Just Sayin'.   If you find a gobbet eating away your shiny paint on the right side of your car and the DNA matches mine, I have no idea how that could happen.....
Pre-Ride BG:    71                                Post-Ride BG: 164 (with lots of snacks in between)
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.6                Ending Voltage: 12.3
Ride's Lowest Temperature: 44 degrees F     Highest Temperature: 55 F
Stats from the GPS: Total Miles: 20.85
Overall average speed                    Moving Avg                       Max Speed
04.7 Mph                                        7.1 mph                             33.4 mph
Total Trip time                               Moving Time                      Stopped Time
4 hours 36 mins                         3 hours 1 mins    1 hour 34 mins

Wow, a Sunday Ride Home from Church

2012-02-19T21:10:00.000-07:00

Today's trip tracked very well methinks
Jacque was a delegate for today's Republican pre-primary meeting at Sandia Casino and needed to leave Church early enough to get there in time. I decided I'd rather stay for the entire meeting block and ride the bike home from church: Catch a ride with the bike on the Jacque-Mobile's rack, which would get me to church non tired and non sweaty and non stinky, unlike the trip home on the bike. Jacque was worried about today's weather report: Wind and snow coming in for later in the afternoon. I figured What the Heck, we get out of church meetings at noon, that should give me enough time to get home on the bike before any really bad weather shows up. So I unloaded the bike at Church, chained and locked it to a handicapper parking sign in the parking lot, and lug my pannier, helmet, and bike electronics cluster inside to the coat rack area where I stowed it on the upper shelf. I had snacks in the pannier and 2 full water bottles in the clips on the bike.   I wore a regular jacket (instead of a dress coat) on the outside of my white shirt and tie so I wouldn't mess up my good coat folding it into a bundle to Bungee across my handlebars for the trip home, and wore thick wool socks inside my western boots so as to look dressy but keep the toes warm for the ride home (it's still winter time here in the great American Southwest). Enjoyed church, and of course got "the treatment" from my friends who spotted the bike and thought I was nutso. "12 miles? You're Crazy!" Along with other encouraging comments.
So, after church, I saddled everything up, ate my power promoting snack of 6 chocolate donuts, velcro'ed my dress pants into the insides of my tall boot shanks, and rode away. After all the funny comments I half expected some kind of audience as I got ready to roll but I was ignored, not a bad thing to happen when you're crazy.
I immediately noticed that dressy cowboy boots are not well designed for biking. The rounded smooth soles did not grip the pedals well and I had to sorta balance differently and keep a certain position and tension on the pedals to keep from losing them, especially when starting off. I also was worried about getting the nefarious black chain grease on my right pants leg in spite of the tall boot shanks they were tucked into, but I made it home OK with no grease stripes I could find, an unusual happenstance for me after riding the bike for any distance. But it added to the normal fatigue of riding up hill and down dale.
I was bugged again today about the motorist attitude: Almost all will attempt to give me at least a little room when they overtake and pass me, but almost NEVER does anyone slow down, wait for oncoming traffic to clear, and then use the then-clear other lane to pass me without crowding me in my own. If oncoming traffic blocks entry in or across the middle line, then they just crowd right by me, anything but slow down and wait for a few seconds. BAH
The wind was a bit extra strength speed and cold wise but it was still good to be out and biking. I had to stop and rest a couple times climbing the long last pull up Sedillo Hill but it still wasn't bad.
When I finally arrived at the turnoff to our 1-mile of nasty muddy dirt rutted rocky excuse for a road, I really didn't appreciate wearing my dress boots, undamaged thus far by the trip. The mud wallow at the bottom of the gully through which our road traverses is a good 3" deep at the deepest but underneath this muddy water is also the firmest surface over which to travel. I tried to walk the bike a bit around the puddle but the mud was even deeper so I just walked my pretty boots through the puddle, replacing the nice shine with a brown scum of mud. Which took me some few minutes to wash off gently when I got to the house.
Pre-Ride BG:    100                                Post-Ride BG: 153 (with lots of snacks in between)
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.8                Ending Voltage: 12.3
Ride's Lowest Temperature: 44 degrees F     Highest Temperature: 52 F
Stats from the GPS: Total Miles: 12.3
Overall average speed                    Moving Avg                       Max Speed
06.5 Mph                                        7.8 mph                             33.9 mph
Total Trip time                               Moving Time                      Stopped Time
1 hour 51 mins                         1 hours 37 mins    14 mins 21 secs

Short but Satisfactory Saturday Ride

2012-02-18T23:11:00.000-07:00

Today's Spotty Tijeras Canyon Tracking
Good Grief. No rides since Tuesday? No wonder I wasn't a speed racer today. Jacque has been drooling over a recumbent trike she spotted in a local bike store and wanted to go do a test ride on one today, so I got the bright idear of riding my recumbent into town through Tijeras Canyon and meeting her there.
Trouble is, we got off so late I would have had trouble getting to the bike store in time to watch Jacque ride or ride with her, so I encouraged her to go ahead and drive on in so she could make the bike store before it closed.
She really liked the trike, and we're now calculating various methods of being able to pay for it: Sell her existing 2-wheel 'bent, sell her long-arm quilting machine, etc, etc.
Me? I found our most recent snows have again turned our 1-mile "dirt" drive into soggy mud in too many places.
I hate getting mud and muck on the tires and brakes and chain so I tried my best to gingerly ride or push the bike over the miniscule dry or solid wet parts of the road, and when I got down to the bottom of the draw through which it goes just before getting to the paved Frost Road, I picked up the bike and CARRIED it across the mud surrounding the big puddle engulfing the road. Of course, where I carried it was soft, wet, and slick, so I nearly fell down bike and all but made it eventually across the slime with only a few pounds of gooey mud all over my shoes. Since I then had to push the bike up the last 25 yards to the pavement, I stomped and kicked as best I could to get most of the glop off my shoes before riding off toward the setting sun and Albuquerque.
The paved Frost Road was fine.... until I got to the top of the long hill where I have to turn south on Nort-14 to get to Tijeras, old Route 66, and thence on into Albuquerque proper. Again, the recent snows attracted the pesky snow plows and trucks, which freely dispense red cinders and salt all over creation, which of course then gets splattered up onto the road shoulders, and even worse on the bike trail mere feet from the roadway. It wasn't too bad until I started the half-mile climb up "Marco Polo Hill" (so named for Marco Polo's Pizza which went out of business years ago and no longer exists, but a small hand painted sign still "marks the hill".) The cinders and mess were worse on this long climb, and unfortunately for me, there were small banks and mounds of ice and snow covering the entire bike trail about halfway up.
I nearly went down trying to ride across the first slab of snow so I stopped and dismounted and pushed the bike past the second slab, using my muddy clod-hoppers to kick snow out of the way so the next cyclist would find at least a 12" wide path through the mess.
Then it was mostly downhill all the way to Tijeras, riding underneath I-40 and intersecting old Route 66 which then takes me into Tijeras. I had started feeling woozy about halfway down the hill to Tijeras and had stopped and eaten a chocolate-chip oatmeal energy bar (Fiber Ones are my favorite) but still felt a bit shaky by the time I got to Tijeras so I stopped in at the Tijeras Subway Sandwich shoppe for a potty and snack break. Blood sugar tested out at 60 when I arrived, so I regretfully (HAR) purchased a pair of warm chocolate chip cookies and snarfed them down, then rode on west on Rt. 66 to ABQ. No problems on this leg of the trip: Shoulders mostly clear and no mud nor ice nor snow at all. Intercepted Jacque at Constitution and Wyoming and racked the bike on the back of her Exploder and we came home.
Notes:
Total Miles racked up today on the GPS: 24
Note for Diabetic Cyclists: When the bike starts acting weird and wobbly and hard to control, check your blood sugar. If it ain't too low check your tire pressures. My blood sugar almost always is lower than my tire pressure by then... that's why I carry lots of snacks.
Weather: A bit cool but not bad; bit of a nasty headwind going westbound on old 66.
Starting Battery Voltage: 12.6 Ending Voltage: 12.2
Lowest Temperature: 41 degrees F, Highest Temperature: 55 F

35-Mile Loop Tuesday

2012-02-15T09:03:00.003-07:00

I'm not including my tracker link from yesterday since it only worked for maybe 4 miles before it stopped for some reason. Need to check the radio, antenna, etc.
Anywho, the secret is now out. The reason I rode to Golden on Monday was to purchase a Turquoise bracelet Jacque had spotted at the Henderson Store, the only surviving commercial enterprise in the tiny ghost town.
Naturally, when I arrived on Monday the place was CLOSED. Sign in the window says "Open Tuesday - Friday". So I ate my snack and came home.
Yesterday, Tuesday, was of course Valentine's Day, the reason for trying to purchase the shiny silver and turquoise bracelet for my sweetie. Since Jacque left in the early morning for her sewing club and planned to be gone until at least noon, I decided I would AGAIN ride up to Golden and hope to catch the store open this time.
They were, and commented they'd seen me ride up the day before. Grrrrr. But, then, when I went to pay for the pricey item, all I had with me was plastic, and they only accepted cash or check. The nice lady told me "I'm not going to have you ride all this way for nothing", so she handed me the boxed beauty and a receipt and told me to send her a check when I got home. Very nice. The Henderson Store , open since 1918, now has an eclectic collection of authentic Southwest Indian Jewelry and other items, and is well worth a visit the next time you take the Scenic Turquoise Trail (NM route 14 from Tijeras to Santa Fe), which also goes through the scenic villages of Madrid and Cerrillos.
On my way back south towards home, I decided to turn left on NM 344, which circles around through Cedar Grove and intersects with Frost Road north of Edgewood. Within a couple miles I encountered the fabled Heartbreak Hill which I've heard other cyclists mention:

I snapped this after the first little rise just at the base of an alarmingly steep climb. Note the bicycle sign.
The sign should contain the warning "Not for the Elderly nor Faint of Heart!"
It must have been at least a solid mile or more of very steep climbing. I made it perhaps a third of a mile before I ran out of gear rings, oxygen, and energy. I had to push the bike the last 2/3 of the climb and it was a HARD slog just walking the bike. I sincerely doubt I'll ever try riding that direction again. I might try coming the other direction, but even then the DOWNhill would be harrowing and dangerous: It surely would wear out a set of brake pads, and the curves are much too sharp to just coast without smoking the brakes. I saw a logging truck stopped about 1/4 of the way down, taking a break so HIS brakes could cool off, and creeping very slowly past me when he did resume his downhill crawl.
Finally I made it to the top and was able to remount the bike and pedal and coast the other side of "South Mountain". As I approached Cedar Grove the wind started picking up and got colder.
I'm noting that out in these country roadways, I can hear cars coming some minutes earlier than I can see them. Cyclists often comment on their "connection" with the area they ride through and it's an interesting sensation. You just don't get the same feeling cruising through an area inside a car, all sealed up inside the cocoon of steel and plastic. Another interesting sensation is that of climbing hills. You see it coming up, and there is the dread of having to horse it up the hill, working your way through the various combinations of front and rear gear rings, hoping to make it to the top without getting to the dreaded "granny gear". As you approach the last part of the climb, you think the last part of the hill will be the worst, but it rarely is. Usually, instead, you find the hill leveling off as you approach the top, and usually are able to catch a couple or a few higher speed gears before you reach the top. And finally topping the hill: Cyclist nirvana, meaning you made it without having to get off and push. A real thrill when you can do it.
I finally got back down far enough south on 344 to intersect and turn back on to my home stretch of Frost Road Which seems to have eternal headwinds. At least this time I wasn't being blown into oncoming traffic and was able to complete the trip home. Final Mileage - 35 miles. Another sensation:   The soreness of stiff legs and sheer exhaustion, followed slowly by the realization you're going to live for another ride.
Reaction of the sweet wifey to the blinky shiney wrist decoration: A Very Happy Valentines Day.
Pre-Ride BG:    156                                Post-Ride BG: 136 (with lots of snacks in between)
Beginning Battery Voltage: 13.0                Ending Voltage: 12.3
Start-Ride Temperature: 32 degrees F     Arrival Temperature: 40 F
Stats from the GPS: Total Miles: 35.58
Overall average speed                    Moving Avg                       Max Speed
06.9 Mph                                        8.6 mph                             28.4 mph
Total Trip time                               Moving Time                      Stopped Time
5 hours 10 mins                         4 hours 9 mins           1 hour

Monday, a Golden Day

2012-02-13T22:44:00.000-07:00

The APRS Tracker worked well until I dropped downhill to Golden
I decided to ride up North-14 to Golden today.... I've been thinking about a day ride to Madrid but that is just over 20 miles away and Golden was "only" 14 miles so to get my feet wet....... I went.
It snowed last night and part of this morning so I didn't take off due to ice and snow on the road shoulders until 2:30 PM or so this afternoon. The radar weather map didn't show much of anything, but it was a bit cloudy and cool as shown by the recorded temperatures. I removed my temperature sensor from the main circuit board inside the Argent OpenTracker Plus.... it was keeping warm inside there, not only protected from the outside air but warmed by the nearby electronics. Today's recorded temps more accurately reflect what the air temperature really was. It started out partially cloudy, then wobbled back and forth from cloudy (with even a few flakes of snow just north of Paa-Ko Golf Course, faint sunshine, and on the trip back .... cloudy windy and cold.
I was pleasantly surprised with this ride. The hills weren't that bad and the traffic was both sparse and largely considerate of the looney bike rider they encountered.
Pre-Ride BG:    115                                Post-Ride BG: 94
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.7                Ending Voltage: 12.3
Start-Ride Temperature: 32 degrees F     Arrival Temperature: 32 F
Stats from the GPS: Total Miles: 28.17
Overall average speed                    Moving Avg                       Max Speed
07.8 Mph                                         9.1 mph                             26.1 mph
Total Trip time                               Moving Time                      Stopped Time
3 hours 37 mins                         3 hours 5 mins    31 mins 38 secs

Long Ride on a Very Bad Blustery Day

2012-02-10T09:52:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I decided I'd take the day off from cutting firewood since I finally got all the scrap wood in the yard cut to stove lengths and piled... perhaps even enough to last until we stop having to BURN so much firewood this season.
I've been thinking a ride straight east from our house, on Frost Road, clear out to where it ends at Stanley, might be a good ride. It turns out to be almost exactly 20 miles (slightly over) one way to Stanley on a much less traveled road than, say, North-14 or NM-344 or Route 66.
I left about 10:30 AM and it wasn't too bad, although a bit cold. The sun was clear and trying to warm things up but the wind kept cooling me off. Although the wind was breaking mostly across my back, I worried about having to fight it face-on for the return leg. Sometimes the wind will shift direction later in the day and I hoped for that - but fully realizing I might have a real struggle coming back.
I fully began to realize the struggles before me even before I got to Stanley to turn back west for home.
I stopped at the side of the road for a water/potty/snack break (don't worry, the only viewers were a few cows) and found I could not stand the bike up by itself with the high winds, so I propped it against a stop sign:

... But I finished my snack break and rode on to Stanley, a "town" with a post office, volunteer fire department, and a good sized church that serves a vast area of sparsely populated territory surrounding it.
When I turned back west on 472 for the fearsome ride home, I was surprised I was able to roll along fairly steadily, albeit in my lower gears. It's always a depressing sensation to have to pedal, HARD, going down hill just to keep barely moving. The wind seemed to be howling from the direction of nearby South Mountain, and I hoped the wind would ease off the farther west I rode, but that was not the case. It continued to worsen until I could barely keep the bike upright - being blown off balance, left and right, swept one moment into the oncoming lane and barely avoiding slamming off the shoulder to the weeds and rocks on the right a second later,.
When I got within 100 yards of the 344/472 junction at Cedar Grove due north of Edgewood, I'd had enough. I could barely push the bike walking alongside it from the force of the wind, and had trouble standing up. I walked and struggled with the bike the last 100 yards to the intersection, leaned the bike next to a very solid stand-pipe sicking out of the ground near the road, and called my sexy rescue babe Jacque. While waiting for her, the wind continued to worsen, and I put on my polar fleece skullcap, my ski mittens, all my outer layers, and did not regret for a moment having carried all that "Stuff" with me.
Planned mileage today: Just over 40. Accomplished mileage: Slightly over 32, 14 of which was facing nearly gale force wind. And COLD. It was colder by 4 PM than it was when I left at 10:30 in the morning.

Terrific 23-Mile Tuesday

2012-02-07T21:26:00.001-07:00

Today I got a great roundabout APRS-Track
Jacque (my normal rescue / SAG driver) was in town all morning and I'd halfway planned to ride the bike from home into ABQ to meet here and catch a ride back home. I didn't get rolling soon enough to make it into town before she was already halfway home so I decided to just ride up to the Post Office and then down to the local Mountain Video store to return our latest rental: Tuskegee Airmen, In Their Own Words.
Jacque and I had decided via cell phone to meet at the video store where I would lash the bike on the rack on her rear bumper and catch a ride home, back up the hill. After arriving before she did I decided I was up for a longer ride and decided to do a roundabout on down to Tijeras and Old Route 66 east to Sedillo Hill and then circle back home via Vallecitos Road and Frost Road.
I'm always amazed at my lack of intimacy with various local routes like 66 that I've ridden in other areas. 66 is popular with local cyclists since it allows them to travel through the East Mountains without having to deal with the incessant high speed traffic up on Interstate 40. As noted before, it does have its drawbacks. One major gripe I noticed even more today was the inescapable layers, often rough and corregated in surface structure, of cinders and salt and sandy gravel used to "salt" the roads during snow and ice storms. I'm unsure if street sweepers are ever deployed out here, but the heavy vehicular traffic tends to scatter the grunge off to the sides of the pavement: Right where chicken-cyclists like myself prefer to ride, on the shoulder, so vehicles coming up from behind can pass safely unmolested by my unwelcome presence. Stuff like this, along with various tire-deadly bits of steel, wire, metal, rocks, and the inevitable broken glass booze bottles, seems to just stay there seemingly forever.
Almost every day some loser refuses to wait to pass or cross into the other lane to give me any clearance, and today included another incident. As I was southbound on North-14, I was riding in the right lane of the 4-lane road where no shoulder existed. I saw the large crew-cab F-150 style hi-rise pickup coming up behind, and instead of moving to the left lane to pass me, like 999 out of 1000 normal drivers, she began "Beep-beeping" her horn, as if to warn me to get off the road. I persisted in my path forward, instead of stopping or slowing enough to jump the curb and courteously vacating the road for the benefit of Miss Road Hawg, so she went ahead and passed me... missing me by a few inches. I again refuse to record my un-Christian words that popped out as she brushed by me.
I was plagued today by a reluctant front ring gear shifter.
It eventually refused to shift into the highest speed ring gear at all, rendering level and downhill pedalling quite unpleasant.
I stopped today for snacks and refreshment at Subway in Tijeras and the Sedillo Hill Route 66 gas/convenience station. I arrived home about 5:43 PM, about 4+ hours after leaving. Lengthy breaks at Subway and Sedillo explain some of the length of today's excursion.
Pre-Ride BG:    125                   Post-Ride BG: 92
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.7                Ending Voltage: 12.2
Start-Ride Temperature: 44 degrees F     Arrival Temperature: 55 F
Stats from the GPS: Total Miles: 23.57
Overall average speed                    Moving Avg                       Max Speed
05.2 Mph                                         7.7 mph                             33.6 mph
Total Trip time                               Moving Time                      Stopped Time
4 hours 30 mins                         3 hours 4 mins    1 hour 6 mins

Another Monday: Good Workout; Short Ride

2012-02-06T14:08:00.000-07:00

Today's Roundabout APRS Route
I guess I'm getting too distracted. I'm shocked I've gone several days without a bike ride.
I again rode into Albuquerque with Jacque in her Ford Exploder and, while she performed water aerobics at the Alvarado Park pool, I took off on the bike.
I was chagrined to find I'd forgotten to bring my main bike-mobile GPS and ham walkie-talkie assembly with us, so I instead plugged in the little backup GPS puck (Garmin 18) and took off for the Wendy's junk food drive-in just a few hundred yards away on Eubank. I was hungry and hadn't had a carb-pumper meal or snack yet so I ordered a chicken sandwich. When the waitress asked if I cared for green chili and cheese I of course answered in the affirmative. I always tip well when I "eat out" like this while biking but I always suspect many of the onlookers think I'm homeless, seeing all the "Stuff" I carry on the bike. While gobbling my sandwich, it occurred to me I had a backup walkie talkie still in Jacque's exploder inside my other backpack, so after chowing down I rode back over and picked it up. It's a Kenwood TH-F6A, which uses the same microphone and power connections as the TH-D7A that I'd left behind, so I plugged in my helmet earpiece and microphone and rode merrily on, now able to use precious oxygen talking to my ham radio buddies while pedaling along. They responded in kind: I talked to Gary KH6JTM, Tom NM5TW, Scotty NM5SW, and Tim Tim KD5YMT. Great fun.
I decided to ride the closest bike trail up towards Tramway. I'd hoped to ride to a big box hardware store to stock up on brad nails for my air-powered nail gun but no bike paths I could find led close to any, and they were all on heavily trafficked streets such as Eubank and Juan Tabo. So I just decided to ride up the trail to Tramway and then ride Tramway a while and come back. Simple ride plan, but unfortunately it's noticeably UPHILL going east from anywhere in the city to Tramway, and my average speed failed to accomplish the anticipated distance. I got ALMOST to Tramway when Jacque called, 1.5 hours into my ride, and announced she was done and ready to go. So I turned my fanny around and rode back, freezing much of the way since the return trip was almost entirely DOWN-hill. I had to stop and re-zip up my jacket to keep some of the frigid air out. But it's always great to take a jaunt on the bike whether the air is cold, hot, or even the all-too-rare in between.
Starting BG: 209                                           Ending BG: 275 (didn't pump enough insulin for the sandwich)
Starting Battery Voltage: 12.8 Volts               Ending Voltage: 12.7 Volts
Starting Temperature: 41 Degrees F               Ending Temperature: 66 Degrees F

It Takes All Day to Make 26 Miles???

2012-01-31T21:30:00.000-07:00

Missed a Lot of Positions, but a trail nonetheless
I took another new route for a bike ride today. Our mud road is almost dried, so I was able to ride/push the bike down the mile mudway to the pavement and rode east on Frost Road. I thought I'd ride to the intersection of Frost Road and Road 344 (which goes south to Edgewood) and decide then whether to ride farther east on 472 to Stanley, 344 south to Edgewood, or turn around and return home.
I decided I needed to ride to the Edgewood Wal-Mart and see if they had any bike gloves in my size.
When I got there I cruised the area looking for a bike rack, but of course, found none.
So, I locked the bike up to a metal snack-break table just outside the entry. I decided to leave my "stuff" outside on the bike and trust that no oone would even see or notice it. Just as I walked away from the bike, a homeless-looking dude came out of the store and went right over to the bike, looked it over, and sat down next to it. I watched him for several minutes from around the corner to see if he had any larcenous tendencies, but he seemed safe after a few minutes so I went on inside.
As for my luck finding new gloves, which I desperately need: Every Wal-Mart or other bike accessory vendor seems to have at most 1 or 2 pair of bike gloves, the largest being large or XL, neither of which are large enough to fit my hands. This one was the same story in spite of having a much larger bike accessory selection than most stores. So it was a wasted shopping trip but a great aerobic exercise endeavor.
They had a McDonalds booth-store inside so I decided to carb up with a chicken sandwich, which only reinforced my low opinion of Mickey D's service and sandwiches.
When I readied to leave, I asked the GPS about the shortest route home and it claimed going on into Edgewood and taking "Historic Route 66" was the shorter route. So I went that way. When I got home I found over half my route was NOT reported on the internet APRS track. Oh Well. At least I was still moving, albeit slowly, when I got home. Total time was right at 5 hours, this route includes several long slow climbs, and the altitude is higher than ABQ by at least more than a thousand feet most of the way.
That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.
Pre-Ride BG:    115                   Post-Ride BG: 169
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.7                Ending Voltage: 12.3
Start-Ride Temperature: 55 degrees F                 Arrival Temperature: 59 F
Stats from the GPS: Total Miles: 26.29
Overall average speed                    Moving Avg                       Max Speed
06.0 Mph                                         8.2 mph                             32.4 mph
Total Trip time                               Moving Time                      Stopped Time
4 hours 21 mins                            3 hours 12 mins    1 hour 8 mins

Wimpy Monday: 13 Miles

2012-01-30T18:03:00.000-07:00

Today's nice but farily short ride
Hitched another ride into Albuquerque this morning with Jacque. I rode down the familiar bike path but turned south just past Carlisle and wound around through a few neighborhoods and parking lots trying to find a non-high-speed automotive route to get to our credit union. Finally had to go back to Carlisle, which has no bike lane, and rode the sidewalk (dangerous enough in itself) up to Candelaria where the bank was located.
Then I rode west on Candelaria to the Northbound entry to the North Diversion Channel trail and rode back to the Hahn Arroyo trail and east back towards Jacque. She called about the time I got to Pennsylvania and said she was going to a nearby church office and I told her I would ride east on Indian School, which has a bike lane, to meet her there. She got out earlier than I could arrive there and was taking a oatmeal-bar break when she called and said she was ready. So I talked her into just coming on down Indian School to intercept me where I was and could then load the bike on the rear rack and ride from there with her.
I had a soft rear tire a few days ago and got tired of pumping it up every day. I took the tire off and looked foor the leak and found one big one and 2 or 3 micro-leaks caused by small steel wires that evidently are thrown into the roadway from passing truck tires. The biggest leak was right through the middle of a big patch I put on last year.... I have no trust nor faith in a patch on top of another patch so I discarded the tube, though not very old, and installed the new spare tube I've been carrying around for a year or two.
While re-mounting the tube inside the tire, I noticed the rear wheel bearing was tight, "growly", and would barely turn by hand. So I had to disassemble the cassette and the bearings and clean and pack them... again,.
Oh, yeah...... As I worked on the tire and tube I noted with alarm that my about-a-year-old tire was cracking. So I need new tires now as well as another thornproof tube, which is not easy to find in the 26 X 1.90 size. I've had more than one salesman at various bike shops try to sell me a too-large tube since they didn't stock the correct size. Any 10-year old with any bike experience can tell you truly: You can't get away with putting a size-larger tube inside a bike tire. The tube will develop kinks and folds when aired up that will develop fatal leaks in a very short time.
After all that I had to re adjust the rear shifting mechanism and today was the first time I'd ridden it with the new tube. It doesn't want to shift into the highest gear so I need to do some more adjusting on that rear derailleur lever.
Pre-Ride BG:    99                   Post-Ride BG: 94
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.4                Ending Voltage: 12.3
Start-Ride Temperature: 37 degrees F                 Arrival Temperature: 51 F
Morning Stats from the GPS: Total Miles: 13.09
Overall average speed                    Moving Avg                       Max Speed
07.0 Mph                                         9.3 mph                             18.0 mph
Total Trip time                               Moving Time                      Stopped Time
1 hours 52 mins                            1 hours 24 mins    27 mins 11 secs

Wednesday Winding Through Tijeras Canyon

2012-01-25T20:48:00.000-07:00

Wednesday APRS tracking - Partial for some reason
I had quasi-planned to hitch a ride with Jacque into Albuquerque today and ride around on the bike while she attended to her knee doctor appointment. Howsomever, her appointment was at 8:30 and I messed around until it was too late: If she'd have waited for me, as she was willing to do, she would have been unforgivably late. So I told her to go without me, after which I saddled up and rode the bike all the way to ABQ. I had just loaded up and remembered my squishy tire from yesterday.... it was even softer today. I figured it would hold up with just a good solid 60 pounds of pressure inside, so I aired it up and took off. It did last fine, but I DO need to get that rear (of course, the easy-to-remove front tire rarely has a flat on any bike for some reason) tire removed and patched. It was almost 8:30 when I left, but we had a good hard freeze last night and I hoped the mud and greasy ruts on our mile of miserable dirt road would be frozen hard enough to get through without everything being coated with several inches of mud. We also had a little dusting of snow last night so it was a good thing I got off on still-frozen roadway or it would have been even MORE messy than the last few days.
Things were complicated a bit by the fact Jacque left her cell phone at home. She called in on her ham radio and told me this, and I asked her to check in with me at each of her errand-stops around town so I could figure out where she was when I finally arrived on the 2-wheeler. I popped her cell phone in my other pocket, confident we would be able to find each other and she would get her phone back and I would get a leisurely ride back to the house, which is a pretty daunting climb in that direction. I've never made this return trip completely. The one time I tried was a couple years ago on a Saturday and was the first time I rode all the way into town. That time I stopped right at the ABQ city limits and turned around and rode back towards home, but only made it a couple miles up the second hill north of Tijeras.
I stayed off the still-snowy and icey bike path paralleling Frost Road and just rode up on the main road on the shoulder, riding in the main roadway when there were no cars in my rear view and taking the shoulder as soon as a car appeared in the distance behind me. No problems. Going south on N-14 towards Tijeras is always dicey, in my mind, because the first 2 or 3 miles is so steep I barely crawl along much of the way and feel too helpless at such slow speeds to try riding in the right hand road lane, although I have done just that, a couple times. So I used the decrepit bike lane to the top of what we call "Marco Polo Hill" (so called because there used to be a little pizza parlor dive almost at the top of this hill.) Of course, it was full of gravel and cinders from all the snow plowing activity we've had all winter, and of course up in the shady tree line it still had lumpy snow and ice covering the path, so instead of huffing all the way to the top I had to get off and push the bike the last quarter mile or so. I don't like falling down, is the reason.... bah.
Then, o'course, at the top of the hill it's downhill for about 3 solid miles and trying to ride that nasty surface at speed is asking for a wreck. So I always cross the 4-lane road and ride the main road all the way to Tijeras, pedaling only about half the time when my speeds get below about 22 MPH, and just coasting my speeds have been 37+ MPH a few times. I believe I hit 29 today.... wheeee.
I was approaching Carnuel on Old Route 66 when a strange number rang my cell phone... it was Jacque on a friend's cell whom she'd met at one of her store-stops. They had decided we were going to lunch at Village Inn. When I arrived I(almost an hour before the ladies showed up) I remembered it was my son Jake's birthday so I called him from the restaurant and found he wasn't already committed so I offered to buy him lunch if he's show up, so he did. Great visit. My 10% senior discount came in handy at check-out time, too, since 3 of the 4 of us were "over 60" and I only had to pay full fare for the one youngster, Jake, who turned 39 today. May he be able to maintain that age as long as Jack Benny did.

32-Mile Monday Madness

2012-01-23T22:07:00.000-07:00

Bosque Trail Tracking, not badI finally got in a good long ride today along one of my favorite bicycle touring routes: The Rio Grande Bosque Trail;. This trail runs with very little grade from Alameda on the north end to the South Valley on the other, with a big loop around the South Valley junk yards and the old Albuquerque Raceway 1/2 mile track.
Tinkerbell the WonderDog rode with me, and was a great traveling companera as usual. I at first bungeed a basket on my front cargo rack, put a foam wooly pad in the bottom for her to sit on, and off we went. We hadn't made our first hundred yards before I realized my rear tire was STILL low in air pressure and it would be ruined if I continued to ride with it. I mentally kicked myself for not stopping by our shed containing the monster air compressor and inflating both tires before leaving the house. Then I remembered I had CO2 cartridges and a CO2 pocket inflator in the tool puch on the pannier. So ff we went again, but then poor Tink started teetering to the left, finally getting dumped from the now-sideways basket and dangling from her restraining harness. I dug tools out of my pannier and zip-tied the basket back in place and this time it stayed put. No more bike troubles after that, thankfully.
I first rode south from the central parking at the ABQ Bio Park since I wanted to try riding the complete southern loop of this trail, even though it's graffiti country and the scenery can be a bit lowbrow at times. Warning to fellow trail riders: This trail is ROUGH just south of Tingley Beach and I had to slow down and gear down to avoid feared damage to the bike from the multitudinous pavement buckles and pot-holes along this route. It actually smooths out the farther south you go, perhaps because most of the fissures and crumples in the pavement seem to occur in the tree-lined sections of the path right next to the irrigation canals, and when you get out of the heavy tree area the pavement seems to smooth out.
It turned off just cold enough to be slightly uncomfortable most of the ride. I could have stopped and added a layer but I feared I would immediately get overheated and sweaty so I rode on. I did stop and exchange my fingered light duty bike gloves for mittens out of the pannier. This improved the comfort level of the pinkies dramatically. It was a bit cloudy and overcast, and the sun peeked out for only about a fourth of the bike ride, which lasted almost 5 hours. We made the southern loop and returned back north on the trail, with most passersby commenting on the cute dog in the "crow's nest" up front. She LOVES this kind of riding around, with her being up front and being able to see everything we encounter, watch all the other people and doggies go by, and snarl occasionally at a select few. I didn't actually hear her snarl at anything or anyone this trip. All good. She only looks back at me when she hears me talking to her or others. Today she turned to look at me and whined a couple times so we stopped and "took a walk in the bushes", which resulted in a tinkle.
Tink then seemed happy for only a couple more miles before she started looking at me and whining again. I tried to talk her into holding on for just a couple more miles but her pleading got to me so we stopped again.
This time she did both #1 and #2, and complained no more afterwards. Those owning doggies know how much they relish taking long naps every hour or so - I was amazed Tink held up in such good humor all through the hours-long bike ride. Of course, as soon as we got back to the vehicle she immediately crawled into her elevated car seat and clonked out, big time.
I went through a few carbs this trip. I stuffed some chocolate donuts before leaving. When we got to the southern end of the route, we stopped for a water break and I checked my blood glucose. It was about 100 so I ate my only Nutrageous candy bar and rode on. When we got back to Bridge Street we side-tracked over to the nearby Sonic and shared a chicken sandwich with each other. Yum. Blood glucose was at 116 by then. When we got home with no further snacks my BG was 100, again.
We rode the new Rio Grande Multi-Use Path Bridge over to Coors, which must be close to half a mile up a slight grade going west. WARNING: Coming back east it is downhill and tempting to cruise, but slow down - the surface is ridged which results in bad vibrations at any speed over a few MPH. Too bad. Maybe it was purposely designed to slow down cyclists so we don't hit the wall on the east side when we suddenly encounter 2 sharp hairpin turns on the east end of the bridge. Who comes up with such obstacle-course bike trail designs anyway? Bouncy rattley wooden-plank-surfaced bridges, car barriers that block anything but short bikes (and force ALL bikes to stop and crow-hop around), hairpin turns.... sigh. BAH
Verdict: Great ride, a bit too cold for comfort, but who cares.
Pre-Ride BG:    158                   Post-Ride BG: 100
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.5                Ending Voltage: 12.1
Start-Ride Temperature: 41 degrees F                 Arrival Temperature: 59 F
Morning Stats from the GPS: Total Miles: 32.15
Overall average speed                    Moving Avg                       Max Speed
07.0 Mph                                         9.7 mph                             21.7 mph
Total Trip time                               Moving Time                      Stopped Time
4 hours 34 mins                            3 hours 18 mins    1 hour 16 mins

Friday Fourteen Miler

2012-01-20T22:16:00.000-07:00

Friday Cross Town Track
I hitched another ride to town with Jacque this morning and cruised around on the bike while Jacque did her water aerobics. Since I hadn't any breakfast yet, I first rode east to the Sonic on Eubank and purchased myself a chili cheese dog for breakfast, with extra onions. Yummy. Didn't pump any additional bolus insulin for it either. Which must have been a pretty good guess since the blood glucose was 57 when I finished the ride. I just rode Constitution west to Stanford, north to Indian School, until my clock informed me I only had a half hour left before Jacque completed her jumping-around-in-the-water exercise routines. Then I turned on my voice-guidance GPS to get me back to Eubank in the fastest route.
Trouble is, the GPS didn't seem know about the adjacent bicycle path even though it was in "bicycle mode". I was following its directions when I noticed an entry to a bike path I'd not known about before. Turns out there is a large narrow park adjacent to the I-40 retaining wall that goes from San Pedro almost to Louisiana.... maybe all the way there. I was on my way across the I-40 bike bridge when Jacque called and said I could meet her at the Wal-Mart parking lot. When I arrived I just barely got the bike unloaded and mounted on the Exploder's bike rack when she came sauntering out of Wally World. Very good timing and I got in 14 miles today. Cool.

Morning Pre-Ride BG:    149                   Post-Ride BG: 57
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.7                Ending Voltage: 12.5
Start-Ride Temperature: 44 degrees F                 Arrival Temperature: 59 F
Morning Stats from the GPS: Total Miles: 14.27
Overall average speed                    Moving Avg                       Max Speed
06.9 Mph                                         9.1 mph                             21.0 mph
Total Trip time                               Moving Time                      Stopped Time
2 hours 4 mins                            1 hour 33 mins       30 mins 24 secs

Twelve-Mile Thursday

2012-01-19T15:28:00.001-07:00

Tijeras Canyon Tracking - Hard to report positions in here
Enjoyed a BEAUTIFUL day and a very pleasant ride through Tijeras Canyon via Old Route 66 this morning.
Jacque was going into town for errands and I wanted some new cycling gloves and a new saw chain for my noisy gas-burning handheld firewood-cutting machine (Stihl). We decided I'd hitch a ride down the hill with her to Tijeras, and I'd ride from there into Albuquerque while she drove and did errands. Thenceforth we'd meet somewhere and drive back home together.
We decided the bike AND the Exploder were much too loaded with mud, dried and otherwise, so we jogged just east of Tijeras for the quarter-gobbling car wash there. After only investing $1.75 worth of quarters for 4 precious minutes of high pressure water, I got the clumps off the bike and much of the wheel-well globs cleared off the Exploder. I unloaded the bike there; Jacque took off for Albuquerque at a much more rapid pace than I did.
Old 66 is quite a pleasant ride. No wonder so many Albuquerque-ites ride their bikes out here in spite of the occasional roughness of the road, lack of shoulder in spots, etc. The grades are just enough to keep you from getting lazy. There was a bit of an unwelcome eastbound wind in my face much of the trip, but not enough to deter enjoyment of the open road on an open bike under your own steam.
We decided to meet at the Eubank dog park, which was a bit too early in the shopping cycle for me: I could have ridden around metro NE Albuquerque probably for an extra hour on the pedals had I planned it out better, Still a great ride, and we got home in time to get some actual work done (eternal firewood cutting for me, it's still January and no telling when another big dump of snow and ice might hit us and bury the woodpile.)
Morning Pre-Ride BG:    165                                  Post-Ride BG: 85
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.3                Ending Voltage: 12.2
Start-Ride Temperature: 48 degrees F                 Arrival Temperature: 59 F
Morning Stats from the GPS: Total Miles: 11.84
Overall average speed                    Moving Avg                       Max Speed
08.8 Mph                                         11.8 mph                             22.7 mph
Total Trip time                               Moving Time                      Stopped Time
1 hour 21 mins                            1 hour 00 mins       20 mins 46 secs

Good Exercise but a Short Ride in the Mud and Snow

2012-01-18T19:33:00.000-07:00

this tracking system was blacked out in protest of SOPA this day
Ever since I lost my job I've been trying to reorganize my biking habits so I can keep up with my favorite form of exercise: Biking. I have not done well.
The day I was terminated I almost went on an around-Albuquerque loop since my immediate thought was "Well, I always think about it and today I have the time", but instead went home to break the nasty news to Jacque who for some reason experienced a typical feminine reaction: WHAT?????? EEEK----"
I've quasi-planned and almost ridden every day since then (not quite a week yet) but today was the first time I've actually gotten on the recumbent and ridden it/ I decided, although it is a very short ride and thus less enjoyable, that I'd ride the 3 miles to the Post Office and back to pick up the mail. Unfortunately, the first mile going out from the house and the last mile coming back is slippery slimey icky mud. The dirt road is starting to solidify and dry out in various spots but has lengthy bogs yet that made a MESS of my wheels, brakes, and fenders.
I slogged through this slop and decided, by the time I got to the pavement of Frost Road, that I was NOT going to slog back through it. I planned to hide the bike in the trees and walk back up to the house and bring back either my car or Jacque's Ford Exploder - both having bike racks in place - to bring the bike back to the house with less mess stress.
I wish I'd taken the cheapie micro-video camera along. I'm never crazy about riding on road shoulders, and the distance from our ramp onto Frost Road and the fairly new bike path is about a quarter mile. Everything was so muddy I had trouble finding the entrance to the bike path but finally got on it, dodging rocks, dirt, and gravel -- it obviously has seen little use since the winter snows began. Almost immediately I encountered solid banks of frozen snow and ice blocking the path for 2-30 feet or more, forcing me to dismount and frog-walk the bike to the next patch of path pavement wide enough to permit actual riding. After about a mile and a half of this foolishness - thinking each time I frogged across a patch of crusty snow that surely the rest of the way would be thawed and open - I almost kicked myself for not thinking to just cross over to the roadway of Frost Road and ride the shoulder-path the rest of the way to the Post Office. When I did so the trip turned into a nice ride with clear road and dry pavement, with the occasional pot hole to deal with, of course. When you see cyclists riding on the main road right next to a well known bike path and wonder why, I can assure you: Riding in the roadway and dodging cars is usually safer than dealing with the typical problems on a bike path, including but not limited to walkers and joggers with blaring ear-buds, cracks and pot-holes that threaten to break a tire, throw you off the road, etc. Even the "bike lane" striped shoulders are often clogged with rocks, car parts, tiny steel wires from radial tires that imbed your bike tires and sometimes ruin them, etc.
So that's why so many of us ride up on the roadway dodging the petroleum powered behemoths.
By the time I got to the Post Office I was overheated and then some. I was only wearing a sleeveless vest and my reflective green-yellow vest on top of that but I peeled off the vest and put only the reflective vest back on for the return ride. I immediately ran into a quite cold headwind that made me regret removing my layers, but I kept going anyway, knowing on the uphill pulls I'd warm up again.
When I got to my drop-off for our dirt/mud masterpiece road, I rolled down about a hundred feet from the pavement and leaned the bike into a tree clump and walked up to the house through the mud, drove Jacque's Exploder back through the mud, and rescued the bike.
Lesson Learned: Forget about the bike path(s) in the East Mountains in the wintertime for weeks after snowfall. Ride the main road like all the other cyclists do.

Another Life's Little Hiccup

2012-01-11T23:12:00.000-07:00

Possibly the Absolute Last APRS Track of this Route
Well, I was happy to arrive at work half an hour earlier than normal this morning. As I entered the door and looked at the clock I thought to myself "Good, I get to leave earlier today. How much earlier I was yet to discover. I was met by a manager and ushered into an office and terminated.   Let go, not killed, or I of course wouldn't be writing about it. More details.... much later.
I had ridden the bike to work and had to mount up and ride right back to the car to come back and pick up my junk cleaned out from my desk. More details.... much later.
I should be able to take much lengthier bike rides now. More later....
Morning Pre-Ride BG:    186                                  Post-Ride BG: 92
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.7                Ending Voltage: 12.5
Start-Ride Temperature: 26 degrees F                 Arrival Temperature: 51 F
Morning Stats from the GPS: Total Miles: 14.88
Overall average speed                    Moving Avg                       Max Speed
09.0 Mph                                         10.3 mph                             21.4 mph
Total Trip time                               Moving Time                      Stopped Time
1 hour 38 mins                            1 hour 26 mins       12 mins 42 secs

23 and Counting

2012-01-10T12:23:00.000-07:00

Today's Below-Freezing Tide Path
I wore 2 pair of socks today, inside pair wool, outside pair cotton, for the ride today. The feets still got a bit cold but they didn't get numb and painful as they have all last week and yesterday (Monday).
It's frustrating to ride the bike with heavy ski mittens on, since I like to play with the GPS and radio settings while cruising. With the big-big mittens, all I can do is change channels on the ham radio. Even that is fraught with danger since I cannot feel the detents while turning the knob and I often wind up on a channel with nobody to talk to, not my intent at all. But trying to ride with lighter gloves, or my gun-mittens that allow the mitten shell to be folded back so the fingers can work small devices like radio knobs, results in great pain and suffering in the pinkies. At night everything's at least 10 degrees warmer, even after dark, so I'm usually able to wear good snug bike-gloves or even the gun-trigger-mittens on the way back to the car.
I didn't at first realize how much colder it was until I looked at my APRS-track after I arrived at work. The temperature sensor is in the back-of-the-seat bag which protects it somewhat from temperature extremes since my body at least partially blocks the wind, usually reporting several degrees warmer than what I think it must have been. I did a double-take when noticing the starting temperature of 23 degrees today. The sun was already up in the sky when I started out, though it was still shady when I started out on the bike.
Morning Pre-Ride BG:    145                                   Post-Ride BG: 72
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.4                Ending Voltage: 12.3
Start-Ride Temperature: 23 degrees F                 Arrival Temperature: 37 F
Morning Stats from the GPS: Total Miles: 7.44
Overall average speed                    Moving Avg                       Max Speed
09.3 Mph                                         10.6 mph                             20.8 mph
Total Trip time                               Moving Time                      Stopped Time
47 mins 59 secs                            42 mins 12 secs       5 mins 47 secs

Beautiful Biking Weather

2012-01-09T21:46:00.000-07:00

Today's 12-mile one-way track via APRS/GPS
My radio/gps tracker seemed to be sending a bit too many positions, so I took the unit out of the bike's seat to re-configure the beacon settings. As a result, it worked NOT AT ALL for the trip back to the car this evening: I had turned the radio off so it wouldn't damage itself transmitting without an antenna while reprogramming the computerized beacon, and forgot to turn it back on when I put it back on the bike. Sigh. BAH
The weather was fairly cold, again, but still beautiful for riding. There was a storm forecast for yesterday and this morning but it failed to materialize so no snow or ice was encountered. Friday and today I rode a bit farther than I have been recently: About 12 miles instead of 7-ish, and it turns out my feet get TOO NUMB riding that far in these temperatures. I will begin wearing 2 pairs of socks henceforth until the weather warms up maybe another 10 degrees. Last winter I was wearing 2 sets of socks and had forgotten. Nothing like painful numb cold feet to help your memory bank.....
Morning Pre-Ride BG:    138                                   Post-Ride BG: 56, ate oatmeal choc-bar
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.6                Ending Voltage: 12.6 (Why it's a tenth of a volt higher than this morning is a mystery)
Start-Ride Temperature: 33 degrees F                 Arrival Temperature: 41 F
Morning Stats from the GPS: Total Miles: 11.79
Overall average speed                    Moving Avg                       Max Speed
11.0 Mph                                         12.0 mph                             23.8 mph
Total Trip time                               Moving Time                      Stopped Time
56 mins 59 secs                            44 mins 19 secs       12 mins 40 secs

Hey, I Actually Passed Somebody

2012-01-05T18:11:00.001-07:00

Thursday Track via APRS / GPS

.... And it wasn't an old lady in a wheelchair, either, or even a passed-out drunk.
OK, yeah, it WAS a female, on a bike, and she was younger than I. O'Course, EVERYBODY is younger than I am. She was probably like me, a bit stiff and slow from just starting to ride again after the holidays.
My Sealed Lead Acid (SLA) battery is getting low and I forgot to charge it last night, so I started to connect to my smaller-capacity AA NiMH backup pack - I was shocked to find the battery cable and connector had disappeared. Probably snagged on something or vibrated itself to death banging around in my pannier on the back of the bike. Nothing lasts forever on a bike, including me, unfortunately. I carry such spare parts around with me, being an electronics geek and all, so I was able to construct another cable and PowerPole connector for it during my noon hour, before my 2-mile noon constitutional walk..
I haven't gotten any decent videos lately from my mini-cam, even on the days when I remember to stick it into my glove and turn it on. Very awkward dealing with anything like that with big ski mittens on: I can barely grip the handlebars and twist shifters. So when my co-worker Bert asked if he could borrow the silly mini-cam to try skydiving with it, I said sure, why not. Surely screaming towards the earth after jumping out of a perfectly good airplane will result in a more interesting video than just wobbling along on a paved bicycle path at 8 miles per hour. If Bert lives through his jumps and brings any video back I'll be sure to post some of it.
Pre-Ride BG: 106 -- BG when arrived at Work: 66
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.2                Ending Voltage: 12.2
Beginning Temperature: 30 F (in ABQ)     Ending Temperature: 40 F
Morning Stats from the GPS: Total Miles: 7.41
Overall average speed                    Moving Avg                       Max Speed
9.8 Mph                                         10.8 mph                             19.9 mph
Total Time    45:00 mins      Moving Time 40:59 mins        Stopped Time: 4:01

Stretching Wimpy Legs

2012-01-04T17:39:00.001-07:00

Wednesday APRS/GPS track
Today I was running later than normal. I don't enjoy getting to work 10-15 minutes late, so I need to get with the program in the mornings.... or start getting up a half hour earlier like I did when daylight savings time expired.
(Sigh) - I like my warm snuggly bed, especially so at the time the alarm goes off and unceremoniously forces me out of bed at 5:15 AM. I can rarely get to bed earlier than 10 or 10:40 PM, which makes for a short night's nap. Thus the reluctance to get up at, say, 4:30 or 4:40 AM in order to get off to work even earlier.
The morning temperatures have warmed up since the frigid Christmas holidays, but it still feels COLD out thar.
Once I get a mile or tow into my 7-mile commute I warm up a bit, but then the armpits start to get overheated, then moist, then cold as the wind creeps in. Part of me is overheated and part of me never gets truly warm.
I wear my ski mask to keep my face from freezing even uglier, and there I really get hot toward the last part of the ride and have to rip it off and carry it flapping in the breeze the last mile or two.

Pre-Ride BG: 166 -- BG when arrived at Work: 103
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.5                Ending Voltage: 12.4
Beginning Temperature: 41 F (in ABQ)     Ending Temperature: 51 F
Morning Stats from the GPS: Total Miles: 7.39
Overall average speed                    Moving Avg                       Max Speed
9.8 Mph                                         10.8 mph                             19.9 mph
Total Time    45:00 mins      Moving Time 40:59 mins        Stopped Time: 4:01

Out of Sight, Out of Mind, Out of Shape

2012-01-03T22:20:00.000-07:00

Tonight's Low-Battery Partial Track
It was, again, cold and clear today. People often comment to me about being "so persistent" by riding year round, but I think they fail to realize just how many other all-weather cyclists are out there more faithfully than I am.
23 December, for instance, I drove all the way to work because of ugly weather warnings. The morning was decent enough to have ridden the bike, but by noon the snow had started falling and the WIND was gale-force howling nasty-bad,. and driving across Albuquerque after work trying to get home was a struggle, with the horrible winds literally blowing me sideways with huge gusts and freezing snow blowing blizzard-fashion. Yet I passed at least 3 or 4 cyclists coming up Tramway, uphill, in that horrible weather. I NEVER ride but what I pass several other cyclists, no matter how cold or dark it might be. I'm impressed by them and try to emulate them... at least in their passion for bike-riding.
I was dismayed this morning to find my super-bright flashing red tail light was gone:
Evidently fallen off somewhere. I ordered 2 more from Amazon - I really like the bright attention-getter light back there.
Then, tonight, as I started across the intersection of Alameda and Jefferson, something fell out of my leg pocket with a thunk and landed out in the MIDDLE of the intersection, with all kinds of heavy traffic in all directions. I disgustedly pulled to the side of the street once I got through the intersection. I thought it must have been a new pocketbook novel (I just bought and started reading) but when I walked back to the intersection and looked, it was only one of my cheap plastic water bottles. I had walked out of work with it in my side leg pocket, intending to insert it into the bottle bracket on the bike, and instead had ridden off and up to the intersection with it still in my leg pocket. I started to dodge into the intersection to retrieve the bottle of water, but suddenly thought how cheap it was; I haven't been using it for drinking while riding since the cold weather started, so could obviously make it back to the car without it. Plus, if a car hit it or ran over it, it would merely pop and spray water onto the car and pavement - worst case. So, I let it lie and went back to the bike and rode off bottle-less. Good riddance. I refill the bottles after Jacque buys them and empties them of their tasteless store bought water and "only" have 40 or so of them.... so I can find another one to stick on the bike rather easily.
I was also dismayed at how weak and slow I got over the last couple weeks , eating Christmas goodies without riding. The only exercise I've been getting is chopping and hauling firewood, with little leg exercise - and I certainly noticed it today along with the increased stiffness of sore muscles when I got to work.

New Year 2012 Shakedown Ride

2012-01-02T21:48:00.000-07:00

Our track along the Bosque Trail todayWe did not do a bike-trek on Saturday but instead did a ride today. The temperature was a bit colder than we anticipated but the weather was clear and sunny. We only rode a little over 6 miles (3-something out and back) but it was great to get out and ride.
Lots of other cyclists, walkers, and runners shared the trail with us today.
Weather is forecast to continue warm and dry for the next several days; hope to be able to do the commute-ride to work and back all week.

Bad Cycling Weather

2011-12-29T22:41:00.000-07:00

The last time I rode the bike was Friday, 17 December. Beautiful day for it.... but over the weekend we received about 10" of snow followed by another foot a couple days later, then a couple inches on top of that.
We had over 24" of knee-deep snow followed by several days of below-freezing temperatures, so the snow has been slow in fading away. Then this last week between Christmas and New Years has been spent largely at home busting up firewood and enjoying visiting kids and grandkids. A few more cold shots....

Here's a shot of the snowman Christopher a nd Jason constructed, with very wet snow that was beginning to melt but produced a snowmand that would make Calvin and Hobbes jealous:

I expect to begin riding at least the 14+ miles a day starting my first day at work on Monday, 2 Jan 2012.
We might try a joint Jacque & Jim ride down the Bosque trail on Saturday: We'll see.

A Dry Butt is a Wonderful Thing

2011-12-16T23:16:00.000-07:00

Friday Morning Warm-Butt Track
Friday Evening Return Track

My recumbent lawn-chair-on-2-wheels seat had only a fairly thick coating of fresh frost this morning (14 degrees) which brushed off nicely with a couple swipes of my mittens, with no imbedded ice to refigerate my hind end as I rode to work. The difference in comfort level compared to yesterday's frozen-fanny episode was, of course, wonderful.
I neglected to mention last night as I rode out from under the Montgomery bicycle underpass, I again encountered "the screamer". I mentioned several months ago about this lunatick who got outraged at me as I passed him a bit further south, around sundown, because I had blinking red lights on my bike. He was somehow offended by this and screamed at me as I went past and continued to scream at me even though I was a long way past him and ignoring him. I swear he was still screaming audibly half a mile away.
Well, last night he saw me coming toward him as he walked north on the trail and I walked south, and began screaming gibberish at me as I neared him and thankfully only 40 or 50 yards after I passed him,
I'm always tempted to taunt him just as I get close enough to sprint by him and avoid any attempted physical response, but at age 64 I have learned it's seldom worth the risk to get in a slice-and-dice comment. If he was sane enough to understand such a gibe he likely wouldn't be screaming insanity at me in the first place. If he understood it enough to REALLY take offense, who knows if he's:
-Faster than I (not hard to imagine)
-Stronger than I (ditto)
-Armed??
(Sigh) Oh Well. I suppose I'll just continue to allow him to scream insanities so long as he continues to allow me to get past him with only minor injuries to my hearing.
I really enjoyed my ride back to where Jacque was waiting for me in her Exploder tonight. It was cold enough to require mittens (though no chemical hand warmers were needed, unlike the mornings) but the breeze turned into a mild tail-wind that kept from freezing me and it was just a great ride. Love it.

Great Ride, Frozen Butt

2011-12-15T12:39:00.001-07:00

Today's freezing but enjoyable track via APRS

The weather has been pretty nasty recently. I can and do ride the bike no matter how cold it is but with freezing rain and snow dominating the last several days I have missed out on the desired exercise.
Yesterday, Wednesday, when I left home it was snowing and miserable slush, giving way to blue sky and dry roads just as I exited Tijeras Canyon and entered the Albuquerque City Limits. BAH - I was driving Jacque's Exploder but should have taken the time to mount the trailer hitch-mounted bike rack and brought the long monster along. It was cool and cold all day but the wind was very mild and no rain, ice, nor snow.... I felt cheated for not having brought along the recumbent.
Jacque and I decided last night that she would give me a ride to "town" this morning and I would ride the bike the last 7 miles, as usual, and she would go to her normal morning water-exercise class. It was a bit of a pain in the butt to take the bike rack off the RV and bolt it onto the Exploder, but the real pain in the butt began when we got to town and I saddled up: The bike has been out in the snow all week and built up some crunchy ice in the padding and webbing of the seat which did not want to come out easily. I dusted off the snow and ice as best I could and saddled up and took off. I had an extra wind-breaker jacket layer this morning and was warm enough everywhere EXCEPT my hiney which immediately got chilled and thence near-frozen the farther I rode. I got to work after a good and uneventful ride but with a seriously cold and numb backside. It's noon as I write this and it has ALMOST dried and thawed out by now.
It's always dicey changing vehicles, or clothes, for me. I invariably forget something I later find necessary when I move my large stash of STUFF to another set of clothing or a different vehicle. When I started unoading the bike from the rack this morning I realized I had left me GPS/Ham Radio handlebar set in my normal commuter-car, so I was unable to exchange insults or anything else with my normal coterie of other ham radio operators who enjoy hassling and teasing me while I'm on the bike. The Tracker Radio (APRS) is stashed inside the back pocket of the bike seat, however, so I was able to activate it and obtain a track of position reports on the way to work (see above link).
Pre-Ride BG: 262(!) -- BG when arrived at Work: 68
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.7                Ending Voltage: 12.6 (New Gel Cell battery pack, charged 5 days ago)
Beginning Temperature: 34 F (in ABQ)     Ending Temperature: 59 F
Morning Stats from the GPS: Total Miles: 7.44
Overall average speed                    Moving Avg                       Max Speed
8.3 Mph                                         09.7 mph                             19 mph

Balderdash, Curbed Again

2011-12-10T13:57:00.000-07:00

Track me until. the tracking stops for some reason
Heading home last (Friday) night after work, all was calm, all was bright, er, dark...... and then I hit the SAME STUPID CURB that bent my front fork last week. This inspires me to do (at least) 2 things:
(1) - Get a brighter head-lamp
(2) - take some reflective paint and tape and mark this crossing so I and others can avoid injury and damage.
This time, however, no damage seemed to occur to the fork, frame, or wheel. I may have hit it at a slower speed, but it still didn't help my self image the least bit. My commitment to avoid foul language took another beating, as well. I was really surprised my chewing-gum-looking blobby welding job on the current front fork survived this stress. I have been watching and worrying about it since I re-welded and re-painted it
Today I am in the midst of frantically cutting firewood (mostly juniper and :"gift:" scrap lumber from friends' remodeling projects) - we have been really burning the stuff heavy duty with the freezing and sub-freezing and sub-zero weather we've had for over a week now. We still have several inches of very cold frozen snow in all directions, including our primitive roadway to our house. I bladed the road today using our old trailer tongue "V" pulled via a chain attached to Jacque's 4WD Ford Exploder. Then I set about gassing and lubing up the chainsaw and cut a couple sled-loads of the stuff, and got exhausted and took a long break. Now I'm all rested and warm and comfy so I better get back out there again; daylight's a-wasting.....

b-b-b-B-Back in the Saddle Again

2011-12-08T12:12:00.000-07:00

Today's Freezing Forte via APRS
Well, late Sunday night I finally finished stitching the new black-mesh fabric onto my lawn-chair-looking recumbent bicycle seat. Saturday, the day before, I had successfully welded a cracked front fork, painted it, and installed it on the bike. Since Jacque was gone to Dallas to visit the grandkids over the weekend, I did all the necessary work inside the house where it was nice and warm, with the stretch-recumbent bike parked right in the living room, right in front of the wood stove. I really love my twin-V dual Kick Stand, which when folded up looks just like a normal kickstand but when extended for parking makes a "V" support that elevates the rear wheel. This allows brake and chain and wheel adjustments, and allows bike repairs without a bike stand. To keep the front elevated with the front wheel and fork removed, I just put an upside down bucket underneath the front of the frame; the V kickstand kept everything steady and no danger of falling over.
Welding the front fork was a bit tricky: The metal in the fork tubing is very thin while the stem where both sides of the fork meet is very heavy pipe, and takes forever to get orange and white-hot so the metal will flow together for a good weld. It took quite a bit of careful effort to get the thick stem heated up to welding temperature while trying to avoid overheating and completely melting the thin tubing of the fork. The finished weld is not too pretty but seems solid. I scraped and sanded it and painted it bright yellow; a color I'd like to paint the whole bike eventually. Even with all this effort, it was small potatoes compared to re-fabricking the seat. It laces up behind like a fat old woman's corset, so it took a long time to untie all that cord, cut the new fabric to approximate the old fabric, hand stitch reinforcement seams on all borders, punch holes for the lacing cord to match the old fabric, etc, etc. My fingers were already dry and cracked and sore from all our recent cold weather so it was a mild bit of torture working the big sewing needle back and forth through all those seams. Finally I was able to start lacing the new seat cover in place, trying to make it fit well and tight, etc.
So, I was "finished" with the bike late Sunday night. I couldn't ride it on Monday since it had been below zero and snowing all weekend, and the roads and snow and ice were so miserable I wouldn't have even driven to Albuquerque to work except for the fact Jacque was flying back Monday Night to arrive at 9 PM. So, since I had to fight my way to town sometime during the day in order to be ready to pick her up, I drove on in to work.... 2 hours late. Thankfully the snow stopped before noon and no more came down until about midnight, so picking Jacque up was no problem except for the bitter cold and we arrived home safe and sound. It snowed a bit more Monday night and when we arrive home it was FIFTEEN BELOW ZERO.
I'd left the water dripping so thankfully no pipes have locked up yet in spite of the bitter weather.   The roads were snowy and icy again both Tuesday and yesterday, Wednesday, so I drove my Taurus all the way to work each day (having to put tire chains on the front wheels to get up the nasty mile of private road to our home).
The roadways here in Albuquerque have seemed to dry out fairly nicely, and smart remarks by one of my local ham radio buddies (Tom, KG6MVB) convinced me it was time to ride again.
It was 12 degrees on our outside-wall thermometers at home this morning, meaning it was barely (if) above zero out in the air away from the house walls. Several of the ham radio guys and gals told me it was in the upper teens in Albuquerque as I drove to town to park the car and saddle up the bike. It was tempting to put on another layer of a warmer coat this morning but experience has taught me no matter how cold it is, I get overheated quickly with a coat on. My layers this morning were: Garment, thermal turtleneck wicking shirt, thick long sleeve work-shirt, sleeveless insulated vest, and the ever necessary day-glo green/yellow reflective vest that also helps a little bit to break the wind. Polar Fleece skull cap underneath the bike helmet, wraparound safety goggles to protect the eyes from the biting breeze, and a Velcro-attaching face mask fo give the nose, face, and throat a break from the breeze as well. I did NOT get very overheated until about the last mile of the 7-mile commute today, and then most of the heat wa bothersome under the face mask, which is easy to remove and hang on to while riding without stopping. I also didn't break any speed records today... you know how it is. It takes weeks of exercise to build up any stamina at all but only a day or so off the exercise and it all seems to fast fade away.
Pre-Ride BG: UNK -- BG when arrived at Work: 188(!)
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.1                Ending Voltage: 12.0 (Old Gel Cell battery pack, charged last WEEK)
Beginning Temperature: 37 F (in ABQ)     Ending Temperature: 34 F
Morning Stats from the GPS: Total Miles: 7.44
Overall average speed                    Moving Avg                       Max Speed
8.3 Mph                                         09.7 mph                             18.3 mph
Total Trip time                               Moving Time                      Stopped Time
53 mins 34 secs                        46 mins 08 secs       7 mins 26 secs

The Bigger They are the Harder They Fall; Lazy Blogger Playing Catch-up

2011-11-30T13:15:00.000-07:00

Boring Normal Upright Bicycle Tracker-Path
I haven't missed more than 1 day out of the last 300+ workdays riding the bike, but Thanksgiving involved a 4-day weekend and thus I got no bike miles whatsoever during that period. We did, however, finish Jacque's new quilting / long-arm sewing machine room... almost. It still lacks a few finishing touches. We ran out of moulding and the doorway from the main sewing room (aka small ex-bedroom) into the new room needs to be framed, dressed, and painted (it used to be a front window and was cut out to make a walkway). The exterior door baseplate needs finishing to keep the cold drafts at bay. But the room is essentially el finito, filled with all that stuff, and the long arm machine no longer fills our dining room. So we can resume our life of entertaining friends. Hah.
Since the loss of daylight savings time I have been getting up at 4:15 AM instead of 5:15 AM with the goal of getting to work early enough to be able to LEAVE work early enough in the evening to have at least a partial daylight ride back to the car. Hasn't worked out well at all. Even if I get to work an hour earlier than usual it's still difficult to depart early enough to catch any evening daylight. Monday I was riding back to the car and, while crossing a street with poorly marked bike-path entries on each side, mistook the RIGHT-hand pylon for the CENTER pylon and passed it on the right, resulting in my crashing nastily into the 5" high curb, sending me and bike and stuff up into the air and landing sideways after jumping the curb with both front and rear wheels. If I had been riding a "normal" bike I would have gone over the handlebars, which is almost physically impossible (Thankfully) on the low-riding recumbent. I thought surely the front wheel would be toast. After looking at it and spinning it by hand, it appeared to have no damage at all, so I remounted and rode on. Trouble is, now every time I turned the bike the slightest to the right or left, my foot (AND the cranks) hit the front wheel, resulting in nasty noise and angst. I carefully looked it all over again when I limped back to the car, under the streetlights, but still couldn't see any bent frame, fork, etc. But when I arrived home and compared it with an older fork I removed from this bike a year or more ago, it was obvious the fork had been bent backwards to the rear at least 4 full inches. So now the recumbent is parked awaiting repairs. The old fork, while still straight, was removed because of a large stress crack on one side. Also, the recumbent seat fabric is falling apart and needs to be re-fabricked. I have the fabric but have been putting off installing it, but hopefully this weekend.... AFTER I weld and repair the necessary front fork. These last 2 days I've been riding my backup bikes, upright DF (Diamond-Frame) both... and I'm shocked at how much more effort is required to rack up the miles on them. I am most motivated to get with the program and get the recumbent repaired and returned to service.
There has been no snow nor rain recently, so no ice has seemed to exist, UNTIL I noticed last night, right at a very sharp corner-turn, a small patch of ice evidently formed from a water sprinkler leak in the adjacent commercial parking lot grass border. So I have to continue to remind myself to watch for curbs and corners that harbor ice even when there's not supposed to be any. BAH
Pre-Ride BG: 87 -- BG when arrived at Work: 73
Beginning Battery Voltage: Unk, current APRS does not report this Ending Voltage: Unk (Gel Cell battery pack, charged last night)
Beginning Temperature: Unk    Ending Temperature: Unk
Morning Stats from the GPS: Total Miles: 7.40
Overall average speed                    Moving Avg                       Max Speed
7.8 Mph                                         10.0 mph                             20.2 mph
Total Trip time                               Moving Time                      Stopped Time
57 mins 0 secs                            44 mins 20 secs       12 mins 40 secs

'Twas the Wednesday Before Thanksgiving

2011-11-23T10:10:00.002-07:00

Pre-Thanksgiving Two-Wheel Trek-to-Work Track
Well, it's been, like, a WEEK since I rode the recumbent last. Longest absence from the bike in the last couple of years. In spite of the cool, nay, freezing temperatures outside in the mornings, Idon't like to miss a day.... Because I really miss the riding and the feeling of well being that comes daily after cooling down from a ride.
My excuse has been the effort to maximize daylight in order to finish construction on Jacque's new sewing room which will primarily house her long arm quilting machine. I'm down to the last 2 ceiling panels and thence the flooring will commence. Jacque piped up in her inimitable fashion and told me this morning "Let's stop trying to rush the sewing room. No matter what we do we can't get it done in time for dinner tomorrow anyway." So I took the sweet hint and dressed in bicycle layers and did my usual 7.47 mile commute from the top secret parking place this morning. I was more slow than ever this morning and I assumed it must be due to a week of not riding. However, I was shocked to find my blood glucose at 265(!) when I got to work. Something was wrong in my insulin pump connection or plumbing somewhere. It was almost out of gas (insulin) anyway, and started bleeping about 40 minutes after arrival at work, so I had to re-load and re-insert the apparatus. Hopefully this fresh load of insulin will have more punch. And I can get back to eating like a pig again. Erp.Oink
Pre-Ride BG: 216 -- BG when arrived at Work: 54
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.5                Ending Voltage: 12.5 (Gel Cell battery pack, charged last WEEK)
Beginning Temperature: 55 F (in ABQ)     Ending Temperature: 66 F
Morning Stats from the GPS: Total Miles: 7.37
Overall average speed                    Moving Avg                       Max Speed
8.2 Mph                                         09.7 mph                             18.9 mph
Total Trip time                               Moving Time                      Stopped Time
54 mins 0 secs                            45 mins 33 secs       8 mins 27 secs
The ride back to the car was wonderfully nice: The boss ordered us to leave early and I was happy to do so. It meant I got to do my afternoon ride in the daylight instead of just while the sun is setting and totally dark by the time I'm halfway back to the car.
Pre-Ride BG:    152                                   Post-Ride BG: 56
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.7                Ending Voltage: 12.6 (Why it's a tenth of a volt higher than this morning is a mystery)
Evening Stats from the GPS: Total Miles: 7.41
Overall average speed                    Moving Avg                       Max Speed
7.8 Mph                                         10.0 mph                             20.9 mph
Total Trip time                               Moving Time                      Stopped Time
56 mins 59 secs                            44 mins 19 secs       12 mins 40 secs

Restful Days Off

2011-11-16T08:42:00.000-07:00

Tuesday's Track

Hmmm.. Getting lazy about keeping up the blog, I suppose. I haven't yet missed a workday of comuting by bike, but have had limited time available to mess with the blog. Which is just as well since nothing of interest has transpired. Even most of the pretty women that enliven the boring scenery have dropped out doubtlessly due to the colder weather, though there are still several hardcore gals still riding with snow-bunny suits similar to mine: Lots of layers, face masks, and fat gloves making it difficult to know whether the passer-by is eye candy or otherwise unless they say "HI" in passing which is USUALLY an accurate indication of their gender.
I'm getting tired of taking the extra time required to mount and dismount my GPS/Radio stuff on the handlebars morning and night. Since my APRS tracker is an inexpensive but well hidden package inside part of the seat (and is left on the bike day in and day out, powering on only when I mount the rear pannier and connect the PowerPole battery plug), and I rarely, if ever, actually use the sexy Garmin 350 GPS on the handlebars, I've decided to mount a less expensive and less attractive (theft-wise) ham radio walky-squawky on the handlebars and just leave it there,. with some sort of weather protector perhaps as complex as a plastic sandwich baggie to put over it in inclement weather. Will include photos, I promise, I'm sure the world is anxiously awaiting this achievement of engineering.
As for today, tomorrow, and Friday, well, I have taken them off work as vacation days in hopes I can get Jacque's new sewing room finished. I'm sure I'll be so stiff and sore by tonight I'll be wishing I was riding the bike in my wooley itchey underwear.

Finally: Frigid Friday

2011-11-11T12:10:00.000-07:00

Following Frigid Friday Fatalistically

I need to stop complaining about the cold. Every time I do, it gets even colder.
This morning the weather guessers claimed it was warmer than the last couple of days which have been FRIGID.
Fine and Dandy, but it seemed COLDER to me on the bike. It may be the humidity was higher, and tugging the chill factor along with it, but I was not overly warm unitl well into the last third of my commute this morning.
I've noticed my reported temperatures on the back of the bike have looked almost summerish... I connected the spare pouch-mounted GPS to the output of the Argent APRS board, and it appears the additional +5 VDC load on the internal regulator heats up the other parts on the interface board. How else to avccount for an 81 degree reading yesterday evening when it was barely above freezing?
Pre-Ride BG: 79 -- BG when arrived at Work: 54
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.4                Ending Voltage: 12.3 (Gel Cell battery pack, not charged last night)
Beginning Temperature: 51 F (Bogus!) (in ABQ)     Ending Temperature: 66 F
Morning Stats from the GPS: Total Miles: 7.44
Overall average speed                    Moving Avg                       Max Speed
8.3 Mph                                         10.0 mph                             20.7 mph
Total Trip time                               Moving Time                      Stopped Time
53 mins 32 secs                             44 mins 52 secs        8 mins 40 secs

BRRrrrr. Is Winter going to last much longer?

2011-11-10T11:13:00.002-07:00

Thursday Bicycle Tracking
The upcoming weekend is supposed to be much warmer than most of this previous week, but I'm already tired of winter and it's just barely gotten started. Riding the bike doesn't chill me as much as just going out on the deck or across the yard to get a load of firewood. It's been BITTER feeling, even though the temps have not yet sunk much, if any, below 20 degrees.
Today's temperatures seem almost the same as yesterday's, but it seemed to be mucho colder - to me.
I tried a different layer this morning: Instead of a cotton Tee shirt on top of my turtlenec, I wore a knitted sweater/vest Jacque made for me last winter. My arms always get so overheated I thought perhaps the sleeveless sweater would not only allow my arms to remain cooler but also keep my core warmer.... and, since it;'s wool, drier as I work up a sweat (that is, perspiration, for my more sensitive readers)and hopefully it will wick away the moisture and keep me warmer even if it does get a bit smoggy in there. So far I'm happy with it.
I'm also not the only lunatick on a bike in this weather.... the cycling traffic has fallen off noticeably with the cold weather, but only about by half.   I probably still encounter at least a dozen other cyclists daily, and that's only in my relatively short 7.5 mile commute.
Pre-Ride BG: 172   -- BG when arrived at Work: 144
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.7                Ending Voltage: 12.7 (Gel Cell battery pack, charged last night)
Beginning Temperature: 44 F (in ABQ)     Ending Temperature: 63 F
Morning Stats from the GPS: Total Miles: 7.45
Overall average speed                    Moving Avg                       Max Speed
9.1 Mph                                         10.4 mph                             19.2 mph
Total Trip time                               Moving Time                      Stopped Time
48 mins 59 secs                             43 mins 9 secs        5 mins 50 secs

Whoopee Wednesday

2011-11-09T17:09:00.000-07:00

Today's Track via APRS/GPS
Pre-Ride BG: 196                  BG when arrived at Work: 64
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.3 Ending Voltage: 12.2 (Gel Cell battery pack, not charged last night)
Beginning Temperature: 45 F (in ABQ) Ending Temperature: 63 F
Morning Stats from the GPS: Total Miles: 7.45
Overall average speed      Moving Avg      Max Speed
9.1 Mph                          9.7 mph            20.2 mph
Total Trip time              Moving Time        Stopped Time
49 mins 01 secs           45 mins 59 secs     03 mins 01 secs

Winter's Back, in Spite of my Lack of Interest

2011-11-09T09:33:00.000-07:00

Another cold breezy Ride-Track
Mercy. The outside temperature was 20 degrees F when I woke up this morning. It was several degrees warmer than that when I got to Albuquerque and out of the warm car and onto the bike, but it was still COLD.
Pre-Ride BG: 116 BG when arrived at Work: 50

Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.5 Ending Voltage: 12.5 (Gel Cell battery pack, not charged last night)
Beginning Temperature: 41 F (in ABQ) Ending Temperature: 51 F
Morning Stats from the GPS: Total Miles: 7.44
Overall average speed Moving Avg Max Speed
9.7 Mph 11.1 mph 21.8 mph
Total Trip time Moving Time Stopped Time
45 mins 59 secs 40 mins 9 secs 05 mins 50 secs

Snowing, Dark, and Cold.... What a Lovely Day for a Bicycle Ride

2011-11-08T16:34:00.001-07:00

Today's cool ride track via APRS/GPS
Today made for cold biking but almost satisfyingly so... just enough for me to take satisfaction in being able to ride in spite of the weather. Last night it snowed so heavily from the eastern outskirts of Albuquerque all the way through Tijeras Canyon and up North-14 to home I would have stayed the night on Jake and Stacy's couch rather than fumble along in the cold and dark, almost totally blinded and yet not having ANY safe area in which to pull off the road and wait out the storm. Then this morning I had to scrape ice off the car windshield to get out of the yard. When I arrived at my parking lot to ditch the car and mount the bike I found solid blobs of ice encasing parts of the derailleur and the sprocket gear rings and the chain. I chipped all those off before riding off, fearing otherwise it might make the chain just pop right out of place, and that's not a fun problem to solve when it happens.
Then, all the way from the car to work, every few hundred feet more ice chunks would flake off the bike and go SPLAT! on the trail, often spooking me with the noise, making me think I'd lost something important off the bike.
Thankfully the trail and path and streets were clear of ice, so I didn't do any unrehearsed fancy tricks (Like sliding upside down with the wheels in the air). All the ice was actually left over from last night's trip home through the blowing snow.

Pre-Ride BG: 116    BG when arrived at Work:    50
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.5       Ending Voltage: 12.5 (Gel Cell battery pack, not charged last night)
Beginning Temperature: 41 F (in ABQ)    Ending Temperature: 51 F
Morning Stats from the GPS:        Total Miles:    7.44
Overall average speed         Moving Avg         Max Speed
9.7 Mph                            11.1 mph               21.8 mph
Total Trip time                Moving Time          Stopped Time
45 mins 59 secs            40 mins 9 secs     05 mins 50 secs

Monday: Cold. Wet. Great biking

2011-11-07T21:45:00.001-07:00

Cold this morning, rained on for a couple miles this evening. Wonderful ride in spite of the wind.
It's late and the weather outside is ugly and I need to saddle up the bike and scat back to the car as fast as I can and hope I don't get soaked.

Low and Slow

2011-11-04T17:19:00.001-06:00

Today's Cool Ride
My blood glucose was high (194) this morning when I arose. I pumped the recommended amount and went about getting ready for the day. I SHOULD have checked it again just before I left for work. Within a few miles from my cycling-start of the last 7.5 commute miles I felt like I had particularly low strength. I experienced similar sensations yesterday and assumed it must be the unaccustomed cold temperatures. I thought about stopping and eating a snack "Just in Case" but didn't, since my blood glucose has been running high the last couple of days. I finally stopped just outside Balloon Fiesta Park and drank a couple of snorts of my lemon-lime sugar water.I couldn't drink much of it since it was COLD from the wind while riding. It seemed to help a bit, though, and I got to work and found my BG was 59. Not good for trying to exert effort in any fashion.
It's late in the afternoon now, quitting time, and I did a quick BG test and found it to be 114... much too low still to take off on the bike. Good thing I checked it so I'd realize I needed to eat my PB & Honey sandwich snack before I take off.
Pre-Ride BG: 182    BG when arrived at Work:    59
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.3       Ending Voltage: 12.2 (Gel Cell battery pack, not charged last night)
Beginning Temperature: 48 F (in ABQ)    Ending Temperature: 52 F
Morning Stats from the GPS:        Total Miles:    7.39
Overall average speed         Moving Avg         Max Speed
8.7 Mph                            10.0 mph               19.8 mph
Total Trip time                Moving Time          Stopped Time
50 mins 59 secs            44 mins 19 secs     06 mins 41 secs

18 Degrees of Glory

2011-11-03T13:09:00.000-06:00

Today's Chilly Cycling Catalogue
Yesterday was a grand example of why I should never pay attention to the weatherman. - it makes me even question my OWN ability to look at the portending sky and make any valid assumptions.
The weather-guessers have been proclaiming "Afternoon High Winds and Arctic Temperatures" for the last several days, and the actualities have been rather mundane. Yesterday morning I awoke with memories of the wind howling outside much of the night. The weather-dude again announced high winds and horrible cold temperatures by early afternoon. I was all set to ignore this and ride the recumbent anyway but when I walked out to the car I could see lowering clouds off to the west and other side of Sandia Crest, and a very reddish tinge to them. The old saying "Red Sky at Morning, Sailor Take Warning" always resonates with me so I made the difficult decision to just drive all the way to work and take a day off from cycling. It turned out to be quite cold, but the winds were quite minimal and when I left work in the GAS HOG CAR, I was again chagrined to notice how calm it was and regretted, again, that I had not ridden the bike. I guess in future I will try to rely on what's going on NOW weather wise and ride if at all possible and dodge or worry about the afternoon weather when it happens. Absolute worst case scenario: Jake (my youngest son) lives only about a mile from where I work and I could always call him or his wife Stacy to come rescue me and let me sleep on their couch. Which doesn't sound unpleasant at all, though I'd likely get in trouble for being too rowdy and noisy with my VERY invigorating grandchildren.
This morning? Colder than yesterday (18 degrees at the house when I got up, and 33 degrees when I saddled up the bike in town) but quite pleasant riding weather. Lots of other hardy weather-fearless cyclists out there on the paths too, including a rather lovely eye-candy type that would encourage crowded cyclist trails should the word get out that she's a regular.

A fleeting View...

Pre-Ride BG: 138    BG when arrived at Work:   100
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.5       Ending Voltage: 12.5 (Gel Cell battery pack, charged last night)
Beginning Temperature: 33 F (in ABQ)    Ending Temperature: 44 F
Morning Stats from the GPS:        Total Miles:    7.42
Overall average speed         Moving Avg         Max Speed
8.4 Mph                            10.0 mph               20.3 mph
Total Trip time                Moving Time          Stopped Time
52 mins 59 secs            44 mins 35 secs     08 mins 24 secs

Winter's Cancelled Due to Lack of Interest: It's Fall Again

2011-11-01T21:44:00.000-06:00

Today's APRS/GPS Route.
This morning I rode with hand-warmers toasting inside my mittens on the way to work. It actually seemed a bit warmer than yesterday: I didn't wear the ski mask but it still felt great to have the pinkies a bit warmer.
I've had trouble getting my blood glucose down the last 48 hours. I had just changed infusion sites and the BG has been off the chart since. I closely inspected my new infusion this morning and saw it was bruised and bloody; a bad sign. I pulled it out, cleaned it up, and reinserted it elsewhere on my belly. It now seems to be working, but only slightly., as seen in the readings today. I'm having to pump extra and with very weak results and nasty high bg readings
Tonight, as the leaving time approached, I looked out the work windows and was alarmed to see dark clouds gathering. I rushed to leave before it started raining and was mildly surprised to find the weather absolutely balmy outside in spite of the clouds. It turned out to be a lovely ride back to the car.
BG before ride home: 159 BG after getting home, before dinner: 255 - which resulted in NO dinner.
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.5       Ending Voltage: 11.9
Beginning Temperature: 69 F    Ending Temperature: 77 F
Evening stats from the GPS:    Total Distance Miles: 7.41
Overall average speed     Moving Avg     Max Speed
10.6 Mph                           11.6 mph            23.4 mph
Total Trip time                Moving Time     Stopped Time
42:00 mins                       38.25 mins          03:35 mins

It's Now Officially Itchy Underwear Time

2011-10-31T16:27:00.000-06:00

Today's cold but unchanging tracking-route
Well, this morning it was 31 degrees when I rousted my sleepy self out of bed. So I dutifully donned my winter cycling wear. I've never had to use leggings, although I do use Velcro straps to tie my pants legs shut at the ankles both to keep the pants out of the chain and to keep warmth in and cold air out.
For the upper torso I wear a turtleneck wicking shirt that's supposed to allow me to sweat or (perspire, for my more gentle readers) while wicking such moisture away from the body to keep me from overheating and freezing all at the same time, or closely timed to each other. This shirt helps keep me warm underneath but I don't notice it keeping my other undergarments dry at all. But, as they say in first aid and survival courses: Cotton Kills, at least in cold weather. On top of that is a long sleeve shirt, then a bright yellow bike windbreaker, then a blazing yellow-green reflective vest which also blocks a bit of wind. As usual for colder weather, I did not get overheated until about the last 2 miles of my 7+ mile commute, after which I was frantically unzipping things to let in some of that wonderful cold air. I also wore my wooly polar fleece skull cap and my ski mask and my ski gloves which are so bulky I can barely work the shifters and brakes, and pretty much NOTHING so small as a radio knob, although I can still work the handlebar-mounted transmit switch for the radios. I also wore my clunky winter leather high-top shoes since the tennie-runners have not been keeping the feet warm recently. The only winter gear I didn't utilize today was chemical hand-warmers, and, Unless we have a dramatic warming spell I will henceforth be using them every day.
Pre-Ride BG: 229    BG when arrived at Work:   147
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.7       Ending Voltage: 12.7 (Gel Cell battery pack, charged last night)
Beginning Temperature: 48 F (in ABQ)    Ending Temperature: 55 F
Morning Stats from the GPS:        Total Miles:    7.45
Overall average speed         Moving Avg         Max Speed
9.5 Mph                        10.6 mph               19.5 mph
Total Trip time                Moving Time          Stopped Time
46 mins 59 secs            42 mins 04 secs     04 mins 55 secs

Free-Fire Friday, or the Smell of Cordite

2011-10-28T14:21:00.003-06:00

Today's Frozen Fingered APRS/GPS Track
Unless it decides to warm up, and soon, I guess I'll be riding with full winter gear from here on until Springtime in the Rockies comes again. My ride wasn't terribly bad this morning except for my face and fingers falling off as they froze..... Well, Not Really. The face and fingers were quite uncomfortable, though. Temps got down to freezing last night. Even with mild sunshine fluttering over me, it was still too cold to be riding without warmer gloves and a facemask.
All the wooden bone-shaker ABQ bike bridges were coated with heavy frost this morning.

Yesterday I forgot to mention I lost my favorite day-glo yellow-green BikeABQ tee shirt. Jacque had cut it open in the front for me and added velcro so I could open and close it easily with one hand, even in motion if needed. I wasn't wearing it during the morning ride but carried it bungee'd to my front pack so I could wear it on the warmer afternoon ride back to the car. Like so many other valuables I've lost somewhere along the bike path over the years, when I got to work the wonderful bright shirt was nowhere to be found. I've kept my eyes peeled for it in case it appears lying along the path, but the path has lots of walkers and users and I have never found anything I've lost except one radio antenna I found by turning around immediately and riding back along the path. It would probably help if I had my name taped, inked, or embroidered into any of these items but as usual, I seldom think of such things until I experience another loss.
Last night before I retired to bed I heard our area coyotes yipping not far away, but they sounded well away from our property. I was rudely awakened about 3:00 AM to the sound of MORE yipping coyotes, and they sounded VERY close. We are doing our best to make our property seem very inhospitable to such critters, especially since they attacked out Papillon lap-doggy a couple years ago right outside our home as we sat out on the deck only a few feet away. They are too fleet-footed for me or I would have killed one or more of them by now and hung their hides on the fence next to our entry gate, as did ranchers from my youthful memories. This time I leaped out of bed, grabbed the 12-gauge pump action, and in underwear and slippers crept out on the deck in the dark and listened to see how close they might actually be. I could not see any without benefit of moonlight, but they sounded like they were just on the other side of our storage shed not far from where they attacked our beloved Tinkerbell as before noted. I was able to pump a round into the chamber but it took me several precious seconds to realize the gun's safety was still activated. I disengaged that unwelcome feature and fired twice, quickly, in that general direction. The ear-splitting blast of the gun and the brightness of flame from the muzzle resulted in ...... TOTAL SILENCE. The yelping and yipping and screeching stopped and all was peaceful again, except for the ringing of my ears and the soreness in my shoulder. Mercy, that monster does kick. I want the predators to stay away but every few weeks they test our resolve again, and unless they stop, I will eventually have one of their smelly hides hanging on the fence to warn their fellows.
There is an abundance of rabbits, rats, mice, squirrels, and all sorts of other bothersome vermin for them to feast upon without preying on our house pets.
Pre-Ride BG: 138    BG when arrived at Work:   121
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.4       Ending Voltage: 12.3 (Gel Cell battery pack, no charge last night)
Beginning Temperature: 41 F    Ending Temperature: 52 F
Morning Stats from the GPS:        Total Miles:    7.37
Overall average speed         Moving Avg         Max Speed
9.6. Mph                        10.8 mph               23.5 mph
Total Trip time                Moving Time          Stopped Time
45 mins 59 secs            41 mins 00 secs     04 mins 59 secs
Nothing much to report from the ride back tonight. No frost, no weirdos, no missing TEE shirt...
BG before ride home: 193 BG after getting home, before dinner: 129
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.8       Ending Voltage: 12.0
Beginning Temperature: 66 F    Ending Temperature: 69.8 F
Evening stats from the GPS:    Total Distance Miles: 7.44
Overall average speed     Moving Avg     Max Speed
09.5 Mph                             11.0 mph            22.9 mph
Total Trip time                Moving Time     Stopped Time
46:59 mins                       40.37 mins          06:22 mins

Wet and Wimped Out.

2011-10-27T16:44:00.000-06:00

Well, the inaccuracy of the weather-guessers works both ways. Today the forecast was "It's Stopped Raining here in Albuquerque, the storm has moved on to the east side of the state...."
So I drove in, thought snow and slush was caked all over the car and bike, assuming the warmer air down through Tijeras Canyon and Albuquerque would melt off and dry the bike. That all happened as planned, but as I drove past Juan Tabo and Eubank I was a bit alarmed at how dark and drizzly the western skies looked. I thought to myself that it would surely dry up by the time I got to my car/bike changeover point. It was misting steadily on my windshield as I turned into my secret hideaway parking lot and I bravely thought I'd saddle up and wouldn't mind a bit of mist because surely it would stop soon and I wouldn't get soaked. As I stopped the car and started to get ready to pile out and unrack the bike, the mist got just a bit heavier. My resolve and bravery faded.... Yeah, the weatherman said it was clearing up. But it didn't LOOK like it was clearing up. So I backed out of the parking lot and drove all the way to work. BAH

Okay. So I got Soaked..... Again

2011-10-26T16:15:00.002-06:00

Another Winding Track to Work and Back

I had it all planned in advance, Very Unusual for me....Since I had a doctor's appointment this morning, and the doc's office is maybe 1/4 mile off my normal beaten bike-route, I'd park the carrito as normal, ride the recumbent down my normal bike route to Singer, then take Singer eastbound to the Dr's... After which I'd ride the last 3-something miles to work. The skies, however, were not promising. It was gloomy and dark, and what light DID shine through the couds had a distinct red hue. As I drove into Albuquerque out of Tijeras Canyon I talked myself in and out of riding the bike several times. In spite of the wise old saying "Red Sky at Morning, Biker Take Warning", or something to that effect, I decided to ride the bike. In spite of the gloom of the dark clouds overhead, it was actually quite balmy and I rode without benefit of skull cap or warm mittens with a nice degree of comfort. I'm always a big hit when I arrive at the doctor office on the bike in full regalia.... Rolled up pants, bike helmet, flashing blinkies on the bike, big pack on the front and pannier on the rear, water bottles front and rear, baby-puke day-glo yellow-green outerwear.... Walking in amongst all my fellow diabetics with their oxygen tanks, wheelchairs, and such, whom I will no doubt look just alike in a few short years.... I'm surrounded by people looking at me like I just landed in a space-ship instead of a bicycle.
Can't imagine what's wrong with all these people. At least I'm not wearing spandex and lycra looking like Barbarella with every pimple on my butt showing through my skin-tight tighties. On the other hand, if I dressed like that, perhaps folks wouldn't look at me so strange. If I was less ugly it would probably help too...
I actually received a glowing report from my lovely doctor this morning in spite of my A1C being 7.4 as is almost always the case. The ideal is for it to be BELOW 7.0, instead of halfway to 8.0 - but for me that has only happened once in the last several years at 6.8. I am truly addicted to my carbs... which is one of the many reasons I love riding the bike so I can burn more of that stuff off.
Then, as I went outside to saddle up for the rest of the ride to work, it began to sprinkle.   As I rode further it began to RAIN. I finally stopped and put on my wind-breaker which has the nice ability to make raindrops bead up and roll off instead of just soaking through. That helped a lot, and actually helped the rain to STOP right before I arrived at work. My legs got a little damp and my thorax got a bit soggy from sweating (perspiring, for my lovely cultured cousins in AZ and UT) but all in all I was just fine and dandy.
As I type this epistle late in the day it is again a bit threatening outside: Nay, it is POURING outside. I'm hoping for it to stop long enough for me to get back to the car again unscathed......
Pre-Ride BG: 178    Fasting BG when arrived at Doc's Office: 190 Post-Ride BG: 93
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.8       Ending Voltage: 12.7 (Gel Cell battery pack, fresh charge last night)
Beginning Temperature: 51 F    Ending Temperature: 66 F
Morning Stats from the GPS:        Total Miles:    8.80
Overall average speed         Moving Avg       Max Speed
8.5. Mph                        10.4 mph            21.9 mph
Total Trip time                 Moving Time          Stopped Time
61 mins 00 secs               50 mins 33 secs     11 mins 23 secs

Thankfully the rain stopped just before I left work and the ride back to the car was almost totally dry and non-frigid. It was so uneventful that I detoured off the bike path at Montgomery to stop in at REI, where the Pedouins.org family, the Harrisons, were holding forth and selling their self published books as fund raisers.
It was good to see them again. The girls seemed much more mature and well behaved this time around. Of course, it's been almost 2 years since I saw them last when they came through NM during the coldest winter we'd had in years. The book detailing their lifestyle of close to 2 years riding across America on a 5-seat quint bicycle is quite interesting, I recommend it for some unusual reading. Visit http://www.pedouins.org/ and order a copy.
BG before ride home: 89 BG after getting home, before dinner: 91
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.7       Ending Voltage: 12.6
Beginning Temperature: 66 F    Ending Temperature: 73 F
Evening stats from the GPS:    Total Distance Miles: 6.65
Overall average speed     Moving Avg     Max Speed
11.4 Mph                             11.6 mph            23.6 mph
Total Trip time                Moving Time     Stopped Time
34:58 mins                   34:20 mins          38:00 mins

Nice Side-Trip for Shopping Today

2011-10-25T17:20:00.002-06:00

today's divergent APRS/GPS track

I did the normal park-the-car and ride-the-7-miles-to-work thing today, but as the noon hour approached I considered riding up to Bikes Plus (to buy another spare shifter cable) on Holly parallel to Paseo Del Norte - about 3 miles slightly uphill and a fairly easy slightly-downhill ride back. The biggest problems are getting through the busy intersection at Alameda and the I-25 Frontage Road, and crossing Wyoming and Wilshire. It's quite the aerobic exercise going east on almost any street in Albuquerque east of the Rio Grande, since the city sits in a gentle valley that slopes from both directions E-W toward the River.
No problems encountered. The traffic light at Alameda and Frontage Road actually help me since it slows the traffic down, and I rarely get any grief from motorists when I come out of the CarMax auto dealership lot onto Alameda and ride between cars to the light and wait my turn. Years ago I would ride the sidewalk there and wait for the "Walk" light but that is EXTREMELY dangerous since cars are never looking for a bike to come out into the intersection from the sidewalk. When I ride in the ROAD, with the cars, they very definitely SEE me and thankfully, rarely get huffy about it. Today, as is usual, when the light turned red I was able to match the autos' speed as we approached the intersection, so I wasn't slowing anyone down.
The weather was forecast to be nasty today, and of course it turned out to be a beautiful balmy day.
The early morning forecasters disappointedly stated that "It will get COLD and likely WET this afternoon" - I plotted to ride anyway and take my chances. There are only a few days a year where the weather actually gets ugly enough to worry about, and I've had to call Jacque to come rescue me only a few times a year out of hundreds of days riding year in and year out. As I type currently the weather is still just cool enough to be enjoyable and the online weather maps don't show anything threatening in the vicinity. I'll let ya know if I get soaked but it's not very likely.
Noon Ride Stats from GPS: Total Distance Miles: 6.55
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.       Ending Voltage: 12.5 (Gel Cell battery pack, no charge for 3 days now)
Beginning Temperature: 80.6 F    Ending Temperature: 80 F
Overall average speed     Moving Avg     Max Speed
9.6 Mph                             10.9 mph            22.5 mph
Total Trip time                Moving Time     Stopped Time
41:00 mins                   36:13 mins          04:47 mins

Later: I got soaked. Actually, only mildly. It was sprinkling by the time I left work. I started north to go my normal route but the rain was harder and the sky darker that direction, so I turned tail and rode south on Jefferson to Paseo to shorten the ride back. The rain at first started to slack off but then started in earnest. About 3 miles south the rain stopped, and though the path was wet, the rest of the ride was dry and uneventful, but I really regretted forgetting my toy video-cam: Just before I got back to the car I passed the CUTEST little redheaded girlie-girl riding on her Momma's shoulders, strolling along. "Hiya", says I, and the wee cutie says "Look, Mom! A BICYCLE!!!"
BG before ride home: 224 BG after getting home, before dinner: 115
Evening stats from the GPS:    Total Distance Miles: 6.51
Overall average speed     Moving Avg     Max Speed
9.4 Mph                             11.1 mph            22.5 mph
Total Trip time                Moving Time     Stopped Time
47:00 mins                   43:23 mins          03:37 mins

Popped Another One

2011-10-24T22:10:00.000-06:00

Monday APRS Tracking Route
There I was... cruising along minding my own business, about halfway to work from my secret parking place where I park the car and saddle up the bike for the last 7.4323434555 miles. I forget why I pulled over and stopped, but I did, downshifting automatically as I braked. I think it was my cell phone ringing and I don't remember who it was, but when I started to roll again, I couldn't get it into low gear. I seemed to remember I'd already downshifted but it didn't hit me full in the face until I tried to downshift to cross an Albuquerque bone-shaker wooden rattle-bridge.... there WAS no downshifting. I was stuck in high gear. When I twisted the handlebar-grip shifter ring, it spun too easily and whizzed through the stops but no control of the rear derailleur occurred. I realized my long shifter cable had broken.... for the third time since I bought the recumbent.
Thankfully I had a new cable safely tucked in the rear pannier.... but needing for now to get to work, I just chugged huffily along using only the front chain-rings for up and down shifting. But, since the rear gear was stuck on the tallest gear, the chain had trouble staying true at such an odd pull angle so it continually jumped a tooth, making it highly impossible to keep up a tempo or pull the slightest of grades without having to hop off and walk the bike..... definitely not a fun ride. I spent my noon hour replacing the cable instead of the usual enjoyable 2-mile walk through Wildflower Park. The gears worked fine for the ride back to the carrito tonight except for not being adjusted exactly as they used to be. Now I must make a pass by the local bike shop to pick up another cable to keep with me for the next breakage.
BG before ride home: 167 BG after getting home, before dinner: 138
Evening stats from the GPS:    Total Distance Miles: 7.43
Overall average speed     Moving Avg     Max Speed
9.5 Mph                             10.3 mph            21.4 mph
Total Trip time                Moving Time     Stopped Time
47:00 mins                   43:23 mins          03:37 mins

Destroying a Piano

2011-10-21T14:41:00.000-06:00

Today's very late noon ride to work
I really did destroy a piano today. My employer encouraged us to volunteer our services at a local low-income pre-school. It's located in downtown Albuquerque and they had an upstairs floor full of stored junk. The center hoped to clean the upstairs enough to be able to hold staff meetings up there. One of the listed projects was "disassembling a piano" that was too large and heavy to safely be taken down the very narrow stairs to the ground floor. That sounded like a job that could be actually completed within a few hours, so a couple co-workers and I signed up for that portion of the project.
What a mess.
Not only was the work dirty and difficult, it was downright DANGEROUS. Anyone who may have dealt with the innards of a piano will recognize what I'm talking about. Not only was it built heavy, it was very solidly assembled.... and difficult to take apart. We finally got the front portions of the piano removed, exposing the strings and sound-board. A few dozen VERY heavy duty screws later, we thought the cast metal stringboard should come loose. Not even a wiggle. We found and dislodged a few more screws but still no sign of anything loosening. We finally realized the hundreds of piano wires strung very tightly were actually holding the sounding board very firmly in place. We started cutting piano wires.... very dangerous. I almost ruined my Gerber multi-tool cutting several dozen of the smaller wires. I went back to my car looking for stronger wire cutters but no dice. So we began BREAKING the wires rather than cutting them, by gripping with heavy pliers and vise-grips and twist/yanking. POW! CLANG! Horrible dying-piano noises as we crashed and ripped piano wires large and small. Many of them sparked as we popped them apart. We joked, only half-heartedly, that someone should have been taking video of the grisly process. We got pinged by the sharp wires: I have at least 3 healing punctures in hands and fingers from the procedures. Only one set of safety glasses was available between the 3 of us piano-destructers, and it's a wonder none of us suffered any eye damage. In retrospect we realize we should have just gotten several of us strong backs and weak minds to manhandle it down the stairs and out to the dumpster receptacle. Even though we finally got all the strings removed and the sound board separated and the legs in separate piles, the monster back-board was still heavy and awkward to manage down the stairs.
Now, I LIKE pianos and piano music. I can play at least 3 songs from memory and enjoy it, and really enjoy listening to or singing along with someone who really CAN play the instrument. But this repeated-every-few-years thing of MOVING them, and now actually DESTROYING one...... I think I'll stay home next time.
Still got to ride the bicycle to work, though...... even if it WAS noon by the time I saddled up and got rolling.
Pre-Ride BG: 178 (after a sticky-bun reward at the child center)    Post-Ride BG: 125
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.5       Ending Voltage: 12.3 (Gel Cell battery pack, no charge for 2 days now)
Beginning Temperature: 69 F    Ending Temperature: 77 F
Morning Stats from the GPS:        Total Miles:    7.40
Overall average speed         Moving Avg       Max Speed
12.7. Mph                          13.1 mph            28.7 mph
Total Trip time                 Moving Time          Stopped Time
35 mins 00 secs               33 mins 50 secs     1 mins 10 secs

2011-10-20T12:35:00.000-06:00

For some reason I was a little low on energy for this morning's 2-wheel 7-mile commute. My blood glucose was on the high side of normal when I woke up; I made my usual 1/2 sandwich for breakfast and pumped the normal amount of insulin to deal with it, and blahhhh.... I was poking along with no zip. When I got to work the Blood Glucose (BG) was 55, not a good level for cycling exertions.
Pre-Ride BG: 126           Post-Ride BG: 55
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.5       Ending Voltage: 12.5 (Gel Cell battery pack, no charge since yesterday's ride)
Beginning Temperature: 55 F    Ending Temperature: 59 F
Morning Stats from the GPS:        Total Miles:    7.42
Overall average speed         Moving Avg       Max Speed
09.5. Mph                          10.7 mph            20.7 mph
Total Trip time                 Moving Time          Stopped Time
46 mins 59 secs               41 mins 44 secs     5 mins 15 secs

It's Wednesday and Cold Weather is Coming Back

2011-10-20T12:06:00.000-06:00

Typical 7.4-mile L-pattern breadcrumb trail
I'm not one to let cold weather slow me down: For the last 2 winters I've missed only a couple of weeks total riding year round. But I'm not CRAZY about cold weather. For one thing, I have to wear heavy mittens instead of nice flex-finger bike gloves. Which makes it nigh impossible to push any buttons on the ham radio on the handlebars, though I can still activate the transmit switch velcro'ed next to the right handlebar grip. Nor can I access any GPS functions with the furry-fat fingers.
The other irritant is that no matter how cold, I always start out frosty and cold and somewhere within a mile or 2 of my destination, I get overheated and sweaty.... which of course makes me VERY uncomfortable because part of me (usually the upper arms and armpits) are overheated and sloshing in perspiration (Sweat to those of us West of the Mississippi) while other parts are getting nasty-cold because the moisture has soaked through the layers and is now drastically conducting heat AWAY from my core, thus making me too hot and too cold all at the same time. If I was riding leisurely instead of always hustling along trying to get to work, I COULD stop and peel off layers BEFORE they get stinky-water-logged and maintain better temperature/comfort control. But this is the REAL world. That would require some thoughtful ANTICIPATION on my part, and I'm very much a last-minute Johnny.
Pre-Ride BG: 157           Post-Ride BG: 82
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.5       Ending Voltage: 12.5 (Clunker Heavy Gel Cell battery pack, fresh charge)
Beginning Temperature: 41 F    Ending Temperature: 55 F
Morning Stats from the GPS:        Total Miles:    7.34
Overall average speed         Moving Avg       Max Speed
09.8. Mph                          11.5 mph            20.1 mph
Total Trip time                 Moving Time          Stopped Time
44 mins 59 secs               38 mins 25 secs     6 mins 34 secs

Terrifically Cold Tuesday, 39 miles?

2011-10-18T17:10:00.000-06:00

39-mile track link
The auto shop finally thinks they have Jacque's Exploder roadworthy again.Since she has to come to town this evening anyway, our strategy was laid out:
-She drives my Taurus to her work this morning.
-I ride my bike all the way to ABQ to work this morning.
-Jacque comes to town this evening in the Taurus, since it has the quasi permanent bike rack on the back
-She picks me up at quitting time to rescue me from the all-night effort of riding back home on the bike (which I have NOT done yet, even for bragging rights)
-We drop her off at the auto shop so she can drive her beloved Exploder home and have HER ride back.
It was COLD this morning. I got overheated so when I got almost to the Albuquerque city limits I removed my wooly skull cap and my mittens... and about FROZE the rest of the way to work.It felt sunny and balmy when sitting still ripping off the winter stuff but MERCY, the wind got real cold again real quick as soon as I got rolling again.
I'm not understanding some weirdnesses I've experienced lately: My last 2 full rides into Albuquerque from home, including today's, have logged on the GPS with an unexpected extra hour. Last week I thought I'd just been extra slow, but an HOUR? Then today it showed me taking 3 hours and 24 minutes for a trip that normally takes me TWO hours and 20-30 minutes. I looked at the leaving and arrival times from home to work and it was 2 hours and change..... the stoopid GPS is confusing itself somehow. Which is not all that unusual, though this is the first time I've noticed it getting elapsed times wrong. I think it must be related to daylight savings time plus the fact that I start riding before the sun comes up and halfway through the ride the sun comes out and the GPS changes the display screen from dark to daylight, and must be doing some cat-hair calculation that results in an extra hour being claimed as trip time. I went through all the settings and turned off the automatic Daylight Savings Time setting, since Congress has changed that so much the last several years none of the automated devices can keep up with it. Hopefully next time it will report correctly.
Also, the GPS mileage is always noticeably different, even though I ride the same old path every time... this long ride usually reports in as 31.8 miles and today it was over 39... whassup with that? It must vary because of the number of satellite positions the GPS calculates. Weird. Don't stake your life or bet your savings on GPS accuracy... and we won't even TALK about the GPS map inaccuracies everyone deals with.
Stupid knows no limits. The other day I rode off with only my lemon-lime drink bottle on the bike; no water.
I was glad to have the slightly sweet lemon-lime drink for moisture.... TODAY I rode off with NOTHING to drink. Made it OK, but of course would have much more enjoyed some water to drink along the way.
Pre-Ride BG: 143           Post-Ride BG: 102
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.5       Ending Voltage: 12.5 (Clunker Heavy Gel Cell battery pack, AA-Pak won't last 3 hours at my loads)
Beginning Temperature: 44 F    Ending Temperature: 62 F
Morning Stats from the GPS:        Total Miles:   39.29
Overall average speed         Moving Avg       Max Speed
11.5. Mph                          12.2 mph            35.6 mph
Total Trip time                 Moving Time          Stopped Time
2 hours 24 mins               2 Hours 12 mins 11 mins 38 secs
(corrected from 3 hours 24 mins)

Monday. Warm Welcome To Work

2011-10-17T11:22:00.000-06:00

Aprs/GPS bread crumb track link
Boy, was it balmy this morning. I stopped by the local medical lab to get some blood drained so my doctor can come up with a laundry list of things I'm doing wrong in the next few days. I shouldn't be so negative: My doctor rarely is.
So I called in to warn I would be late for work. Jacque's Exploder is still in repair, now seemingly needing a horribly expensive fuel pump.... Wait, I'm being needlessly redundant here. "Fuel Pump" and "Expensive" are almost synonyms. I shouldn't mention I'm old enough to remember when a fuel pump cost maybe 20 bucks and a couple hours' work to replace it..... Now, of course, they're all submerged in the fuel tank, which costs lots of labor to access, and the pumps themselves rarely cost less than a couple hundred dollars. MINE, of course, will be in range of 400 to 700 bucks. Parts, mind you. Not including Labor.
Awakening BG: 216           Post-Ride BG: 113
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.5       Ending Voltage: 12.0 (NiCad AA battery pack, left the heavy Gel Cell behind)
Morning Stats from the GPS:        Total Miles:   07.90
Overall average speed         Moving Avg       Max Speed
7.8. Mph                            10.5 mph            24.7 mph
Total Trip time                 Moving Time          Stopped Time
1 hours 01 mins               45 mins 59 secs      16 mins 31 secs

Another Friday, Another 32 Mile Ride to Work

2011-10-15T11:31:00.000-06:00

Friday trip all the way from home to work
This time I WALKED the bike most of the way down our nasty rutted washed-out rocky road to the pavement of Frost Road. No falls and no breakages this time.
Awakening BG: 96           Post-Ride BG: 102
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.5       Ending Voltage: 12.3 (battery still weird but held up for this 3-hour ride)
Morning Stats from the GPS:        Total Miles:   38.94
Overall average speed         Moving Avg       Max Speed
11.0. Mph                          12.2 mph            35.7 mph
Total Trip time                 Moving Time          Stopped Time
3 hours 32 mins             3 hours 11 mins       21 mins 28 secs

Thank Goodness the Bicycle Still Runs Smooth

2011-10-13T17:30:00.002-06:00

APRS/GPS breadcrumb track
As far as I can tell, nothing broke or fell off the bike today. Which is a wunnerful thing.
Had a couple of interesting conversations with hams while bicycle-commuting this morning: One with KB3DOR who was also running APRS from his 18-wheeler ( KB3DOR-14) and another who was visiting from out of state and just got interested in talking to someone nutty enough to be riding a bike and yakking on the radio.
There's a big trial currently on the docket locally for a crazy-girl driver who skidded off the main road, crossed several yards of dirt and concrete, and banged and killed a cyclist who was ON THE BIKE PATH, thinking he was safe from cars. What is unusual is that this woman is even being prosecuted for killing a cyclist. Usually the worst that ever happens to a car driver who hurts or kills a cyclist is a minor traffic citation. Hitting a cyclist is considered not much more serious than hitting a rabbit or skunk in the road. It's the same all over the USA BAH
It would be wonderful if this woman or SOMEONE guilty of similar offenses could actually be convicted and spend some jail time for it. It might help other motorists realize there just might be consequences associated with killing pedestrians and cyclists. Motorcycle drivers have similar problems and complaints. "I didn't SEE him" is considered a valid defense for the accidental (or otherwise) killing of someone on 2 wheels.
Jacque talked to the auto shop holding her Exploder hostage today. They think they may have it ready by tomorrow. That would be wunnerful too. Filling a 30 gallon RV tank with gasoline over 3 bucks a gallon is not for the faint of heart..... or pocketbook. Plus I'm just beating the poor monster to pieces bouncing up and down our terrible last mile and driveway every day. This is another time I really regret not living closer to work... loss of one gas guzzler would not be a big thing if I could just ride the bike to work and back BOTH WAYS every day.
Awakening BG: 96           Post-Ride BG: 92
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.5       Ending Voltage: 12.6 (fresh charge again last night, battery getting weird)
Morning Stats from the GPS:        Total Miles:   7.31
Overall average speed         Moving Avg       Max Speed
09.8. Mph                          12.0 mph            21.2 mph
Total Trip time                 Moving Time          Stopped Time
44 mins 59 secs             36 mins 26 secs       8 mins 33 secs

32-Mile Ride: ABORTED

2011-10-12T18:01:00.000-06:00

very short nooner ride only today
Since Jacque had an in-town meeting tonight, we decided I'd ride the bike all the way to work and she'd pick me up after work. This was especially attractive since I've been lumbering to town and back the last 2 days with the gas-hawg RV since Jacque's Exploder is still at the auto shop.
I left the house in the early morning dark, just after 6 AM. The ride out of the property and down our nasty rocky rutted road almost a mile to the pavement of Frost Road is always an agony, especially on the bike with low light so it's nigh impossible to avoid rocks and bumps. I had gotten only a hundred yards or so up the road when I hit an unseen rock, and in my frantic attempts to remain upright and struggle (in Grandma Gear) to the top of the hill, I pulled too hard on my left handlebar grip and separated it from the gearshift rotator collar. I stopped and fiddled with it for maybe 15 minutes, trying to get it to snap back in place. I could not ignore it and just ride since the spring in the large front ring gear selectorwould not lock in any gear at all, it just pulled the chain to the lowest gear and off center from even that. I finally decided I wasn't going to be able to fix it without more light and better tools than my Leatherman, so I trudged it back to the house. By then the sun was starting to peek over the horizon so I could see a little better. I finally saw the little spring ratchet clip that was not in the right place and used a surgical hemastat to grip it and put it in the little hole where it belonged, and PRESTO... it went back together the way it was supposed to. By then it was much too late to ride to work so I loaded the bike up on the RV bike rack and DROVE all the way to work. Yuck.
I was, however, able to get in a several-mile noon ride to make sure the gears were working again. YAY
Noon Ride Datum:
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.5       Ending Voltage: Wobbling from 12.2 to 12.5 (gel cell getting very soft)
Stats from the GPS:        Total Miles:   5.02
Overall average speed         Moving Avg       Max Speed
10.4. Mph                           12.2 mph            23.6 mph
Total Trip time                 Moving Time          Stopped Time
29 mins 0 secs          24 mins 47 secs       4 mins 13 secs

Honey, Did I Leave the Lights On Again.....?

2011-10-11T18:36:00.000-06:00

Jim-Toad's Wild Ride Tracker
Jacque's Exploder was still not repaired as of last night so we got to do the odd-car-commute thing again today:
Jacque drove the Taurus and I drove the RV, which I left plugged into the AC charging plug last night to ensure the battery would have enough oomph to start the engine again today. On my way out the door I spotted Jacque's celll phone lying innocently on her nightstand.... she had forgotten it, and relies on it heavily - not for the least of reasons being waiting for a call from the auto shop telling her the Exploder is finally ready. So I took a mild 25 mile detour in the wrong direction to deliver it to her and get a kiss and an indecent squeeze for my heroic effort. Then I lumbered on into town, parked the RV and took off on the bike again, arriving "only" 15 minutes late for work. Stayed an extra half hour late to make up for it, though.
Jacque recently bought me a 2-wheel bike trailer from a garage sale. The tires are dry rotted, so I ordered tubes and tires from Amazon.com and the tubes came in today. I was mildly chagrined to find they were light duty standard thickness tubes.... I have learned to ONLY use thick walled "thorn resistant" tubes or else I'm patching flats every 3 or 4 days at minimum. Instead of ordering more from the internet, I decided to support a local bike shop and go pay whatever they wanted for their version of thorn proof tubes - And wouldn't ya know it, they cost the same or less than online prices AND I didn't have to pay any shipping.   Maybe the local stores are starting to be more competitive due to the sagging economy. Anyway, since I was on the bike and knew the bike store would be long closed by the time I got off work, I decided to ride up there (Less than 4 miles but through some unpleasantly heavy traffic and tiringly uphill all the way). When I got back I was again surprised at how pumped up I felt after I cooled down from the ride. The "bragging rights" are OK, but the physical benefits of lots of bike riding are really great, mentally and physically.
Awakening BG: 202           Post-Ride BG: 48 (a bit dizzy I was)
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.8       Ending Voltage: 12.7 (fresh charge from last night)
Morning Stats from the GPS:        Total Miles:   7.42
Overall average speed         Moving Avg       Max Speed
10.4. Mph                          11.9 mph            21.5 mph
Total Trip time                 Moving Time          Stopped Time
42 mins 59 secs             37 mins 31 secs       5 mins 28 secs

Noon Ride for Bike Trailer Tire Tubes (To Bicycles Plus on Paseo in the Trader Jack's center):
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.8       Ending Voltage: 12.7
Stats from the GPS:        Total Miles:   6.58
Overall average speed         Moving Avg       Max Speed
08.2. Mph                           9.8 mph            25.9 mph
Total Trip time                 Moving Time          Stopped Time
47 mins 59 secs             40 mins 14 secs       7 mins 45 secs

Balloons Are Gone; Now the Weather is Great Again

2011-10-10T13:14:00.001-06:00

The Usual Monday APRS/GPS breadcrumb track
I was not able to ride the recumbent bike (or any other kind) the last few days last week due to (1) ongoing rain - which also caused the International Hot Air Balloon Fiesta to cancel all balloon inflations and flights from Tuesday through Friday. Saturday and Sunday were cold and wet but the Fiesta was able to start launching balloons again much to the delight of the hundreds of thousands of soggy visitors.
Thursday I decided not to ride because of the winds and the lowering skies, and a funny feeling I had that I shouldn't ride that day. Later that very morning Jacque called: Her Ford Exploder refused to start; she was feeling terrible and had hoped to go home early from work. So I took the day off and drove out to Edgewood to rescue her. I fiddled with the vehicle for half an hour or so, setting and resetting the fuel pump reset switch - it sounded for all the world like it was getting no fuel. Spark it had, in prodigious amounts. Bill, K8TE, an irascible but good friend, had volunteered the use of his Ford Pickup and Race-Car trailer should I need it, so I called him on the ham radio and told him I needed it. So Off I went to the Albuquerque West Side, Rio Rancho, and drove his truck and trailer those many miles back to Edgewood to retrieve Jacque's Exploder. When I got there I decided to try starting it just once more, and of course it STARTED immediately, making me feel foolish as I drove it up on the trailer under its own power and towed it back to the casa. Then I drove Bill's rig back to his house just as it was getting dark to retrieve MY car. Of course, after I got home I realized I had left my towing chain and 2 hand-operated ratchet-winches in the back of his truck. So we have another appointment to get together to get our equipment separated and sorted out, which is what we have to do every time we share vehicles or ride together for any reason. SIGH
So, it was great to get back on the 2-wheeler this morning and deep-breathe some nippy air on the way to work. I let Jacque drive my ancient Taurus (Since her Exploder was still at the repair shoppe) and I drove the RV to my bicycle dropping point whereupon I normally unrack the bike and ride.
Awakening BG: 101           Post-Ride BG: 148
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.7       Ending Voltage: 12.7
Morning Stats from the GPS:        Total Miles:   7.39
Overall average speed         Moving Avg       Max Speed
10.6. Mph                          12.3 mph            23.8 mph
Total Trip time                 Moving Time          Stopped Time
45 mins 0 secs             35 mins 57 secs       6 mins 03 secs
Then, I had a great - slightly chilly - ride back to the RV. When I turned the ket in the ignition I was dismayed to hear NO click, no dash gauges lighting up, NO signs of life. How did the battery, with solar panel on the roof, go so dead? Then, of course, I saw it... the headlight switch was still on, thus totally killing the battery. The backup battery was dead in the back too,. so I couldn't even start the Onan generator to recharge the main battery. I was trying to think how to avoid having Jacque drive all the 30 miles to town to rescue me when I realized Justin, my new son-in-law married to Sarah only recently, was only a few blocks away. He usually works an evening shift, but luckily he was home and, better yet, willing and able to whiz over and be Johnny, er, Justin on-the-spot and come jump start me. Thanks again, Justin and Sarah.....
Pre-Home Ride BG: 112            Post-Ride BG: Unk
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.7       Ending Voltage: 12.6 (SLAgel cell battery)
Evening Stats from the GPS:        Total Miles:   7.22
Overall average speed         Moving Avg       Max Speed
11.1. Mph                            11.5 mph            25.7 mph
Total Trip time                 Moving Time          Stopped Time
38:59 mins                       37:36 mins             01 mins 23 secs

Rain and NO Balloons - Beautiful Cycling Weather

2011-10-05T10:39:00.001-06:00

Wet Streets APRS/GPS Track
It's always a jaw-dropper to me: Weather forecasts and actual weather - Rarely Related.
It rained all day yesterday, Tuesday, after a successful balloon launch just before the weather socked in and soaked everything. Then, just before Jacque was to come pick me up and rescue me with a car ride back to MY car with the bike rack, the weather cleared up about 630 PM as the sun was setting and I was able to ride my ownself back to the car, thus avoiding making her late for her Eastern Star meeting. Then it commenced raining again, stopping but for a few short breaks all night long.
The Balloon Fiesta Weather Experts cancelled all flights this morning due to continuing rain which was forecast to last all day. Of course within 30 minutes of the cancellation most had left the fiesta site, including shocking numbers of RV-fulls of tourists who had come long distances to witness the balloons. The skies cleared and all rain ceased for the rest of the morning. I had planned to skip riding the bike today due to wet roads and drizzly skies but when I got to the city limits and saw the sun shining I decided to ride today. And how wonderful it was, even though the streets and roadways were still wet from the all-night rains.
The entire day, and especially morning, was beautiful. I think the experts really fouled up on this call. Had they merely waited an extra half hour and let the balloons go it would have been fine.
Pre-Home Ride BG: 116            Post-Ride BG: 70
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.6       Ending Voltage: 12.5 (NiCad AA pack)
Evening Stats from the GPS:        Total Miles:   7.74
Overall average speed         Moving Avg       Max Speed
09.9. Mph                            10.6 mph            21.6 mph
Total Trip time                 Moving Time          Stopped Time
46:59 mins                       43:38 mins             03 mins 21 secs

Balloons, Balloons, RAIN: Tuesday

2011-10-04T22:56:00.002-06:00

The Usual APRS/GPS track...
Today was another fun filled ride in the morning through a sky full of balloons and this evening was..... late.... riding during a lull in the all-day rainshowers.
Just a couple vids here:
This pink balloon was blocking the roadway that allows me to exit the fiesta area and get along to work, so I rode carefully past the throat of the inflating balloon:

Which, after turning out of the parking lot onto the northbound entrance to the Fiesta, such a view to behold:

Pre-Home Ride BG: 140            Post-Ride BG: 49
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.5       Ending Voltage: 12.5 (Gel Cell Good)
Evening Stats from the GPS:        Total Miles:   7.12
Overall average speed         Moving Avg       Max Speed
10.6. Mph                            10.9 mph            21.2 mph
Total Trip time                 Moving Time          Stopped Time
47:12 mins                       43:11 mins             04 mins 2 secs

Balloons, Balloons, Balloons: Monday

2011-10-03T13:03:00.003-06:00

Same Old Track, but Cruising Amongst Balloons Today
What a Spectacular way to start a Monday! Hot Air Balloons all over from the time I got on the bike until I got to work. I'll try to edit the many videos down to a few short clips.
The Albuquerque International Hot Air Balloon Fiesta is something that makes it worth living in the Albuquerque area. Albuquerque is so popular with balloonists that there are only a few days YEAR ROUND that there are not at least a few balloons in the air. But during Fiesta they are just Everywhere, with the sky full of them. I've seen this spectacle for over 20 years now and it still is breath-taking to behold.

Then the roundabout trip through the balloon fiesta parking lot, AKA RV World, is a kicker too.

Awakening BG: 142           Post-Ride BG: 124
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.7       Ending Voltage: 12.7
Morning Stats from the GPS:        Total Miles:   7.74
Overall average speed         Moving Avg       Max Speed
10.1. Mph                          11.0 mph            20.2 mph
Total Trip time                 Moving Time          Stopped Time
45 mins 58 secs             42 mins 14 secs       3 mins 45 secs
For the ride back I at first planned to fight road traffic on Jefferson soouth to Paseo and up on the bike trail just south of Paseo. However, I decided to try going through the Balloon Park area just to see how crowded and difficult evening passage might be. I went through right before 6 PM so it likely got worse as the sun set later on, but the traffic was almost nothing and I had no difficulty at all.
Pre-Home Ride BG: 140            Post-Ride BG: 71
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.7       Ending Voltage: 12.7 (Gel Cell Good)
Evening Stats from the GPS:        Total Miles:   7.77
Overall average speed         Moving Avg       Max Speed
09.9. Mph                            10.8 mph            19.9 mph
Total Trip time                 Moving Time          Stopped Time
47:12 mins                       43:11 mins             04 mins 2 secs

Look, Ma, No Car

2011-09-30T13:20:00.000-06:00

32 miles of fun as the sun came up...
Jacque and I are attending a political meeting for a local candidate tonight, so she offered to pick me up after work if I wanted to ride the recumbent bike all the way to work again...... OH YEAH.. Sign me up.
Had to bundle up a bit, since it was 45 degrees at the house when I left. When I got down off the nasty bumpy rutted rock-strewn dirt road and up onto the pavement, I quickly became a bit overheated and had to remove the outer layers. These stayed off as I labored the next 3 miles up the long slow hill south towards Tijeras.
When I finally crested the dreaded Marco Polo Hill (so called after a pizzeria that used to live there) I stopped for a water and oxygen break and re-clothed myself with my felt skullcap and windbreaker for the several miles of downhill in the ebbing darkness, at speeds occasionally over 30 MPH.
Almost every time I ride this route there seems to be ONE vehicle that takes offense at my being in their private, reserved-for-high-speed-only vehicles, and I've never seen the same vehicle do it twice: Crowd me as though to scare me off the road and up into the curb or weeds. Today it wasn't the usual school bus or Hybrid Save-the-World Carrito: It was a large white 4WD pickup of the Ford or Chevrolet lineage. I am old enough to remember when it was easy to tell different brands of autos apart. Now they all seem bent on copying each other very closely, especially when it comes to lowly passenger cars. Anyway, to the thoughtful driver who deliberately crowded me this morning: May the Bird of Paradise Fly Up Your...... Nose. Enjoy the hundred or more bucks each tank of diesel costs you, and I'll continue to enjoy my methane powered bicycle.
As usual, when I got to work I was beat, but after a shower and a couple hours breathing normally I am feelling supercharged.
Awakening BG: 107           Post-Ride BG: 244 (forgot to pump for the extra carbs I ate this morning)
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.6       Ending Voltage: 12.4
Morning Stats from the GPS:        Total Miles:   31.8
Overall average speed         Moving Avg       Max Speed
14.1. Mph                          15.4 mph            39.4 mph
Total Trip time                 Moving Time          Stopped Time
2 hours 45 mins               2 hrs 25 mins              20 mins 7 secs

Less Whiney Thursday

2011-09-29T16:57:00.001-06:00

Seldom-Changing GPS/APRS tracking of the Beat-Up Bike

Well, the overwhelming sentiment of condolence from all my many friends, family, and associates as to my horrifying discovery of the mortality of my eyeballs has been: GET OVER IT. BIG DEAL. .....Been there, Done That, etc, etc. Thus I remain refreshed and renewed.
Balloon Fiesta 2011 starts in 24 more hours. Most days of the year I see at least a few hot air balloons out to the west as I ride to work, but lately they've been hovering very close to the balloon fiesta park, which I ride through every day on the last leg of my bicycle commute.
This short video is of a balloon hauling maybe 12 or more passengers, obviously a tour balloon. Usually the basket will only hold 2 or 3 people including the pilot. You'll have to squint to see the many heads peering over the basket:

Awakening BG: 170           Post-Ride BG: 88
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.9       Ending Voltage: 12.7
Morning Stats from the GPS:        Total Miles:   7.38
Overall average speed         Moving Avg       Max Speed
10.1. Mph                          11.4 mph             21.3 mph
Total Trip time                 Moving Time          Stopped Time
43:59 mins                      38:52 mins              05 mins 7 secs
The ride back to the car in the evenings gets darker and darker. For the last few evenings it has still been blue-sky and sunlight when I get off work and make ready to ride back, slop on the sunscreen, etc. -Then, by the time I'm actually riding, the afternoon sun is low on the horizon and sinks to darkness before I'm halfway back to the car. Soon I won't need sunscreen at all, but will start consuming a lot more AAA batteries since that's what my headlamp and blinky tail lights run on .
Pre-Home Ride BG: 174            Post-Ride BG: Unk
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.7       Ending Voltage: 12.7 (Gel Cell Good)
Evening Stats from the GPS:        Total Miles:   6.34
Overall average speed         Moving Avg       Max Speed
09.5. Mph                            10.1 mph            24.5 mph
Total Trip time                 Moving Time          Stopped Time
39:59 mins                       37:30 mins             02 mins 29 secs

Bummer. Getting Old Sucks

2011-09-28T18:03:00.001-06:00

The usual trip-tracking plot, battery evidently dying

I rode to work late this morning due to my annual eye exam which was scheduled at 8:00 AM.
The verdict for years now has invariably been:" In Spite of your Diabetes, I Can't Find Anything Wrong wth Your Eyes!!
...Not this time. The verdict of "Cataracts" was not at all what I expected or wanted to hear. But now I think about it, it is not that much of a surprise. For months before LAST year's exam I noticed my eyesight was changing, and dramatically: My left eye was losing the ability to see at a distance without glasses and my right eye was losing the ability to see up close without reading glasses. The eye exam then resulted in "NO PROBLEMS FOUND!" - Which was pleasant to hear, but the prescribed glasses lasted only a few months before they no longer worked with my still changing visual acuity, and they were EXPENSIVE of course.
So in spite of the optometrist finding nothing wrong, the eyeballs were still in a state of flux. In the last few months I've noticed increasing blurriness. So in spite of being terribly disappointed at the news, I realize it's surely been coming on. The Doc claims most diabetics develop cataracts at a much earlier age than I have.
I go back in 6 months to get another update, to get a better guess at when my left eye (the really bad one currently) will require the eventual surgery.
I've not enjoyed the day much since then.... the dilating solution he put in my eyes always seems to take forever to wear off so that everything isn't washed out and bleary looking and providing a faint headache as a result, in spite of wearing my bike-safety-sungoggles.
The ride home quickly turned into a sundown/dark ride, very nice and just cooling enough to be very pleasant.
Pre-Home Ride BG: 96            Post-Ride BG: 52 (! - Ate an Oatmeal Bar)
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.7       Ending Voltage: 10.9 (Gel Cell Dead, Now on AA NiCad pack)
Evening Stats from the GPS:        Total Miles:   7.46
Overall average speed         Moving Avg       Max Speed
09.5. Mph                            11.5 mph            22.1 mph
Total Trip time                 Moving Time          Stopped Time
46:59 mins                       38:57 mins             08 mins 2 secs

Terrific Tuesday

2011-09-27T12:03:00.001-06:00

Today's Boring GPS/APRS bicycle-track
I was squeezing my tires this morning just before leaving for work. Better to deal with flats close to home and the lovely air compressor.... I noticed a spider web across the front tire and brushed it off. I then noticed spider webbing all over the handlebars and front of the bike. Some spider had crawled all the way up from the ground, up to the bike rack on the back of the car,, and all over the handlebars. As I brushed the rest of the mess away, a LARGE hairy spider, about 1 inch across, popped out from under the left brake lever on the handlebar, acting upset for some reason that I'd torn up his artwork. I poked around him trying to squish him but he popped out of sight and disappeared. He'll probably reappear tomorrow.... we'll see.
Each morning for the last week the city's feverish preparations for the International Balloon Fiesta, mere days hence, are evidenced everywhere. The Jersey Bounce concrete barriers that block the flow of traffic from the extreme northern end of Jefferson Street are cast aside. The gates are open, awaiting the already-full flow of RV's into their coveted parking spots right next to the balloon launch field. This eases cyclists' passage through the area, as well, but we know it will soon be blocked off by bureaucracy and barriers. The "MultiPurpose Trail" will be cordoned off to form a parking lot for bikes instead of a passageway. After all, only a dozen or so riders use this path on a daily basis. Why should the Balloon Fiesta be bothered with accommodating us? Unless, of course, we take vacation days and decide to pay entry fees for the Balloon Fiesta... which still will not allow you to get THROUGH the park on your way somewhere else. And, of course, all roads and streets will be clogged with impossible traffic making cycling difficult in trying to find alternative routes. BAH - I do like Balloon Fiesta, though. There are actually at least a few hot air balloons in the air almost every morning year round, but the spectacle of hundreds of them all over the sky and surrounding parking lots during the world's largest balloon festival is very cool.
Awakening BG: 219 (!)           Post-Ride BG: 83
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.7       Ending Voltage: 12.6 (Back to the charged gel-cell today)
Morning Stats from the GPS:        Total Miles:   7.43
Overall average speed         Moving Avg       Max Speed
10.9. Mph                          11.8 mph             21.9 mph
Total Trip time                 Moving Time          Stopped Time
40:59 mins                      37:51 mins              03 mins 7 secs
Today was a great example of a not-promising weather day turning into great riding conditions. The early morning ride was sunny and cool, though warmer than the last few days. This afternoon it got very dark and threatening and it looked for all the world like I would get soaked on the ride back to the car. It did rain in the East Mountains and at home, but none fell at work in spite of the dark and gloominess and the ride back, though windy at times, was on dry pavement.
Pre-Home Ride BG: 43            Post-Ride BG: 178 (After pigging out on crab-apple choc chip bread dough)
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.7       Ending Voltage: 12.7 (Love that Gel Cell Battery, in spite of weight)
Evening Stats from the GPS:        Total Miles:   7.43
Overall average speed         Moving Avg       Max Speed
09.7. Mph                          10.4 mph            23.8 mph
Total Trip time                 Moving Time          Stopped Time
45:59 mins                       43:00 mins             02 mins 59 secs

Datum Entries

2011-09-27T11:48:00.000-06:00

No time, just entering GPS data from Monday:
Awakening BG: 321 (!)           Post-Ride BG: 400(!) (Changed infusion sites for the insulin pump)
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.6       Ending Voltage: 12.2 (Used the AA Nicad pack today instead of the gel-cell)
Morning Stats from the GPS:        Total Miles:   7.49
Overall average speed         Moving Avg       Max Speed
09.7. Mph                          11.7 mph             27.0 mph
Total Trip time                 Moving Time          Stopped Time
45:58 mins                      37:59 mins              07 mins 59 secs

Pre-Home Ride BG: 132            Post-Ride BG: 88
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.7       Ending Voltage: 12.6
Evening Stats from the GPS:        Total Miles:   7.49
Overall average speed         Moving Avg       Max Speed
09.7. Mph                          11.7 mph            27.0 mph
Total Trip time                 Moving Time          Stopped Time
45:58 mins                      37:59 mins             07 mins 59 secs

Late Thursday Report

2011-09-23T07:21:00.000-06:00

Thursday Track After Battery Charge
Yesterday was Another uneventful day of riding the last 7 miles to work and back. I'd hoped to get in another 32 miler one-way ride this week but the schedules between Jacque and me didn't work out. This day, Friday,. we'll be spending at the State Fair smelling the wonderful mixture of horse poop and fried Snickers bars amongst other treats we'll partake of, including the wonderful Navajo Taco....

Home-Bound Trip:
Pre-Ride home BG: 176            Post-Ride BG: 125
Evening Battery Voltage: 12.7       Ending Voltage: 12.7
Evening Stats from the GPS:        Total Miles:   7.41
Overall average speed         Moving Avg       Max Speed
11.7. Mph                        12.5 mph             25.4 mph
Total Trip time                 Moving Time          Stopped Time
38:00 mins                        35:31 mins              2 mins 29 secs

Non - Wet Wednesday

2011-09-21T21:58:00.000-06:00

This is the second morning in a row I've worn an undershirt and did NOT regret it at all, though it comes off and stays off during cleanup time when I arrive at work.
Nice Drivers Do Exist: At the San Mateo bike path crossing, the traffic was TERRIBLE with no gaps. A large truck stopped first in the southbound right-most lane and waited .... and waited. About 30 seconds later (a lifetime to a harried motorist) another car stopped in the other southbound lane, opening a slot for me to smoke it across the intersection. Wish I had their names so I could send them some chocolate chip cookies for a GOOD GUY award.
Pre- Ride BG: 128            Post-Ride BG: 97
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.3       Ending Voltage: 12.2
Morning Stats from the GPS:        Total Miles:   7.38
Overall average speed         Moving Avg       Max Speed
10.8. Mph                          12.2 mph            23.0 mph
Total Trip time                 Moving Time          Stopped Time
40:59 mins                      36.21 mins              4 mins 38 secs
By the time I finally left work at 5:40 PM the blue sky and sunshine had given way to dark sky and stormy dark clouds looming to the southeast, right in my homeward bound path. The nasty looking cloud formations only provided shade and wind, however, and no moisture. So I got some extra exercise without the imminent looking soak job.
Home-Bound Trip:
Pre-Ride home BG: 189            Post-Ride BG: 136
Evening Battery Voltage: 12.3       Ending Voltage: 12.2
Evening Stats from the GPS:        Total Miles:   7.39
Overall average speed         Moving Avg       Max Speed
9.9. Mph                        10.6 mph             21.6 mph
Total Trip time                 Moving Time          Stopped Time
45:01 mins                        41:46 mins              3 mins 15 secs

Tuesday Tidbits

2011-09-20T22:46:00.000-06:00

The Usual GPS APRS breadcrumb track-link

I was saddened to find the library at San Mateo and Comanche (Erna Fergusson) closed for "refurbishing".
The sign says "Will Open Again in the Spring" -
The next library I found over on Juan Tabo was dark and closed. After all, it was after 7 PM. I have faint memories of libraries being open later than that.... BAH

Pre- Ride BG: unk            Post-Ride BG: 62
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.6       Ending Voltage: 12.6
Morning Stats from the GPS:        Total Miles:   7.40
Overall average speed         Moving Avg       Max Speed
10.8. Mph                          11.8 mph            23.2 mph
Total Trip time                 Moving Time          Stopped Time
40:58 mins                      37.32 mins              3 mins 26 secs

On the way back to the car tonight I had another wonderful tailwind speeding me along.
Here's just a snippet of one of the CUTE babe-cyclists and a couple guys I've never seen before on bikes:

Pre-Ride home BG: 81            Post-Ride BG: 146
Evening Battery Voltage: 12.5       Ending Voltage: 12.2
Evening Stats from the GPS:        Total Miles:   7.37
Overall average speed         Moving Avg       Max Speed
10.3. Mph                          11.3 mph             24.8 mph
Total Trip time                 Moving Time          Stopped Time
42:59 mins                      39:17 mins              3 mins 42 secs

Monday Madness

2011-09-19T13:31:00.001-06:00

Same old route, getting itchy for longer rides
Madness is the very idea of getting up and going to work on a Monday.
Actually, since I enjoy my work, I am grateful for full time employment. But there are SO many other things I need to do that I don't have time for.
This weekend: No weddings, so I thought I'd empty out our multiple garbage cans and make a run to the Tijeras Trash Transfer Station, then spend most of the rest of the day cutting and hauling firewood. It's getting colder and we don't have a week's worth of wood available. Trouble is, Saturday morning Jacque made the unforgivable mistake of opening the cabinet door under the kitchen sink and discovering it was all wet from a drain leak. Further investigation with me laying on my back with a headlamp and icky water dripping in my face, like a twenties coal miner in a "worm hole", betrayed the problem: The garbage disposal had worn holes in the side of the casting and was spewing "stuff" out the side when under pressure. What's with this nonsense? The stupid disposal is not that old..... only, say, 15 years. BAH
So I loaded up the trailer with trash bags and took the old disposal and we took off for a little trip to transfer some trash to the transfer station and transfer some wealth to the local hardware store.. Davis hardware in Cedar Crest is one of the best hardware stores I've ever seen, and I'm of course a hardware store addict. They have stuff you cannot get at the Big Boxx Stores in Albuquerque. Their biggest problem is they don't stay open enough for working stiffs to shop there. At any rate, they had an almost exact replacement disposal for a hundred smackers which we gladly paid and took it home with us. I'm guessing we could have "saved" almost half that price had we driven in to Albuquerque for the Big Boxx Store Experience.... but that would have used up even more of our precious Saturday time and a half a tank of $3.30-something gas, which also reduces the appeal of "just running into Albuquerque".
I also finished the interior insulation on Jacque's new sewing room and grumped and groaned as I installed the first batt of insulation in the floor joists under the room, with sharp rocks and what-not poking me in the knees and butte as I struggled to get the nasty stuff to stay up long enough to get it stapled in. Hopefully we can complete this "couple of months" construction project now looming on to a year before Christmas, so I can get going on something else.... like workshop for ME, garage or shelter of some kind for the RV and carritos, woodshed to keep the firewood (and nestling critters therein) out of the weather (and findable when the snow starts piling up!) .... Just another couple of weekends' worth of effort, don'tcha know.
Didn't do anything yesterday (Sunday) except go to Church, take a nap, and walk the doggies, in that order.
As usual, this Monday, while less than attractive as a starting point for work, was a great morning for bike riding even though it's getting so cool pretty soon I'm going to have to dig out the itchy wooly underwear. Bring It ON.
Typical encounter with wide eyed kiddos on their way to school:

Awakening BG: 81            Post-Ride BG: 146
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.7       Ending Voltage: 12.7
Morning Stats from the GPS:        Total Miles:   7.37
Overall average speed         Moving Avg       Max Speed
10.3. Mph                          11.3 mph             24.8 mph
Total Trip time                 Moving Time          Stopped Time
42:59 mins                      39:17 mins              3 mins 42 secs

I was saddened to find the library at San Mateo and Comanche (Erna Fergusson) closed for "refurbishing".
The sign says "Will Open Again in the Spring" -
The next library I found over on Juan Tabo was dark and closed. After all, it was after 7 PM. I have faint memories of libraries being open later than that.... BAH

Pre-Home Ride BG: unk            Post-Ride BG: 62
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.7       Ending Voltage: 12.6
Evening Stats from the GPS:        Total Miles:   7.49
Overall average speed         Moving Avg       Max Speed
11.0. Mph                          11.8 mph            22.4 mph
Total Trip time                 Moving Time          Stopped Time
40:59 mins                      38:02 mins              2 mins 57 secs

Sherry, Don't Read This One, it's Too Much

2011-09-16T13:58:00.002-06:00

friday gps/aprs track link

Sherry, my youngest daughter who is now a registered Okie from Edmond (not Muskogee a la Merle Haggard), told me I was posting too often for her to keep up with it. So this one she doesn't have to read... but she is required to read and critique all the others. Anyone knowing Sherry will realize how well she might follow such dictates.
It's getting colder each day. This morning I was wishing I had on more layers until about the last 2 miles, at which point I finally ripped my windbreaker zipper open and got some of that cold air up into my armpits.
I was a bit more tired than usual today too. BUT it was STILL a fun day to ride the bike.
When I first started out, waiting for an opening in traffic so I could cross San Mateo, I noticed a chunky gal with short legs on a bike waiting for the same thing about 200 feet north of me waiting to exit a driveway to cross the street. When the traffic opened up I cranked hard to stay ahead of her and left her 'way behind, to the point I no longer could see her in my helmet-rear-view mirror. About 3 miles later as I was northbound approaching the bike underpass at Montgomery, suddenly she was right behind me and coming strong. I poured on the sweat a bit harder and thought I lost her again.... but no. She had exited the bike path at Montgomery and gotten on Chappel northbound and was riding parallel to me, on the other side of the diversion channel. She was also at least 100 feet ahead of me already and cruising. As we approached Singer street, I noticed she diverted and came back to the bike trail, now behind me again by 75 feet or so.
Short little legs and obviously no athlete....... she passed me like I was backing up. BAH

Awakening BG: 146            Post-Ride BG: 102
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.5       Ending Voltage: 12.4
Morning Stats from the GPS:        Total Miles:   7.43
Overall average speed         Moving Avg       Max Speed
10.6. Mph                          11.7 mph            21.8 mph
Total Trip time                 Moving Time          Stopped Time
41:59 mins                      38:08 mins              3 mins 51 secs

Not sure what was going on with my metabolism today. Check3ed my blood glucose before leaving work, it was 180 or so, thus I didn't eat the usual afternoon snack before pedaling away. It was 138 when I got to the car, and a few miles later when I arrived at the Temple it was around 167, so I pumped a bit and increased my basal rate to 150 %, but the blood sugar kept climbing even though I hadn't eaten anything since noon.
The diabetes thing is often frustrating because 1 + 2 doesn't always equal 3: the formulas are not exact and the body is seldom predictable.
As you can see I made the afternoon ride in record time: The ujsual afternoon headwind was running backwards and was providing a wonderful TAILwind..... really makes a difference. Maybe that's why my blood sugar stayed so high: I didn't exert anywhere the normal effort to ride back to the car.
Pre-Home Ride BG: 179            Post-Ride BG: 138
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.4       Ending Voltage: 12.3 (Due for another recharge)
Evening Stats from the GPS:        Total Miles:   7.33
Overall average speed         Moving Avg       Max Speed
11.6. Mph                          12.9 mph            24.2 mph
Total Trip time                 Moving Time          Stopped Time
37:59 mins                      34:06 mins              3 mins 53 secs

Thursday

2011-09-15T09:18:00.001-06:00

The Usual Boring GPS/APRS Track
Overcast and cooler this morning. Wore my windbreaker bike jacket and only SLIGHTLY began to get a bit warm about 2 miles from work. Unzipped the front and kept going.
Awakening BG: 111            Post-Ride BG: 89
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.6       Ending Voltage: 12.6
Morning Stats from the GPS:        Total Miles:   7.36
Overall average speed         Moving Avg       Max Speed
10.0. Mph                          11.1 mph            22.9 mph
Total Trip time                 Moving Time          Stopped Time
43:59 mins                      40:05 mins              4 mins 9 secs

Cloudy and enjoyably cool for the ride back to the car tonight. Again, I slathered up liberally with a quarter-inch thick layer of sunblock - and - you guessed it... it was sunny up until I rode away, by which time the sun was hopelessly hidden behind dark clouds. No rain, however, until right after I arrived home in the car.
It was, as mentioned, fairly dark from the clouds. Thus I was a bit surprised to pass a couple of HUGE Indian fellers sitting side by side deep underneath the dark branches of a very dense shrub/tree along the path next to someone's back yard wall. I didn't see them passing a bottle when I rode by and peeked into the darkness after them, but I'm not sure why else someone would obscure themselves like that. It's certainly not the strangest thing I've encountered along a street or bike path.
Pre-Home Ride BG: 190            Post-Ride BG: 96
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.6       Ending Voltage: 12.5
Evening Stats from the GPS:        Total Miles:   7.47
Overall average speed         Moving Avg       Max Speed
09.5. Mph                          10.5 mph            21.7 mph
Total Trip time                 Moving Time          Stopped Time
47:00 mins                      42:47 mins              4 mins 13 secs

Shuckins. Only Did 10 miles today for Lunch

2011-09-14T14:00:00.001-06:00

Today's breadcrumb Track
It was raining lightly when I left for work this morning and the streets were wet when I got to Albuquerque.
I wanted to ride the recumbent anyway since the rain had almost stopped but rationalized I needed to pick up a few items at Mesa Equipment (a local hardware store that is sort of a high class Harbor Freight, with reasonable prices and quality tools and manly toys). I specifically needed some new safety sunglasses, which I use for bike riding goggles, and which I broke my only pair of about a week ago. After I got to work I decided to look Mesa up on the map to see if it was a bike-able trip from work and it was, although almost a half mile is riding on Second Street NW which has no bike lanes, no shoulders, and a lot of traffic. I was very glad I made the trip, even though the roads in that part of town are very cracked and rough and rugged. The weather had cleared up, the sun was high and the sky blue and beautiful with scattered puffy Cumulus clouds, and the breeze was just WONDERFULLY cool: Ideal cycling weather.
It came out to 9.96 miles on my GPS so I lied and called it 10 miles. Sue Me
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.7           Ending Battery Voltage: 12.7 (Charged the big battery last night)
Noon Stats from the GPS:        Total Miles:   9.96
Overall average speed         Moving Avg       Max Speed
08.7. Mph                          11.0 mph            23.5 mph
Total Trip time                 Moving Time          Stopped Time
1 hour 8 mins                   54 mins 7 secs       14 mins 52 secs

OOhh La La, Ridin' In the Rain

2011-09-13T12:23:00.001-06:00

ye olde bread crumb trail
This was another day that looked a bit threatening weather wise but turned out to be very nice for cruising on your bicycle. Again I'm struck by how many people worry that the weather is too spotty to be out on a bike, and thus miss out on mostly very nice riding weather. It is turning towards fall in the Central NM area, and a few degrees cooler than the last few already-cool mornings, but not objectionably so. As I drove the first 24 miles to my not so secret parking spot, it sprinkled a bit on my windshield and I worried it would actually rain enough to keep me off the bike. But the sprinkles stopped after less than a mile, and a few hundred more tiny "Blips" of moisture hit the windshield before I arrived at the car drop-off point and I was able to saddle up the recumbent. Now, a few hours after arriving at work, I can't recall if any drops actually hit me at all. The weather guessers called for a 30% chance of showers today, and such usually happen in the afternoon. We'll see if it actually rains, which we still need a lot of, and whether I have to adjust my departure time to successfully dodge any possible soaking or whether I get soaked to the skin again.
Awakening BG: 234(!)            Post-Ride BG: 103
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.5       Ending Voltage: 12.3 (Starting to get soft again)
Morning Stats from the GPS:        Total Miles:   7.37
Overall average speed         Moving Avg       Max Speed
10.5. Mph                          11.6 mph            23.2 mph
Total Trip time                 Moving Time          Stopped Time
41:59 mins                      38:10 mins              3 mins 49 secs
It was beautiful and sunny almost all day. As quitting time approached I kept peeking out the window in hopes I was not facing a drippy wet ride back to the car. Still sunny and blue-sky. When I finally left about 6:20 PM - after lathering up heavily with sunscreen - I was shocked to see it had suddenly turned dark and threatening. Still made for a nice cool ride, with a bit of a headwind, but no rain whatEVER

Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.6         Ending Voltage: 12.5
Evening Stats from the GPS:                 Total Miles: 7.42
Overall average speed      Moving Avg         Max Speed
10.2. Mph                          10.7 mph             20.0 mph
Total Trip time                   Moving Time       Stopped Time
43 mins 49 secs               41 mins 29 secs    2 mins 20 secs

Monday - Still Colder - Still Beautiful for Riding

2011-09-12T22:34:00.000-06:00

tracking well today.
The last few days have been suddenly cooler if not downright cold, in part due to welcome rains and in part to theobviously impending colder weather change.
On Friday I did not ride the bike at all since I got off to work too late to allow for a decent ride. The lunch hour was too crowded for me to get in a ride so I merely did my normal nooner 2-miler walk around several blocks to Honeywell and the Balloon Fiesta Park.
Then, Saturday, was the BIG day. My oldest daughter Sarah Jo finally let a man catch her and they were sealed in the Temple just after noon. The whole thing turned into a Devenport and cousins reunion that only Sarah could have inspired: ALL my children came in from everywhere for the reception, as well as my sister and brother Bruce from Utah with Bruce's wife Shirley. THREE of my gorgeous cousins came in from Arizona and Utah for the occasion and what an irreverent enjoyable time we had. Son John came up with his guitar and played us some tunes and we just had a downright great time staying up too late.
Sarah and Justin took off for parts unknown and have not been heard from since. We all assume they will eventually come up for air......
This morning's bicycle ride was just cold enough that I wore a windbreaker and thus did not lather up with a quarter inch of sunblock as I normally do.. This afternoon it was so overcast that I skipped the dip a second time in the same day. Fairly stiff headwinds on the way back to the car but it was still great riding weather.
I noticed another rider coming up behind me and got motivated enough I pedaled harder as an experiment (that usually fails) to see if I could stay ahead of him or make him hump if he really wanted to pass me. Usually when I try this the cyclist passes me about 30 seconds later and turns out to be a fat lady with floppy clothes and baggy britches, not even breathing hard. I don't know if the guy this afternoon was crippled or developed horrible gas pains or what but I was actually able to keep ahead of him and even increase the gap between us. Old Farts RULE -
Awakening BG: 185(!)            Post-Ride BG: 68
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.7       Ending Voltage: 12.7
Morning Stats from the GPS:        Total Miles:   7.45
Overall average speed         Moving Avg       Max Speed
09.9. Mph                          11.7 mph            21.7 mph
Total Trip time                 Moving Time          Stopped Time
44:59 mins                      38:11 mins              6 mins 248 secs
(Evening datum)

Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.7         Ending Voltage: 12.7
Evening Stats from the GPS:                 Total Miles: 7.43
Overall average speed      Moving Avg         Max Speed
10.1. Mph                          10.5 mph             20.7 mph
Total Trip time                   Moving Time       Stopped Time
43 mins 59 secs            42 mins 20 secs    1 mins 39 secs

Thursday Thirty-Two Miles and COLD

2011-09-08T12:31:00.000-06:00

Aiming the Beam into the Canyon seemed to help tracking...
Jacque and I will be attending the Temple again this evening with Sarah and Justin, so I rode the recumbent all the way to work again today. It was 46 degrees on the outside thermometer this morning and FELT uncomfortably cold, so I wore my windbreaker jacket over my flaming yellow_green BikeABQ shirt for the first few miles. Normally I would get overheated by the time I got a mile or two up the paved road (Frost Road) but I didn't get overheated this time until I was halfway up the "Killer Hill"just south of the NM-14/Frost Road intersection. I go so slow climbing the hill just south of the Triangle Intersection (Shell Station) that I normally ride the ragged weed/rock/pothole - strewn "bike path" paralleling N-14 until I top the hill and then leap across 4 lanes of traffic and ride the much smoother N-14 pavement in the right lane all the way to Tijeras, go under the I-40 underpass into Tijeras Village, and then ride old Rout 66 through the canyon from Tijeras to Albuquerque. Since N-14 is smooth and downhill from that point to Tijeras, I usually hit my fastest speeds there, just coasting along much of the way down. Watching the rear view mirrors on my handlebar and helmet all the way down, looking out for inattentive drivers who may be drinking their coffee instead of watching the road in front of them..... I've had no experiences yet of anyone not seeing me, but have had several near-brushes with hotshots who seem to like to buzz cyclists. I find my worst enemies on the road are (1) Albuquerque city buses, (2) pickups pulling trailers (who understandably are afraid to try changing lanes for a mere cyclist), (3) Save-The-World cars such as the Honda Insight and Toyota Prius and the occasional Mercedes -built "Smart Car", and (4) RV,s especially those pulling trailers or toad cars.
RV'ers are self explanatory since most are untrained (and at today's fuel prices, have even less experience driving their monsters). I suspect the hybrid owners feel since they are driving smaller cars that they don't need to give cyclists much clearance. Too bad they don't seem to know the "thrill" of being passed close-up by ANY vehicle weighing over a ton.
At the bottom of the hill approaching Tijeras I smoked through the stoplight underneath I-40 onto Rt. 66 at about 37 MPH. Thankfully the stoplight stayed green for me...
I finally took off the windbreaker and stowed it just outside the Albuquerque City Limits when I rode out of the shade of the canyon into the morning's sunlight where it instantly warms up several degrees.
Awakening BG: 185(!)            Post-Ride BG: 68
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.5       Ending Voltage: 12.2 (Needing a Recharge obviously!)
Morning Stats from the GPS:        Total Miles:   31.75
Overall average speed         Moving Avg       Max Speed
11.7. Mph                          12.6 mph            39.7 mph
Total Trip time                 Moving Time          Stopped Time
2 hours 43 mins               2 hours 30 mins     12 mins 21 secs

Wednesday's Wild Ride (Not)

2011-09-07T16:32:00.000-06:00

Today's Track of Digital BreadCrumbs
I was about 10 minutes later to work this morning as I forgot to drop off some electronics junk at KH6JTM's place and had to drive back several miles to do so. I was surprised I wasn't later to work because of the delay.
Today was the usual ~7.4 mile commute one-way but tomorrow I'm planning to do the full enchilada from home to work (still, downhill for ~10 out of 32 miles and one-way only) as we are to attend the temple with Sarah and her fiancee for whom this will be his first time. Exciting.
Yesterday I forgot to note on the way into town there was a sudden stoppage of traffic on I-40 just east of Tramway, which turned out to be a car fire that had fire trucks and police surrounding it and blocking all but one lane of westbound traffic. If I had ridden the bike all the way yesterday I likely would not have been any later to work..... [sigh]
Today's forecast called for 30% chance of rain this afternoon. So far it looks much like our previous threatening afternoons... more threat than rain. And, if I get wet, it will be for a good cause: We desperately need more rain. Albuquerque has only had one or two decent showers since JANUARY. Ouch
Awakening BG: 103            Post-Ride BG: 72
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.6       Ending Voltage: 12.6
Morning Stats from the GPS:        Total Miles:   7.50
Overall average speed         Moving Avg       Max Speed
11.0. Mph                          11.5 mph            21.3 mph
Total Trip time                 Moving Time          Stopped Time
41 mins 0 secs            39 mins 04 secs     1 mins 56 secs

7 Miles One Day in a Row

2011-09-06T12:39:00.002-06:00

Jim's Boring Short Monday Ride
Back in the old Recumbent Saddle again this morning. The weather is getting cooler but the ride this morning was sunny and quite balmy - It will NOT be long before I must wear something more than a day-glo yellow/green cycling shirt for the morning ride.
Awakening BG: 108            Post-Ride BG: 164
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.7       Ending Voltage: 12.67
Morning Stats from the GPS:        Total Miles:   7.40
Overall average speed         Moving Avg       Max Speed
09.7. Mph                          12.0 mph            23.5 mph
Total Trip time                 Moving Time          Stopped Time
45 mins 59 secs             36 mins 57 secs     9 mins 2 secs

The ride back this evening was, well, different. The weather had been cloudy and threatening on and off all day, and by the time I left work at 6 PM it looked like it was on the verge of a downpour. All the way back to the car as I pedaled furiously it was raining seemingly directly ahead of me and was surely going to soak me.... but it tturned into a VERY pleasant ride. It sprinkled on me, very lightly, a few times and I felt perhaps 20 little flecks of raindrops in the 7.4 mile ride. It was just cool enough to be very pleasant. The diversion channel next to the bike trail was running only a bit of runoff and Carlisle Street was running a couple inches of water maybe 2 feet wide as I crossed it. So the supposedly dreary weather made for a very nice ride.
I encountered several fellow cyclists, including a pretty lady with a big smile that did not capture well on the camera. A small group of youngsters passed me a few miles later, on skateboards and a roller scooter, exclaiming admiration of my "ride". As they passed close by me I was dismayed to smell BOOZE wafting around them. Mercy, the oldest must have been 8 or 9....
If these are your kids, how about smelling their breath for me? They were very nice but I worry they were a bit sloshed......

32 miles, 3 Days in a Row

2011-09-02T22:19:00.001-06:00

Friday Tijeras Canyon Trek-Track
Another Fine Ride from Home to Work. Those first 3-4 miles are a killer and then it's downhill for at least 10 miles total with very slight uphill pulls occasionally encountered.
Someday I'm going to have to give it a try coming the other way..... I doubt it will be as enjoyable but I'll do it someday. I used to think the same thing about riding all the way from home to work until I tried it and realized I could do it.
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.5      Ending Voltage: 12.3
Morning Stats from the GPS:        Total Miles:   31.71
Overall average speed         Moving Avg       Max Speed
12.1. Mph                          12.7 mph            38.0 mph
Total Trip time                 Moving Time          Stopped Time
2 hours 36 mins               2 hours 29 mins     7 mins 26 secs

Love Those 32 Miles, Thursday

2011-09-01T13:37:00.001-06:00

JimTrack (tm), gotta improve coverage in Tijeras Canyon
Another great ride car-less all the way to work this morning. Another friendly get-together tonight so Jacque can give me a ride home.... since it's lots of UPhill going instead of largely DOWNhill coming to work (about half the trip).
Another caveat reminder about these maximum speeds I record: Anything above 25-26 MPH is almost invariably downhill, with a tail-wind, with me leaning back and coasting. I cannot pedal faster than about 25 MPH, and believe me I've tried multiple times. Just can't make the old legs do the necessary RPM for such speeds.
Awakening BG: 54            Post-Ride BG: 109 (this a few minutes after dizzily consuming a power bar)
Beginning Battery Voltage: 13.2       Ending Voltage: 12.6
Morning Stats from the GPS:        Total Miles:   31.74
Overall average speed         Moving Avg       Max Speed
11.3. Mph                          12.6 mph            37.8 mph
Total Trip time                 Moving Time          Stopped Time
2 hours 47 mins               2 hours 30 mins    17 mins 2 secs

32-Mile Wednesday

2011-08-31T11:56:00.000-06:00

Track my 32 Miles... where coverage exists, anyway

Jacque has an appointment to be set apart as Stake Young Women's Secretary tonight so we decided I'd ride the bike all the way to work again and she'd pick me up at 6 PM. So I got a long, exhausting, and fun ride again today.
Just west of Tramway on the bike path there was a huge city truck blocking the bike path, with lots of us cyclists trying to squeeze through in both directions. 10 miles or so later...... At the Osuna intersection where the city forces cyclists on to the sidewalk, up into the intersection, and back on the sidewalk past the impassable "auto-blocking pole", I AGAIN met another oncoming cyclist, but this time I didn't lay it down... I just went a wee bit into the weeds trying to get both of us through this bottleneck. I'll be picking goat-head stickers outa the tires. Hope the thick thorn-resistant tubes continue to withstand such onslaughts. Nice to have so much bicycle traffic to deal with: It would be even nicer if the city planners would try riding their own trails so they could see what real life is like on a bicycle path they design.
Awakening BG: 109            Post-Ride BG: 59
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.5       Ending Voltage: 12.3
Morning Stats from the GPS:        Total Miles:   31.78
Overall average speed         Moving Avg       Max Speed
11.4. Mph                          12.6 mph            37.1 mph
Total Trip time                 Moving Time          Stopped Time
2 hours 46 mins               2 hours 31 mins    15 mins 27 secs

Tuesday Nooner Ride

2011-08-30T14:51:00.001-06:00

See where Today Took Me...

I drove to my normal parking lot where I lock the car and un-rack the recumbent to ride the last 7 miles to work..... Sarah Jo, my daughter, who often meets me there (since she catches her city bus transfer at the nearby bus stoppe) called me on the cell phone as soon as I parked and rushed over to tell me she had missed her bus due to her first bus down Comanche had been late and thus got her and fellow riders too late to catch the next bus. She hinted at wanting a "Dad Ride" so she could make it to work on time so I gave her and another strap-hanger a ride up to Jefferson and Osuna/San Mateo, making it too close to MY work for a decent bike ride. So I drove on to work and then took a 13-mile (almost 7 miles each way) ride down to the Bosque during my noon hour.   I get so many comments from non-bikers (and too many bikers) that "You're crazy for riding in this heat" or substitute "Cold" or "Wind". If I stayed off the bike because of weather forecasts that are more often wrong than right, or because the heat is in the 90's or higher, or the cold is in the teens or lower, or the wind.... I'd miss out on literally WEEKS of wonderful riding weather.
I got such a comment today from a ham radio friend who normally only exercises in a gym and rarely in the out-of-doors. I wish he'd have been out with me so he could see how great it was.... it was warm, but the breeze made it feel just right. YAY
It is always a great ride along the Bosque trail. Most of it is along the irrigation ditches and the Rio Grande, with tall cottonwoods and verdant vegetation all around with a real disconnect from the noise of the roads and highways. I stopped at a shady park bench under several huge cottonwoods and ate my power lunch before riding back: Peanut Butter 'N Honey Sandwich
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.7         Ending Voltage: 12.6
Noon Stats from the GPS:                 Total Miles: 13.64
Overall average speed      Moving Avg         Max Speed
10.3. Mph                          12.2 mph             24.5 mph
Total Trip time                   Moving Time       Stopped Time
1 hour 19 mins            1 Hour 7 mins       12 mins 16 secs

Rain, Rain, Glad You Came

2011-08-29T16:24:00.002-06:00

Ye Olde GPS/APRS tracker Link

It must have rained all night last night, sometimes so heavy we couldn't sleep through it. It was hot and dry all day Sunday without a breath of rain and then right after dark it clabbered up and began to pour. But the washboard road was still intact and passable this morning. YAY
I took a tumble on the bike this morning. Nothing serious. As I crossed Osuna after waiting for the green light, I had to turn sharply to avoid a head-on collision with an oncoming bike approaching the intersection I just exited. The city puts steel posts in the middle of many of the bike path entrances, supposedly to keep motorized vehicles out (except for city-owned motorized vehicles, of course, who have keys to unlock and remove the posts so city burrocrats in their trucks can enter). It is impossible to stay on the right side of the north side of Osuna's post, after a very sharp turn to enter the sidewalk off Osuna going back to the trail, and so everyone goes on the north side of the blocking post no matter which direction they are headed. The oncoming cyclist was too close and when I tried to make the impossible turn to go on the other side of the post, I laid it down. No damage to the recumbent; and no injury to me except my pride, of course.

Awakening BG: 119            Post-Ride BG: 69
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.9 Ending Voltage: 12.7
Morning Stats from the GPS:    Total Miles:     7.43
Overall average speed         Moving Avg       Max Speed
10.3. Mph                          11.4 mph            21.5 mph
Total Trip time                 Moving Time          Stopped Time
43 mins 19 secs             39 mins 4 sec 4 mins 15 secs

The ride home surprised me because though it was storming heavily a few miles in front of me (as I headed south on the bike trail) I didn't get a drop on me. The storm seemed to drift to the west and north and then sorta fade away. The diversion channel, however, was running at least a foot deep and roaring, so it had been raining somewhere recently.
I got a short video of the drainage flooding and another shot of some weird weed-flowers that proliferate along the ditch and bike trail. Now all I have to do is find time to edit them and pop them in here. Manana maybe...
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.7         Ending Voltage: 12.7
Evening Stats from the GPS:                 Total Miles: 7.36
Overall average speed      Moving Avg         Max Speed
09.6. Mph                          10.7 mph             21.3 mph
Total Trip time                   Moving Time       Stopped Time
45 mins 59 secs            41 mins 05 secs    4 mins 54 secs

Look, Ma, No Car!

2011-08-26T10:52:00.000-06:00

impressive tracking this morning.
We're attending the Temple tonight after work so Jacque suggested I ride the bike all the way to work again, she'd pick me up after work, and we'd only have her vehicle to deal with coming home. Since I didn't think of it first, it took me a couple hours to think it was a good idea. My legs aren't in as good a shape as they were before I stopped riding for a week or two, and they've been talking to me just riding the 7-mile last-leg commutes these last several days. So I worried about those killer uphills for the first 3 out of the 32-mile full trip to work. But what the hey. No pain, no gain, right? RIGHT?? Still hoping for the solution that gets gain WITHOUT the pain, thank you.
But, as usual, I'm glad I did it..... once I get to work and cool off. My legs are talking to me, of course, but it really supercharges me to get that lathered up. Plus it makes for great tidbits during idle conversation, just casually mentioning I rode the bike 32 miles to work... ho hum. ETC.
On the way across town I actually PASSED an eye-candy cyclist, and she had great legs. Usually such folk pass ME like I'm backing up. She almost certainly is a newbie to biking or not feeling well - for me to pass her and stay ahead of her. Just goes to show you, old guys CAN pass people sometimes. Most of the time the only thing I pass is gas.....

Awakening BG: 213            Post-Ride BG: 118

Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.5 Ending Voltage: 12.3
Morning Stats from the GPS:    Total Miles: 31.75
Overall average speed         Moving Avg       Max Speed
12.1. Mph                          12.7 mph            34.3 mph
Total Trip time                 Moving Time          Stopped Time
2 hours 36 mins               2 hours  29 mins     7 mins 29 secs

Thursday, Running REALLY Late

2011-08-25T12:30:00.001-06:00

View my bike-breadcrumb track via APRS and GPS
Yesterday I skipped riding the bike since I drove Jacque's Ford Exploder and took the visiting in-laws, Bert and Carol Johnston, to catch their early morning flight for home in Illinois. I dropped them off at the airport at 6:30-ish and was at work by 7:00 AM. Got in a noon walk but no bike ride, which I sorely missed. Even though the biking makes me hot and sweaty and tired, it leaves me feeling much more energetic and wakeful than on days when I don't do the 2-wheel commute.
This morning as I parked at my normal spot to change from carrito to bicycleta, my cell phone rang. I saw it was Sarah Jo (my first of 3 lovely daughters) which meant she was approaching me from the nearby bus stop. She had a bit of a worried look on her face and a weird faintly splotchy look and told me she'd had her medication changed and "If it makes me break out in a rash I'm supposed to go to the emergency room."   This wasn't quite a rash, just some small sprinkling of reddish specks, but since she also felt a bit odd we decided to take a ride to the nearest urgent care center.   It was 7:43 when we got there, so of course they weren't open yet. We thought about trying another nearby urgent care center but decided they'd all be opening no earlier than 8: 00 AM so we waited until they opened and let us in. After sitting around for an hour or so they gave her instructions to take some anti-inflammatory like Ibuprofen and make an appointment with her neurologist for review of the new meds. Thankfully it did not turn out to be an emergency after all.
I was alreay 'way late for work so I decided to do my normal bike ride, arriving at 11:30 AM instead of 8:30-ish. That's a bit of comp time to make up or use vacation hours.....
Awakening BG: 103 Post-Ride BG: 84
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.6         Ending Voltage: 12.5
Morning Stats from the GPS:                 Total Miles: 7.44
Overall average speed      Moving Avg         Max Speed
10.2. Mph                          11.0 mph             21.1 mph
Total Trip time                   Moving Time       Stopped Time
43 mins 34 secs            40 mins 46 secs    2 mins 48 secs
Ride Home: Great
Feeling of Movement and Speed: Priceless
Didn't Turn the Camera On in Time to Catch a Cute Kid on a Bike:   BAH
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.5         Ending Voltage: 12.5
Evening Stats from the GPS:                 Total Miles: 7.41
Overall average speed      Moving Avg         Max Speed
11.1. Mph                          11.5 mph             23.2 mph
Total Trip time                   Moving Time       Stopped Time
39 mins 59 secs            38 mins 50 secs    1 mins 09 secs

Back-To-Work, Oh My

2011-08-23T12:48:00.000-06:00

Tracker now working pretty well.....

I took vacation days last Friday and yesterday, Monday. Jacque's folks came to visit so we spent Friday, Saturday, and Monday cruising around Northern NM for quick tours of:
Acoma Pueblo, very tiring for Dad Johnston but great fun anyway.
Then, Friday night, a visit to the Wildlife West show out in Edgewood NM. Enjoyed an old fashioned chuckwagon-style dinner and then tapped our feet, sang along, and danced to the music of the "Holy Water and Whiskey" band.
Saturday, we did the Jemez drive up through the Jemez Mountains and a couple of stops for Fry Bread, Famous Jemez Burger in Jemez, a jaw-dropping tour of the jemez forest around valles Caldera and cringing at all the burn damage to a once-beautiful forest. Got lost in the rain trying to get around construction detours in Los Alamos. Took the loop around Santa Fe and down the Turquoise Trail (NM-14) through Old Madrid to get home. Stopped off in Madrid for some disgustingly yummy scooped ice cream from the Madrid Company Store Soda Fountain. My insulin pump had lots of trouble keeping up with my carbohydrate consumption and almost blew a fuse. Everybody's got to die sometime, y'know??
Awakening BG: 84 Post-Ride BG: 145
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.6         Ending Voltage: 12.7
Morning Stats from the GPS:                 Total Miles: 7.45
Overall average speed      Moving Avg         Max Speed
09.7. Mph                          10.8 mph             24.3 mph
Total Trip time                   Moving Time       Stopped Time
45 mins 59 secs            41 mins 20 secs    4 mins 39 secs

Thursday.

2011-08-18T17:44:00.003-06:00

Again, tracker is spotty and needing adjustment
Sunny and cooler this morning after last evening's downpour. Very humid, but great riding weather.
We'll see what the afternoon ride back brings.
Forgot to mention I saw my first bear out in the open 2 days ago just a couple miles from home. He was not a big guy, and no fat at all, and he was right next to the North-14 hiway on the north end of Cedar Crest. I've seen bears roaming a nearby trailer park several years ago, where the dimwit residents love to feed the roaming ursus horriblus "Because They're So Cute". It's long been a wonder to us that we have yet to have bears visiting our house, what with the dog food, stinky compost pile and such-like in our yard that attracts bears to the surrounding neighbors. This bear was only 20-30 feet off the roadway as I passed and I could have easily gotten out of the car and hit him with a rock, except for my lack of enthusiasm for becoming bear poop.
Awakening BG: 175 Post-Ride BG: 85
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.2         Ending Voltage: 12.4 (This battery needs a charge!)
Morning Stats from the GPS:                 Total Miles: 7.45
Overall average speed      Moving Avg         Max Speed
09.1. Mph                          10.8 mph             20.0 mph
Total Trip time                   Moving Time       Stopped Time
48 mins 59 secs            41 mins 18 secs    7 mins 41 secs
The afternoon ride was pretty fine, nothing interesting to report.
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.6         Ending Voltage: 12.5
Evening Stats from the GPS:                 Total Miles: 7.40
Overall average speed      Moving Avg         Max Speed
10.1. Mph                          11.0 mph             22.3 mph
Total Trip time                   Moving Time       Stopped Time
43 mins 59 secs            40 mins 14 secs    3 mins 45 secs

Tired Legs Wednesday

2011-08-17T12:16:00.003-06:00

Fixed the intermittent tracker, much better now
Per the new dog and bike photo: In the spirit of full disclosure I should point out that Tinkerbell (That's the DOG, not ME) is riding in a laptop computer bag.... the only thing I could find to carry her with. She's so willing to "GO" she'd probably ride up on the handlebars if I asked her to. Cool biking buddy.
I discovered the serious technical problem with my favorite GPS/APRS tracking device.... my homemade battery eliminator clip on the bottom of the ancient Icom 2AT radio had popped slightly off center, thus not providing battery power to the radio...... duhhh. So now I'm happily back to logging real time battery voltage as I roll along.
Nice and cloudy and cool this morning, but I contended with a mild headwind going TO work this time - I can hardly wait to see what winds transpire this afternoon. The ride did not prompt me to slather on my usual 1/4 inch-thick layer of 50 SPF sunscreen. Thus I did not ride in public today looking like I took a dip in cake batter. SHUCKINS
Awakening BG: 219 Post-Ride BG: 98
Beginning Battery Voltage: 13.0 Ending Voltage: 12.8
I watched the weather outside this afternoon and it was getting cloudy and dark enough that I tried to leave early to beat a possible rain shower. BAH - I didn't escape until 6 PM. For the first couple miles I thought I was going to make it back to the car dry, but then it began to sprinkle....... and then it really started to pour.
By the time I got to the I-25 underpass, the first real shelter I could have gotten to, the rain had slowed to nearly nothing so I rode on without stopping, either there OR the Montgomery bike underpass. Of course, as soon as I got past these possible places of refuge, it started pouring again. I was soaked to the skin long before I got back to the car. But I'm BRAGGING, not complaining. Albuquerque has not had a good soaking in months, and it was wonderful to see the streets wet and the drainage ditches running. Even should I catch cold, which I doubt, it will have been worth getting the rain.
I didn't run the GPS on the ride back due to low batteries. I had a box of fresh chocolate donuts in the pannier this morning that had greater priority than extended electronics operation, so I used the small lighter battery pack which was going soft on the return trip.