Bike Noob

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Archives for December 2012

A Car Horn For Bikes

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On this morning’s club ride, we were crossing a major U.S. highway. The light was in our favor, and cross traffic was stopped. All except one guy, that is. He was turning right from the highway onto the road we were taking, and didn’t stop for the red light.

My friend Joe, who has already been hit by cars twice, hollered at the top of his lungs for the driver to stop, and got his attention. It was clear the driver didn’t want to stop, especially for a half-dozen scruffy cyclists, but when the rest of us joined in with the yell, he hit his brakes and came up short of Joe.

It made me think of an email I got during the week, from an inventor who thinks he has the answer to prevent close calls like this: a car horn for bikes.

A bit bulky. Would you have one on your bike?
A bit bulky. Would you have one on your bike?

The concept is simple. Just mount a horn on your bike that has the same loudness as a car horn. Not only that, it has the same sound as a car horn. The inventor, Jonathan Lansey, is looking for funding to get the horn into production. He’s got a Kickstarter site with more details about the horn, and is soliciting donations.

I won’t weigh in either way on this one. I normally do not publicize commercial products on this blog, but the Loud Bicycle Horn is something different, and I thought I’d at least let Bike Noob readers get a look at it.

Looking Forward to Riding More

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I got an email this week from some PR lady up north suggesting I do a post on how to keep riding my bike through the winter. She had some groundbreaking ideas, such as: layer your clothes, keep your fingers and toes warm, and if there’s snow on the ground, skip the ride.

I was sorely tempted. But then I remembered — I live in Central Texas, where we get measurable snow maybe once every five years. So I really can’t relate to winter bike riding.

What I can relate to is putting on the miles during mild weather months — like December. Today, for instance, the temp when I drove in to work was about 54 degrees (12C), and it got up to 72 (22C) on my way home. Tomorrow being Friday, I’ll be getting home early, and I intend to hop on the bike and ride!

In fact, today was a big day on my personal calendar. It was the last day of classes for fall semester at the university. I’m still waiting for final projects to roll in, and I’ve given my class most of next week to do that. But my hours can be as flexible as I want them to be from here on out, and that means I’ll be able to fit in rides during the week — rides that I haven’t been able to do because of my work schedule.

I’m looking forward to it. After my October blahs, I rebounded a bit in November and put on more miles, but I’m still not where I think I should be. The next two weeks should take care of that. And then in January, I’ll have another two weeks off (I’ll be preparing classes for spring semester during that time, but once again, my time is flexible), so I can rack up some more time in the saddle. In fact, in January of this year, I had my fourth-highest mileage month of the year. If the weather holds, I can do that again.

I’m not going to ride for the sake of piling on the miles — I’ve already ridden farther this year than ever before — but I do want to work on endurance, which has suffered this year. I’m going to be riding long, I hope, but easy. I’ll wait until late February before I start thinking about whatever riding goals I might have in mind for 2013.

I lived my first 50 years in the north, and I can honestly say, I enjoyed those winters. But I’ve lived here for 12 years now, and I must also say, I don’t miss them. December — in my book, that’s bike riding time!

The Letter Route

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Our friend Jeff Hemmel sent me a picture the other day, with an intriguing caption:

“One of these days I’m going to perfect the J, and then work on the E, F, F part…although I may need to hop in a boat.”

Ride

The picture was a map of a recent bike route he’d taken. Lo and behold…it sorta kinda resembles the letter J.

Living as he does in St. Petersburg Beach, Florida, Jeff is going to have to get mighty creative to come up with the E and the F.

I, however, am not hemmed in by large expanses of water — just impassable roadways. Still, I might be able to take a cue from Jeff, and come up with my own personalized monogrammed routes. Let’s see if we can do an “R.” We’ll use my route to Creedmoor, southeast of Austin, as a starting point, because there’s a more or less diagonal leg that could work as the diagonal leg of the R.

Screen shot 2012-12-04 at 7.59.43 PM

What do you think?

Okay, it’s not great. But it doesn’t take much imagination to see a capital R in there. And roads don ‘t lay out in precise alphabetical patterns.

I already have the “Y” in mind, provided a lower case version is acceptable. The tough one is going to be the “A.” I don’t think I’ll be able to work out a route with the point at the top of the letter. It would be a lot more realistic to round off the top, and a lot easier to square it off.

I suppose I can do that. The R route is just a bit over 16 miles, according to the map, so if I can figure out a way to string all three letters together, I’ll have a nice weekend ride. The “Y” is actually off to the southwest of the R in the map. So improvised Rule #1 will be: Letters do not have to write out the route according to the correct spelling. Therefore, I don’t have to come up with a route that looks like R-A-Y. Y-A-R would be acceptable. Although if I drove to the start of the R, I could cook up an A and Y off to the right (east and southeast), and spell out my name on my favorite mapping software.

It just might be worth playing around with on an upcoming cold winter’s night.

 

 

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