On the Road (Path) Again; Flying Off the Handle

It was great to be back with the wind in my face this morning even though it was about 10 degrees cooler than the last couple days. (I must be too much like my dogs with the wind-in-the-face excitement.)
It seems like no matter how I lash things down, every few days (at least) I lose something off the bike, invariably when I cross one of the city's infamous path-to-sidewalk-to-street junctions  or more often, the teeth-rattler wooden bike bridges which we have too many of.
This morning as I whacka-whacka-whacka'd over the morning's 3rd wooden bridge, the video cam went POP and fluttered down to the bike path as I bounced off the last wooden rung of the bridge, bouncing off my leg as it went.  I immediately got on the brakes and stopped.  This warmer weather brings out many more cyclists and I hoped to get the camera (or remaining pieces) picked up before they got run over by oncoming bicyclists.  There turned out to be only one a couple hundred feet behind me and I was able to retrieve the cam before he got to me .I was again surprised to find the camera itself still intact but it had separated from the plastic spring-saddle-clip, breaking the black plastic zip-tie that held it in place.  I clipped it all back together with a new zip tie out of the rear pannier and went on to work.  The cam still seems to work, surprisingly.  This is the second big tumble it's taken without self destructing.  Pretty amazing for how cheaply it's constructed and how thin the plastic shell is.
Didn't catch any interesting video on it this morning, but it still works.  Go figure.
Starting BG:  123       Post-Ride BG:   111
Morning Stats from the GPS:                       Total Miles:  7.45
Overall average speed      Moving Avg         Max Speed
09.5  Mph                          11.9  mph             22.5 mph
Total Trip time                   Moving Time       Stopped Time
46:59 Mins                         37:31 mins            09:28 mins

The ride back to the car this evening was surprisingly cold with VERY stiff headwinds much of the way.
This might be the first time I've ridden so long, around 5 miles, in my low and next-to-lowest gears, although I was still on my largest chain-ring on the front, but the rear derailleur was almost in "Grandma Gear" most of the way.  Even going downhill under the underpasses was a struggle bucking the stiff wind.  My legs are talking to me tonight....

If the video makes it appear like I'm barely moving..... it's for real and for true.  You can easily hear the almost direct-in-my-face wind howling in the audio feed.
 Starting BG: Unk       Back-At-Car arrival BG:  85 
Afternoon Stats from the GPS:                       Total Miles:  7.44
Overall average speed      Moving Avg         Max Speed
07.8  Mph                          08.3 mph             23.4 mph
Total Trip time                   Moving Time       Stopped Time
57:11 mins                         53:32 mins            03:39 mins

RAIN

Didn't ride the bike today.  It rained all night, a good steady gentle drizzle, that really soaked the earth good and left everything smelling wonderful this morning, but the weather Guesser Steve Stucker forecast dry weather all day in Albuquerque.  Thus I intended to park & ride as usual but when I got off I-40 in Albuquerque it started splattering the windshield with fat rain drops.  It seemed to get heavier as I drove so I decided to wimp out, bag it, and drive all the way to work.  The morning brought some needed rain but it dried up later.  I took my usual 2-mile noon constitutional walk for my half hour lunch break and it started to rain on me about the time I got past the first mile and coming back around the west end of Wildflower Park by Honeywell.  I thought I was going to get soaked, and not complaining about it since we've had such a horrible drought the last 2 months, but it only sprinkled on me for about 10 minutes and then stopped.
Of course this evening when I got off work it was so bright and clear and beautiful I felt stupid for not riding the bike.....

Short Work Day

Wednesday was so warm I rode in the morning with regular summer gloves, no skull/ear-protector cap;  it was wonderful.
Jacque called just as I got to work to tell me an old timer named Elmer Robinette was going to have a short graveside service at 2 PM.  I was shocked to learn he had only recently died;  he was 93.  I hadn't heard about him in years and thought he was long gone before now.  (He'd been in a nursing home in T or C).  A computer upgrade at work prevented me from getting much useful work done so I asked for the afternoon off  and rode back to the car.  I got quite woozy just south of Osuna and stopped to eat half a sandwich and was still a bit woozy the rest of the ride back to the car.  Blood sugar was 85 by then, so it must have been pretty faint when I stopped for the snack.  Arrived  at 12:00-ish, drove to Edgewood where I met Jacque, and rode with her the rest of the way to Moriarty where the services occurred.
The wind was howling in Torrance County and we could hardly hear each other over the whining of the wind, but I was glad we went even though it was a last minute decision.  The person who was to give the closing prayer  did not show up so I was invited to offer it which I did.
Starting BG: Unk       Back-At-Car arrival BG:  85 
Afternoon Stats from the GPS:                       Total Miles:  7.46
Overall average speed      Moving Avg         Max Speed
08.6  Mph                          10.5 mph             23.7 mph
Total Trip time                   Moving Time       Stopped Time
52:17 mins                         42:29 mins            09:48 mins   

Some more kids squealed loudly when I rode across the street in front of them.... they were 50 or more feet away but howled as I went through the bollards blocking the cross street entry to the bike path in front of them.  I get a lot of this from kids;  it may be I look so silly they think I'm  a clown for their entertainment.  Not far from the truth, I suppose.  A few days ago I got hollered at by a couple guys standing some distance from the bike path;  these were 20- or 30-somethings:  "Hey, Fireman.  FIREMAN....!!!"  I ignored them and continued pedaling.  Because I have electronics on my handlebars I'm a fireman?  My adoring public......
For some reason my APRS ham radio/GPS tracking device reported only one position during the morning ride, leading Jacque to think I was stopped somewhere.  It worked normally on the ride back to the car, without me making any changes to the settings.

tuesday WOW!!!!!!

Nothing much happened for the morning ride today.  It was a bit warmer than yesterday, still cold, but not enough for hand warmers in the mittens, and no face mask.
A lady (?) driver cut me off just before I pulled into the work parking lot..... I had hoped to find her license plate on my video cam but for some reason it had stopped recording about 2 miles earlier.
Starting BG:  TBD       Post-Ride BG:   TBD
Morning Stats from the GPS:                       Total Miles:  7.44
Overall average speed      Moving Avg         Max Speed
10.1  Mph                          11.0  mph             20.7 mph
Total Trip time                   Moving Time       Stopped Time
44:23 Mins                         40:41 mins            03:42 mins

This afternoon, on the ride back to the gas guzzler, the warm balmy weather had  lured scads of walkers and cyclists out for the evening.   As I passed a small family of cyclists who had stopped for a break, the kids noticed me just as I passed by:

This is a typical reaction I hear from the younger folk when I pass by.  Older people normally only comment something such as:  "Why do you carry all that junk??"

Starting BG:  205       At-Home arrival BG:  114 
Afternoon Stats from the GPS:                       Total Miles:  7.50
Overall average speed      Moving Avg         Max Speed
09.4  Mph                          10.1 mph             20.8 mph
Total Trip time                   Moving Time       Stopped Time
47:59 mins                         44:32 mins            03:27 mins   

The Whole State's on Fire, but it's Still Cold in the Morning

The ride back to the car this evening was windy and cool..... but the head-wind was short lived.  After the first mile and I got through the north end of Balloon Fiesta Park and turned south on the bicycle path (officially referred to as the "MUP" (Multi-Use-Path), the headwind turned into a TAIL wind which was a great help, as you can see from my maximum speed recorded tonight.  Almost 27 MPH, even downhill with the tailwind, ain't bad for an old out of shape geezer.....
Starting BG:  111       At-the-Car arrival BG:  Unk, but spacey:  Ate an oatmeal bar
Afternoon Stats from the GPS:                       Total Miles:  7.38
Overall average speed      Moving Avg         Max Speed
10.8  Mph                          12.3 mph             26.8 mph
Total Trip time                   Moving Time       Stopped Time
40:56 mins                          36:04 mins            04:52 mins   

Woe is us.  High winds have buffeted the entire state all weekend.  Wildfires are burning - 50 or more according to the news.  This doesn't deter model rocketeers from launching rockets in the weeds in Embudo Canyon or kids from setting fires and playing with matches in the Menaul trailhead area (still burning 3 days later), NOR does it seem to bother Forest Service officialdom who have announced their intention of starting a (ahem) "Controlled Burn" in the Gila forest near Silver City.  They might do well to read the official accounts of the "controlled burn" in 2000 that burned half of the town of Los Alamos to the ground.
We watched Conference from the comfort of our living room with the wind howling outside Saturday and Sunday.  Early Sunday afternoon at 1:30 sharp, the house lights went OFF with a slight "Click" and that was that.  No electricity for hours.... and hours.... all night long.... and most of today, Monday morning.   We listened to KOB radio which was broadcasting their Sunday afternoon "Money Talks"  "talk show" but no local news breaks were allowed to interrupt this important programming.  I fired up the heart-attack-pull-cord-start emergency generator and found, from watching KOB TV, that there had been 8 power poles that collapsed in the wind in Edgewood, about 20 miles east of us, and that the electric power would likely be off until at least Monday afternoon.  Jacque called me this morning about 10:00 and the power had come back on unexpectedly early.  Hurray.  We have all sorts of standby power, RV generator, 5 KW generator to run the 240 Volt well pump, small generator and inverters to run small appliances, candles, battery lights, Coleman lantern (to REALLY blow the darkness outa the house), but it really isn't that much fun to have to go around and arrange extension cords, activate the change-over system for the emergency generator (which has a very minimal and thus LOUD muffler and is under the deck at the same corner of our house as our bedroom), light all the candles and lamps, put them out here and there, go dig out the emergency can of gas for the generator, etc, etc.....This doesn't happen enough to justify it, but when it does it sure gives you ideas about disconnecting entirely from the "Grid" and investing in solar and wind for power generation.  It's do-able, but even at today's prices, would take longer than we both have left to live to pay off the high investment costs for installing such stuff.
It was 27 degrees when I woke up this morning and it was a COLD bike ride when I got to Albuquerque.
I even drug out a pair of emergency hand warmers and ripped them open and put 'em into my bike mittens, and was I ever glad to have warm fingers this morning.  I thought I could make it without the face mask and regretted it all the way to work.  My face got so cold it ached.  But of course I didn't want to take additional non-rolling time to stop and dig it out and put it on so I kept pedaling..... and hurting.  BAH
Starting BG:  151       Post-Ride BG:   95
Morning Stats from the GPS:                       Total Miles:  7.70
Overall average speed      Moving Avg         Max Speed
07.7  Mph                          09.7 mph             19.1 mph
Total Trip time                   Moving Time       Stopped Time
01.00 Hour(!)                     47:51 mins            12:28 mins

Gorgeous Me

I forgot a funny that happened to me Thursday evening.  When I left work and mounted the bicycle for the trip back to the parked car, it was so warm I left my sleeves rolled up, used my handkerchief as a neck-shield stuffed in the back of my helmet, and dug out the tube of sunscreen and slathered it on my arms and exposed face liberally.
After I got back to the car and started home I stopped at Sams Club and Wal-Mart for a couple items.
Now, when on the bike I'm always wearing the ugly bike helmet.  Otherwise when outside and walking around invariably I wear my much better looking straw cowboy hat, which makes me one of a dwindling minority nowadays.  This day I noticed several women looking at me interestedly as they passed me, and after several had taken a seemingly unusual interest in looking at me as they passed, I thought "Must be the cowboy hat, they don't see many of those these days."  I was back in the car and backing out of my parking space when I happened to notice my reflection in the rear-view mirror:  I had BIG splotches of white sun-block in odd spots on my nose and cheeks.  I looked rather like a clown that had applied his face paint while intoxicated.  Heh.  So much for my good looks enhanced by the cowboy hat.
Which reminds me of a typical guy-geek story several years earlier:  My supervisor up at Los Alamos was attending a singles dinner at his church.  He had gone home from work, noted the time, and realized he had time to do a little work on his race-boat out in the garage.  Donning goggles and gloves, he set about using a bench grinder and wire wheel to clean a set of intake and exhaust valves from his disassembled Chevy race engine from the boat.  When it was time to go to the dinner, he went in, cleaned up, and showed up at the dinner.  As he made his way through the chow-line filling his plate, he noticed all kinds of people looking at him strangely.  He was newly divorced and thought all the attention must be due to his newness to the group.  People continued to stare at him while he ate, so he finally got up, went to the restroom, and looked himself over in the mirror.  To his chagrin he realized he had cleaned everything up except his FACE:  He looked like a raccoon in the mirror.  His goggles had protected his eyes but the rest of his face was almost black with grease and grime..... (sigh).  What can a fellow male say about such a thing?  It's not like it's never happened to US

Wonderful Prelude to a Windy Weekend

I left work early because we were attending a temple sealing ceremony for a family with whom we've
been friends for years.  Left work about 3:40 PM (thank goodness for comp time) and arrived at the car by 4:36 PM.  I left the video cam running during the commute and passed several cyclists and walkers, and at one point passed a woman standing just off the path and her "guy" further off the path, up against a cinder block wall lining someone's back yard.  Just as I passed them I realized he was peeing against the wall, ignoring passers-by such as myself, with his wife looking a bit distressed at the whole idea.  I "tsk-Tsk-Tsk'ed" him as I rode by, and laughed aloud a few feet further on, thinking that could have been an interesting picture .... Wait a minute...  The video cam WAS running all this time, and sure enough when I got home to look at the video clips, there they were..... but as I passed him at the angle displaying full exposure, the camera was dutifully viewing straight ahead, missing the unzipped-pants view entirely.  Which is just as well.  I have no business publishing someone's path-potty episode:  I've had to do the same thing a few times, but try for areas with shrubbery and other things to block the view.  Along these trails there are no stores, just fenced backyard walls, if that.  The only "facilities" consist of an occasional park bench every several miles.  Big Whoop.  When you gotta go, you gotta go.....
Starting BG:  90-something       At-the-Car arrival BG:  95 
Afternoon Stats from the GPS:                       Total Miles:  7.44
Overall average speed      Moving Avg         Max Speed
10.9  Mph                          11.5 mph             22.6 mph
Total Trip time                   Moving Time       Stopped Time
40:59 mins                          38:41 mins            02:18 mins  

The weather guessers are forecasting a miserable weekend with wind and slight possibility of rain.  We'd all welcome the rain in hopes the current drought will ease.  For today, it was a great balmy morning that required almost no cold weather gear.  I wore the light jacket and windbreaker but had to unzip them and open them to onrushing air to keep my belly button (and armpits, ugh) cooler.
I'm quite a bit more impressed with my cheapie DV005 sport-cam after catching yesterday's nasty bus driver in motion.  That was pretty much what I WANTED a live-cam for... to catch "incidents" on the fly and without being obvious that I was filming the action.  My cell phone actually takes much better photos and videos BUT it is not easy riding a bike, seeing something in progress, stopping the bike and getting off, digging out the phone, and activating the camera functions, etc, etc, as well as being patently obvious as to what I'm doing.
Our bulletin board crew here at work featured me as "April Fool Rider of the Month" today.  It has clips of garbage from this blog.... maybe some wealthy people will notice my gaunt appearance and contribute to my retirement fund in hopes of never seeing me on the bathroom wall again.  (Our company uses "Johnny-Boards" in the hallways and restrooms for bulletin boards.)
Starting BG:  UNK       Post-Ride BG:   95
Morning Stats from the GPS:                       Total Miles:  7.39
Overall average speed      Moving Avg         Max Speed
12.3  Mph                          12.7 mph             22.4 mph
Total Trip time                   Moving Time       Stopped Time
35:58 mins                          35:00 mins            00:58 mins