I finally mustered the courage (and the fact that I don't have anything to pick up in my pick up after work) to ride my bike to work this morning. I've be riding every day, but only like 3 or 4 miles tops. It was 2C when I left this morning and didn't warm up at all the whole way to work. The first 1hr 20 min was in darkness. After that, the sun started to show it's evidence. I must say that riding in the light is far better than in darkness. It's amazing how having your focus concentrated within about 40 meters of yourself changes things. I kept finding myself straining to find what what lurking (in my imagination) in the field beside me.It felt incredibly good to get back to bike commuting again. The inside of my truck was seeming like an insane asylum that I just couldn't escape. While I was much slower today (23 minutes!!!) than before, I think that within a week or two I'll be right back to where I was. There was also a fairly strong headwind, so I was expecting to be slower as soon as I left.
I solicited Vik for some advice on riding the highways at night and one of the points he gave was reflective tape. Great common sense. I put a couple of square pieces on my fenders and just didn't like the look. "I can do better than that" I told myself and came up with these. Draw skull and flames on the tape, cut out with hobbie knife, and there you have it. People see me coming with think, hey, there's an old geezer on a recumbent..... until they see my reflectors! Who's bad? 
I also got a new GPS unit via Ebay. My last one crapped out on me and I was doing a little shopping to see what else is out there. I ended up with an updated version of what I was previously using. I do run, so a bike specific wasn't really an option and the this new forerunner 205 has cycling modes that should work well enough. Besides, I haven't been able to bring myself to mount a computer on either my fixie or my Allez for some reason. Sure they are very common, but for some reason I just like the look of having nothing on the bars. I like the Protege 8 that's came with the Volae (thanks Vik) and if I had another one of those, I might just put it on the Allez. Having a wrist mounted GPS allows me to have all the stats regardless of what bike I'm riding.
6 comments:
Nice work on the reflective tape! Your making my bike look pretty plain...lol...=-)
BTW - nice work with all the tail lights!
You could add reflective bits of tape on the rims between the spokes. It gives the appearance of large circles in motion which is eye-catching.
If your rims are more aero, then the tape needs to be put on both sides, but I usually just go every third or fourth spot on a 32 spoke wheel.
Glad the mojo made it across the border! Took long enough!
How long's your ride? What ever the length, that long in the dark takes guts! Props to you! I'm going the tape route too, thinking of getting another blinky, one for each side.
tHey Vik, thanks. So far everyone passing me in the dark are doing to in the other lane, so they must see me.
Smudgemo, I was thinking about that and I think you might have just convinced me. My wheels are fairly aero and I think I can make them look half decent.
Jeff, I'm surprised it actually made it across the border. Especially when I saw that you wrote on the customs docs that there were leaves and tree clippings. Nice work, I'm amazed it happened.
Jeff from Duluth, my commute to work is 26 miles each way. In the summer I did it 2 to 3 times a week. So far with the darkness, once. If I leave to get to work when I'm 'supposed to" I'll be riding the dark all the way. Just part of the area of the world I live in I guess.
Ride safe and strong all!
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