Thankfully Thursday

Not Much Changed, but Still Tracking with APRS 

Another wonderful day to ride the bike in the countryside..... or to work.  SIGH

Just before I reached the point in the bike trail where I found Lisa's pocketbook, I rattled across the inevitable wood-wobble-bridge, rattling my teeth and skull and everything else and giving me a slight idea why Lisa's pocketbook landed where it did..... just past this destructo bridge.  I have lost SO many things off my bike and body while cycling it's tough to list very many of them.  Almost nothing is ever seen again.   I lost a relatively new denim jacket out from under some Bungee cords a couple years ago and I must assume some baggy pants type has enjoyed it ever since.  I lost my company picture ID card several years ago and was in the process of getting it replaced when a nice attractive young lady called me up to say she'd found it alongside the road near her home where I used to ride a lot commuting.  There was no value in hanging on to the card for its pretty finder, but she was so nice I'm certain she would have returned even valuable stuff like a wallet had she found it and been able to track me down.  Which suggests maybe I should insert my name and number somewhere on "Stuff" I regularly carry on the bike.... after all, it's never a smooth ride for long.  Maybe had I done so I'd have my beloved denim jacket back.

Awakening BG:  114                           Post-Ride BG: 103 (even after eating a candy bar just before the ride)

Beginning Battery Voltage: 13.2         Ending Voltage: 12.6

Morning Stats from the GPS:                 Total Miles:  7.44

Overall average speed      Moving Avg         Max Speed
10.4  Mph                          12.5 mph             24.7 mph
Total Trip time                   Moving Time       Stopped Time
42:59 mins                          35:34 mins           07:25 mins

Afternoon R ide back:  Another head-banger head-windy ride.  The wind was very stiff but at least it was cooler than the last few days.
About half a mile after I turned east on the Hahn Arroyo Trail, I met a young Dad with his 2 very young kids riding on tiny bikes behind him.  The oldest was a cutie girl maybe 7 years old.  The youngest, the boy, was maybe 5 or so and very wobbly, and just as he was almost past me he wobbled sideways and his bike went down and he went flat on his face over the handlebars.  He was going very slow and had only a couple of feet to fall but he did a face-plant and started screaming his poor lungs out.  I stopped, the Dad stopped, and the poor guy seemed to be OK.  His helmet, thankfully, had enough overhang in the front that his face did not seem to have actually contacted the pavement.  He was crying and pointing to his knee, which was not bleeding but had a tiny bit of gravel in it, so his pride may well have been the worst injury.  I wanted to hug him and calm him down too but Dad seemed to have it well in hand.  Big Sister was full of commentary and information.  She was very matter-of-fact and seemed to have never met a stranger.
Beginning BG:  59 (!)                             Post-Ride BG:  84 
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.9 (With intermediate charging) Ending Voltage: 11.9
Evening Stats from the GPS:                 Total Miles:  7.44
Overall average speed      Moving Avg         Max Speed
08.0  Mph                          09.4 mph             20.3  mph
Total Trip time                   Moving Time       Stopped Time
55.59 mins                        47:24 mins            08:35 mins

More Dryness, your highness

See Jim's Boring Bread-Crumb Trail via Ham Radio / APRS

If you ever decide to look for deep meaning in my post titles, don't bother.

The big rain I was so excited about yesterday turned out to hardly settle the dust, and it soaked in / evaporated so fast there was little evidence of moisture by the time I got home.  

Today:  Clear and sunny and warm, noticeable smoke-haze in the air but eminently refreshing to breathe (Thank goodness I no longer suffer from Asthma)

We are really blessed out in the Southwest:  Well over 300 sunny days of the year, and more than that are altogether suitable for bicycle riding.  No need for special clothes or specialized equipment, just a bicycle with air in the tires.  If an old fart like me at age 64 can ride year round then anyone can.  I was going to say "Unless you have only one leg, arm, etc.", but I regularly see legless cyclists screaming along pumping their arm-powered bikes at speeds faster than I can attain, so incomplete limb-sets are no excuse either.  The cyclist world has seen several links to a hand-less olympic-style bicycle racer from Mexico who smokes along all over the world winning races and can truly say aloud:  "!Mira, Mama', Sin Manos!"

Awakening BG:  117                              Post-Ride BG: 88

Beginning Battery Voltage: 13.2         Ending Voltage: 11.1

Morning Stats from the GPS:                 Total Miles:  7.44

Overall average speed      Moving Avg         Max Speed
09.9  Mph                          11.6 mph             21.7 mph
Total Trip time                   Moving Time       Stopped Time
45:01 mins                          38:32 mins           06:29 mins

LOST & FOUND

On the way back to the car tonight the wind was HORRIBLE.  Maybe not the worst I've ever endured (I wasn't whammed up against the guard rail or off the trail this time) but it was bad.  Always glad to get out of the wide open trail to the in-town trails with lots of houses and trees blocking the WIND.  BAH
As I crossed the bone-shaker long bicycle bridge just south of Osuna, I spotted something right out in the middle of the paved bike path...... Sure enough, it was a pocketbook.  I had my cell phone, but no directory, so I figured I'd have no way to track down the owner without help from someone like the lovely Jacque.  So I stuck it in one of my cargo leg pockets and rode on to the carrito.  When I arrived at the car, I dug through the pocketbook looking for ID, phone number, address, you know the drill..... Of course, no phone numbers were in there, but MERCY.  The pretty young lady Lisa had maybe a dozen merchant and charge cards, one of them new and un-signed, several slips of paper with email address and PASSWORDS to various things -- SCARY.
Lisa's driver's license was there, along with an address, but no phone number.  I called Jacque and enlisted her help tracking down a phone number for her.  No luck on the internet, but believe it or not, she was in the old fashioned phone book, but she wasn't home.  I decided to drive to the address and see if anyone was home - and of course there wasn't.  I sat outside the home and read my current paperback novel for close to 40 minutes and finally gave up and came home.  Jacque had called her listed number, gotten the voice mail, and left a message that her stuff was safe and left my cell number so she could call me.  Of course she finally called..... just as I approached the outer gate to our property in the East Mountains 20+ miles away.  She's going to meet me tomorrow and retrieve her valuables.  I chewed her out royally for having all those passwords and usernames IN THE SAME PLACE with the associated debit and charge cards.  She took it in good grace and of course is thrilled her stuff is safe.  The reason she wasn't home, of course, was that she was out frantically searching for it all over the place.  Nice ending to a windy nasty afternoon.
We enjoyed a joyful encounter with her the next day when Jacque and I met her in a library parking lot and returned the treasures to her.
Beginning BG:  131                             Post-Ride BG:  58 (!)
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.8 (With intermediate charging) Ending Voltage: 11.9
Evening Stats from the GPS:                 Total Miles:  7.54
Overall average speed      Moving Avg         Max Speed
07.8  Mph                          09.1 mph             22.8  mph
Total Trip time                   Moving Time       Stopped Time
58:08 mins                        49:42 mins            08:26 mins

A Little Rain..... Thank You, Heavenly Father

New Bike Tracker Settings Seem to Work Better


Today was a bit Cloudy, but not too much cooler.  In spite of the less than favorable weather and slightly smelly gray air, it is still a joy to cruise along in the out-of-doors, enjoying the too-short interlude of going 15-20 MPH under my own power....
Jacque called me just before quitting time and it was POURING rain and small hailstones.  I could barely hear her voice on the phone for the wonderful racket made by the rain.  Unfortunately it didn't last long enough to really soak the ground.  Everything was so dry, including the air, that the moisture immediately evaporated.
But it settled the dust a bit and cooled things off.  Hopefully Los Alamos and Easter Arizona will get some rain soon.
On the way home in the car on Eastbound I-40, a cool car passed me:

(If anyone does NOT recognize the year and model of the car email me and I'll tell you-)
Beginning BG:  225 (!)                             Post-Ride BG:  63 (!!)
Beginning Battery Voltage: 13.1 (No intermediate charging) Ending Voltage: 12.2
Evening Stats from the GPS:                 Total Miles:  7.36
Overall average speed      Moving Avg         Max Speed
09.4  Mph                          10.5 mph             22.8  mph
Total Trip time                   Moving Time       Stopped Time
47:00 mins                        41:52 mins            05:08 mins

Where There's Smoke.......

Track Jim with his Latest Work-In-Progress Tracker
Another fire started somehow up in the Jemez Mountains near Los Alamos.  All day yesterday, Sunday, the air got browner and browner and stank clearly of wood smoke.  It appears that while the rest of the world suffers from earthquakes, tsunamis, and floods, we appear to be doomed from winds and wildfires.  In the last 2 months I'm not sure we've had a week of clear air without "benefit" of forest-fire wood smoke in our eyes and breathing passages.  We still have some trees (juniper and pinon, 2 of the most flammable of the earth) too close to our house.  They provide some limited isolation from the neighbors across the upper fence, but they just are not safe to have so close to the house in these drought conditions, with the unlimited capacity of brain-challenged humans to smoke, start campfires, and set off fireworks (all illegal but prevalent activities).  So out comes the chainsaw.... gotta cut those bad boys down and hopefully burn them in the wood stove this winter or next instead of them burning US when wildfire again rips through our neighborhood.
If you ever click on my radio/GPS tracker link above, you may notice I now have a slightly newer system in place:  My position reports also contain my current battery voltage, temperature in Centigrade, GPS satellite quality (HDO stands for Horizontal Dispersion Of Precision), number of satellites in view, etc.  More useless info that I find interesting, especially the battery voltage readings.... I can more fully analyze and understand what my battery pack(s) are doing during a trip.  The vendor of this upgraded system is Argent Data Systems. 
This morning's bike commute was quite pleasant.  The air was relatively clear and flavor free, and it was a bit warmer than we're all used to.  Riding the bike, the resulting breeze-in-the-face feels good, helping to keep me cooled down in spite of the exertion involved.  Stopping for even a few minutes results in rapid realization that it's TOO HOT.  BAH

Awakening BG:  93                              Post-Ride BG:  64

Beginning Battery Voltage: 13.1         Ending Voltage: 12.2

Morning Stats from the GPS:                 Total Miles:  7.45

Overall average speed      Moving Avg         Max Speed
10.1  Mph                          11.9 mph             24.5 mph
Total Trip time                   Moving Time       Stopped Time
44:04 mins                          37:27 mins           06:37 mins

The ride back to the car was uneventful , with the usual afternoon headwind.  Very hot breeze so it wasn't as cooling as it has been recently. 
The new fire up in Los Alamos County has again forced mass evacuations, with my son Jimmy and his family having to spend last night in a motel and now they're migrating to Las Cruces to stay with Joan, Jimmy's Mom.  The Los Alamos Lab is closed for now, hopefully they are able to keep paying the employees who cannot come to work through no fault of their own.
Beginning BG:  254 (!!)                             Post-Ride BG:  244 (!!)
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.1 (No intermediate charging) Ending Voltage: 11.9
Evening Stats from the GPS:                 Total Miles:  7.42
Overall average speed      Moving Avg         Max Speed
08.6  Mph                          10.1 mph             20.8  mph
Total Trip time                   Moving Time       Stopped Time
51:50 mins                        44:11 mins            07:39 mins

Is it Friday Yet???

Jim's BreadCrumb GPS/Radio Track

Awakening BG:  75                              Post-Ride BG:  118

Morning Stats from the GPS:                 Total Miles:  7.46

Overall average speed      Moving Avg         Max Speed
11.6  Mph                          12.3 mph             22.7 mph
Total Trip time                   Moving Time       Stopped Time
38:33 mins                          36:17 mins           02:16 mins

More Fresh Air and Blue Sky

See Where he is, How Slow he Goes, ETC


Last night after I got back to the car, I was horrified to find the coax antenna connection was separated:  I must not have properly tightened the BNC connectors.  When I checked the aprs.fi tracking link I saw the track only appeared for the first 2/3 of my commute.  I worried that I might have damaged the transmitter in the tracker, an old 2 Meter IC-2AT Icom ham walkie-talkie.  Thankfully, this morning everything seemed to work fine so evidently I did NOT destroy the transmitter on the little APRS pouch.  YAY
We went so many weeks with darkened skies and bitter tainted air smelling like wood smoke from the AZ fire that we all comment on how clear the air is now, etc.  The fires supposedly are still out of control but the winds must have shifted, because life has been MUCH nicer these last several days.

Awakening BG:  UNK                              Post-Ride BG:  98

Morning Stats from the GPS:                 Total Miles:  7.45

Overall average speed      Moving Avg         Max Speed
10.9  Mph                          12.4 mph             22.9 mph
Total Trip time                   Moving Time       Stopped Time
41:00 mins                          36:06 mins           04:54 mins

The Ride Home?  The seemingly ever-present afternoon headwind was a bit stronger today.
 NO BIGGIE
Also no video - I loaned my cheapie DV005 video cam to a co worker friend, Mark K5LXP.  He's wanting to get some fun videos of and from his dogs.  I do wish him luck.  Good results from this cam are hard to come by.
Ran into ANOTHER loonie running ham radio on his bike:  Tim K5DEZ, who lives up near Raven Road on South-14 here in the East Mountains.  Here's HIS Track via APRS
Beginning BG:  124                              Post-Ride BG:  67
Evening Stats from the GPS:                 Total Miles:  7.42
Overall average speed      Moving Avg         Max Speed
09.6  Mph                          11.1 mph             24.1  mph
Total Trip time                   Moving Time       Stopped Time
46:30 mins                        40:08 mins            06:22 mins

Wow, 3 Bike-Riding hams at one time in the same city

Follow Jim's boringly predictable commute-route on Google

Well, I was just riding my bike to work.... and checked into the local morning net on the Kenwood F6 handlebar mounted radio.  After that was over I pushed the "Scan" button and began talking with Mark, W5MHG, who also turned out to be on HIS bicycle up on Tramway.  After we chatted for several minutes Phil, W5PWB, chimed in on the conversation from HIS bicycle:  Phil was also on his way to work and we had a 3-way radio conversation going on between 3 bicycles separated miles apart.  Too Cool.  It's seldom enough I ever catch another ham cyclist on the air and bike at the same time as I'm riding, but TWO other hams on 2-wheels?  Far Out, as they used to say maybe 40 years ago or so.
BTW, I've had several queries about the helmet-microphone-earphone setup I use.
Click here for the Ebay link to the vendor~
You'll have to poke around for other links if you use radios other than Kenwood... I'm sure this same vendor markets similar kits wired for Icoms and Yaesus as well.

Awakening BG:  163                              Post-Ride BG:  87

Morning Stats from the GPS:                 Total Miles:  7.47

Overall average speed      Moving Avg         Max Speed
09.6  Mph                          11.0 mph             21.1 mph
Total Trip time                   Moving Time       Stopped Time
46:49 mins                          40:42 mins           06:07 mins

I  started to try to do a short video of all the other cyclists I met or was passed by on the way back to the car tonight, but I didn't have time to glotch it up.  My ride was a bit quicker than usual because (1) Jacque called on the radio and wanted to meet me at my parking spot so I could retrieve our puppy-lap dog from her and take Tinkerbell home, and she didn't want to have to sit and wait for me 30 minutes or more for my slow butt to show up.  So I cranked as fast as my old legs would take me, and (2) I passed a female cyclist who was a tad slower than I was, but human nature beiing what it is, she sped up as I passed her and kept me chugging to stay ahead of her.  A little old-man motivation like that works pretty well to get me cranking faster than I normally do.  Unless they're just too fast for me to stay ahead of (normally, anyone over the age of 5 and under 95 and not crippled or repairing a flat tire).
Beginning BG:  196                              Post-Ride BG:  184
Evening Stats from the GPS:                 Total Miles:  7.43
Overall average speed      Moving Avg         Max Speed
11.2  Mph                          12.3 mph             22.2  mph
Total Trip time                   Moving Time       Stopped Time
39:42 mins                        36:07 mins            03:35 mins