BICYCLE CENTRAL WEATHER REPORT

[avag...@gmail.com]

http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?minlon=-125&maxlon=-120.8&minlat=43.39&maxlat=46.91&mapwidth=354&site=pqr&zmx=1.3020833333333332&zmy=1.3020833333333332&map.x=225&map.y=131#.VkKpf5WFPaE

[avag...@gmail.com]

NWS predicts 'large waves'

Beattie on the bus ?

[avag...@gmail.com]

http://www.foxnews.com/weather/2015/11/18/3-dead-thousands-without-power-after-high-winds-rake-northwest/

[jbeattie]

On Wednesday, November 18, 2015 at 2:51:21 AM UTC-8, avag...@gmail.com wrote:
> http://www.foxnews.com/weather/2015/11/18/3-dead-thousands-without-power-after-high-winds-rake-northwest/

I rode home last night through foot-deep puddles -- actually deeper in some places, but I went around. In general, it was like riding in a fast-running stream with leaf pile islands. It was wild -- but way better than driving a car. Traffic was stopped or creeping all the way from down town to my house about five miles away. I just rolled by. Suck-ahs!

Dyno report: light . . . what light? On the super-wet stormy nights, I really miss my blazing battery light.

Gore bootie report. These things are great. Except for the fact that my feet were actually underwater some of the time, the booties did an incredible job of keeping them dry.

-- Jay Beattie.

[James]

I rode to a pub last night to have a couple of drinks with some mates.
I got home about 9:30pm. It was totally dark.

Dyno report: Uneventful ride. Even my home brew headlight and Sanyo
Dynapower roller dynamo was fine for me to see where I was going and I
didn't have anyone fail to giveway.

I slept well.

--
JS

[AMuzi]

I'm enjoying balmy autumn weather, much warmer and more
pleasant than our usual Wisconsin November[1]. Had a nice
ride to pick up a bottle of Barolo for girlfriend, with the
soothing amber glow of my dynamo light which was perfectly
adequate even though photons barely stagger out of it.

[1] This will end with snow and a drop of 40F in the next
couple of days.

--
Andrew Muzi
<www.yellowjersey.org/>
Open every day since 1 April, 1971

[James]

For the next few months at least, I doubt my lights will be used in the
early morning. The sun is up at 5am, and within a few hours the
temperature will be on the rise, heading for mid thirties today. In the
scale of C, mind you, not F.

My lights will be more useful in the evening and in to the night, to
visit friends, go to the pub, or collect some delicious Thai takeaway.

--
JS

[Frank Krygowski]

And that's pretty much how all my dyno-lit rides go.

In contrast to the horrors imagined by the kilo-lumen crowd, the rides
are just pleasant and perfectly safe.


--
- Frank Krygowski

[jbeattie]

Last night: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQTDRYyngGk I spent the better part of five miles riding home through standing water at least as deep as shown in the video -- but with tons of leaves and stopped traffic to my left.

Lots of this sort of stuff: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIkJs-_7I5g

There were also some brief spots about like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhj_ovqPALo

One place, I had to wait for the ferry -- a hooded guy with a pole.

Go to 1:22 -- you can ride through that stuff: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYapSx7GAjM

My light was useless. In many places, I just gripped harder and relied on my superior, ninja-like bike handling skills and recollection of where the pot holes were located. I still got home in less than half the time it would have taken me in a car.

Dynos are fine for nice dry nights. Contrary to what SMS says, they are perfect for MUPs except for the beam cut-off, because my MUPs go up and down.

-- Jay Beattie.

[Frank Krygowski]

On Wednesday, November 18, 2015 at 5:42:40 PM UTC-5, jbeattie wrote:
>
> My light was useless. In many places, I just gripped harder and relied on my superior, ninja-like bike handling skills and recollection of where the pot holes were located. I still got home in less than half the time it would have taken me in a car.
>
> Dynos are fine for nice dry nights.

It's raining here tonight, and I was out shopping, using the car. 2014 model
car, excellent headlights.

At 9 PM I was leaving a large parking lot. I noticed that it was impossible
to tell whether my headlights were on. It's not that the lights aren't bright.
It's that the laws of optics guarantee that the light rays reflect away from
us when they hit a horizontal film of water. They don't hit the more-or-less
vertical sides of asphalt grains in the road, i.e. those surfaces that reflect
light back to our eyes.

BTW, the rain here wasn't really hard. It doesn't take a lot of water to
make that happen.

It's not as big a disaster as it sounds. A pothole would still be visible.
The light of other vehicle headlights were still visible to me, because
they don't need to bounce off the ground; and likewise, my headlights were
still visible to others. That's why the road on the way home was not littered
with crashed vehicles.

- Frank Krygowski

[jbeattie]

The pot holes were invisible because they were under water. Tonight, I rode home on a route that included a trail/gravel access road. I came upon a downed tree -- a big one that went from one side of the trail to the other. The trail has a river bank on one side and a hill on the other, so there was no walking around. The bummer was the stand light on my dyno was not nearly bright enough to find a way to climb through all the limbs. There really are times when you need a bright when the bike is not moving. I think SMS goes over-board with his criticism of dyno lights, but all of those criticisms were valid on a 500 meter stretch of my commute tonight -- steep downhill onto a trail with beam cut-off leaving the trail in the dark and no bright stand light to evaluate obstacles. And yes, rain soaks up light, but with a 1400 lumen light, you can still see more. As I've mentioned before, I never used the full output on my Seca 1400 except in rainstorms. My dyno light was pretty flaccid on the wet pavement tonight but much better than yesterday, particularly when there were no headlights. In other words, it was acceptable -- except for the trail transition and tree thing.

-- Jay Beattie.

[sms]

On 11/18/2015 2:42 PM, jbeattie wrote:

<snip>

> Dynos are fine for nice dry nights. Contrary to what SMS says, they are perfect for MUPs except for the beam cut-off, because my MUPs go up and down.

LOL, yeah except for the beam shape, and except for the fact that on
MUPs you often have twisty and hilly sections where you're riding at
slow speeds and you have the least amount of light when you most need
it, dynos are perfect for MUPs.

The future of dynos, at least in regular countries, is going to be as
chargers for more powerful lights. You have your hub dyno charging your
headlight during the day when you only have it on flash mode, you charge
the headlight from a USB port when you're at the office, and worst case
you run your headlight at reduced power if the battery is discharged and
only dyno power is available.

The "Ding" light that is about to launch from Australia looks, at least
on paper, as if it's going to be pretty good. It has the optics that
most other lights lack, and you can charge it, while it's running from a
5VDC power source.

[avag...@gmail.com]

http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?CityName=Yuma&state=AZ&site=PSR&textField1=32.7253&textField2=-114.624&e=0#.Vk2CyJ_n_qA

ROLL ON !

exciting weather event ...good tune up for the river tsunami

water pooling ? light color type n position increase reflection ?

try blue LED fogs pointed down...Yawl Ohioans see any ?

Fox renameed Frog

[John B.]

Ah Frank, that is the beauty of those Chinese flashlights. You can
carry them around in your pocket and since they are blindly bright you
just point then out the window and the rain just seems to evaporate
and you can see.
--

Cheers,

John B.

[jbeattie]

On Wednesday, November 18, 2015 at 8:49:31 PM UTC-8, sms wrote:
> On 11/18/2015 2:42 PM, jbeattie wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
> > Dynos are fine for nice dry nights. Contrary to what SMS says, they are perfect for MUPs except for the beam cut-off, because my MUPs go up and down.
>
> LOL, yeah except for the beam shape, and except for the fact that on
> MUPs you often have twisty and hilly sections where you're riding at
> slow speeds and you have the least amount of light when you most need
> it, dynos are perfect for MUPs.

To be fair, my dyno light is pretty bright at a walking pace. I have no problem with the amount of light it produces when riding MUPs, it's the beam cut-off on undulating path, which also makes it hard to see walkers. If I were riding the Springwater Corridor -- which is flat and straight -- a dyno would be just fine.

-- Jay Beattie.

[sms]

Agreed. On a flat, straight, MUP, free of any debris, I'm sure a dyno
light would be fine.

You should ride the Stevens Creek Trail from Sunnyvale out to the San
Francisco Bay some time. It was squeezed in between the creek and
various freeways. It twists and turns as it goes over and under arterial
roads, freeways, and railroad tracks. They have put in some mirrors at
one of the more dangerous spiral sections. And it's very busy with both
cyclists and pedestrians, though fortunately during evening commute
times the pedestrians tend to avoid it.

Oh, and after a windy day, the surface is littered with branches and
debris that you really want to see far enough in advance to avoid. Not a
lot of overhead obstacles, but often some sticking out from the side.

[avag...@gmail.com]

mirrors ? SF uses mirrors ? an IPO ? 2 yesterday ...

[avag...@gmail.com]

well, JB is flexible...he's modulating his disappointment with the Dino after blowing a wad on it.

while the rig may have serious output shortages at low and variable...that is to say critical moments in TSD/direction/braking...surly the designeers tested for adequate distance throw at 3 mph giving an adequate speed distance throw relationship on up to 35mph.

needs a battery. adding a battery counters the marketing ploy. An MB Euro autobahn image function

[avag...@gmail.com]

nnnnnnnnnnnnnnn


https://goo.gl/KRHH5C

[James]

The same "problem" exists for motor vehicles travelling on steep
undulating and winding roads.

I regularly travel a road that has successive short hills where you go
up and down at about 17% gradient. High beams, low beams, fog light
beams and I suspect Barry beams if you had them on a car, do not show
the road ahead for any appreciable distance as they do when the road is
mostly flat.

I deal with it by driving slower.

(I'd add a google maps link, but the street view car hasn't been along
the road I mention yet.)

--
JS

[sms]

Parts of CA 17 are like that. If only everyone would deal with it by
driving slower.
<http://www.mercurynews.com/bay-area-news/ci_28416215/crashes-highway-17-at-highest-level-decade>.

[Frank Krygowski]

On 11/19/2015 9:38 AM, jbeattie wrote:
>
>
> To be fair, my dyno light is pretty bright at a walking pace. I have no
problem with the amount of light it produces when riding MUPs, it's the
beam cut-off on undulating path, which also makes it hard to see walkers.
If I were riding the Springwater Corridor -- which is flat and straight --
a dyno would be just fine.

How is your headlight mounted? Is it not possible to reach down and
tilt it upward if necessary?

I do that occasionally if, e.g., the headlight on my folder gets bumped
and is pointing too low. I've done it with other bikes when I've
installed a new light, because it takes a little trial and error to get
the light pointed just as I want.

It should be no big deal. I mount my lights to their brackets by using a
5mm allen screw with a nylock nut. It's easy to have it tight enough to
be stable, but loose enough to adjust on the fly.


--
- Frank Krygowski

[avag...@gmail.com]

https://goo.gl/RYHOI6

over the hill from the east past Knotts B Farm iza winner.

[jbeattie]

I spent my youth shoveling people and parts of people off that highway when I was an ambulance driver in the '70s -- before and after installation of the barrier walls. My last ambulance call before "retiring" was on that highway -- a guy in a VW bus plowed into the back a loaded gas tanker that was crawling up the grade. The VW bus driver came flying around an uphill corner not expecting to see a nearly-parked truck on the other side. After seeing the dented tank on the rear trailer, my first thought was f*** this! $3.00 hr is not enough to get blown-up over. I'll skip the gruesome details about the van driver. My favorite call involved me running for the shoulder adjacent to Big Moody, pushing a stretcher with a patient, trying to avoid being hit by the cars that were running into the cars we had just emptied of casualties. It was like a giant exercise in kinetic energy -- cars spinning all over the place. CHP had failed to close off the highway up stream, or people were somehow squeezing by.

-- Jay Beattie.

[sms]

On 11/19/2015 3:10 PM, jbeattie wrote:

<snip>

> I spent my youth shoveling people and parts of people off that highway when I was an ambulance driver in the '70s -- before and after installation of the barrier walls. My last ambulance call before "retiring" was on that highway -- a guy in a VW bus plowed into the back a loaded gas tanker that was crawling up the grade. The VW bus driver came flying around an uphill corner not expecting to see a nearly-parked truck on the other side. After seeing the dented tank on the rear trailer, my first thought was f*** this! $3.00 hr is not enough to get blown-up over. I'll skip the gruesome details about the van driver. My favorite call involved me running for the shoulder adjacent to Big Moody, pushing a stretcher with a patient, trying to avoid being hit by the cars that were running into the cars we had just emptied of casualties. It was like a giant exercise in kinetic energy -- cars spinning all over the place. CHP had failed to close off the highway up stream, or people were someho
w squeezing by.

Two weeks ago I was driving back from Santa Cruz after mountain biking
at Wilder Ranch. Just entering Los Gatos the northbound traffic was
stopped. The vehicle in front of me slammed on the brakes, spun 90
degrees, and hit the guardrail on the right head-on. Apparently no
injuries and no air bag deployment. I was not tailgating and was able to
stop. As I moved to the left lane to get around her, she began backing
up into my lane, but fortunately stopped.

<https://web.archive.org/web/20000414171923/http://www.got.net/~egallant/winner_archive.html>

[avag...@gmail.com]

$3/hr ? pension ?

rarely spotted bicycles driving thru Cal but where ? in the most dangerous areas riding in dangerous conditions.

Cals drive well if not they'd be gone and sure enough they are.

Camping under the Cal Sycamore on the Lake Elsinore to Capistrano run on the Ortega Hywy....traffic would stop during dinner for a fatal on the BLM road over the mtns. Whatta Cliff !

THAT'S COMMUTING...actually that's suicidal.

[avag...@gmail.com]

know Schumann ? also ambulance personnel

https://www.google.com/#q=roger+schumann+kayak

was Brown governor ? sounds suspicious......

[AMuzi]

Brown is almost always the governor. He's the the fourth of
his two terms.

[avag...@gmail.com]

I smell a plot....


http://www.bing.com/search?q=Inslee+declares+state+of+emergency&filters=tnTID%3a%22D1170FCF-CC95-4c06-A006-4970CA3C5850%22+tnVersion%3a%221166917%22+segment%3a%22popularnow.carousel%22+tnCol%3a%2236%22+tnOrder%3a%22746c9448-2720-4f44-890f-7e0f22bbfa5d%22&FORM=BSPN01&crslsl=5705&efirst=36

[Dan O]

On Tuesday, November 10, 2015 at 6:37:21 PM UTC-8, avag...@gmail.com wrote:
> http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?minlon=-125&maxlon=-120.8&minlat=43.39&maxlat=46.91&mapwidth=354&site=pqr&zmx=1.3020833333333332&zmy=1.3020833333333332&map.x=225&map.y=131#.VkKpf5WFPaE

Hooray!

(Gettin' chilly here, but nice ;-)

[Andrew Chaplin]

AMuzi <a...@yellowjersey.org> wrote in news:n2n6e8$6b5$1...@dont-email.me:

> Brown is almost always the governor. He's the the fourth of
> his two terms.

Are you saying that like it's a bad thing? :)
--
Andrew Chaplin
SIT MIHI GLADIUS SICUT SANCTO MARTINO
(If you're going to e-mail me, you'll have to get "yourfinger." out.)

[AMuzi]

On 11/21/2015 9:32 AM, Andrew Chaplin wrote:
> AMuzi <a...@yellowjersey.org> wrote in news:n2n6e8$6b5$1...@dont-email.me:
>
>> Brown is almost always the governor. He's the the fourth of
>> his two terms.
>
> Are you saying that like it's a bad thing? :)
>

No opinion. It's merely humorous to those of us who do not
pay California taxes.

[avag...@gmail.com]

I herd Andy Devine is running ...


meanwhile: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-chicago-winter-weather-1122-20151121-story.html