The light...

Don't tell Mr. Potasky about these photos. I did take photography class in high school. I really liked the class and did quite well in it, but I will introduce you to some mistakes today. Someone has asked about my light and hub. This will be my last post about it because my next post needs to be about parenting, I have lots of questions.

So the hub is the top of the line Shimano dynamo. It's got a name made up of nothing but random numbers and letters so that nobody will ever remember it. It's a step above the Nexus (I think that is what the lower quality model is, but I also think of shampoo when I see that word). The SON hub is a step above the Shimano that I got, but I was unwilling to pay a lot of extra money for a little better performance. In reality, I can hardly tell that there's more resistance, but I like to blame my slowness on the drag of the new wheel, I know I was faster before the new hub... although it still takes about 45 minutes to get to school every day.

The light I got was a D-lumatec, or something like that. I had a few criteria that I needed 1) I wanted an LED, 2) It needed to be bright enough to see the road and 3) it needed to have a capacitor so that when I came to a stop sign my lights wouldn't go out. This light has all three things and I"m extremely pleased with it. I can finally see the road! I took some pictures to show how bright it is, they didn't turn out that great, but I"m posting them anyway.

Above is the inside of our back door illuminated by my old light.
Above is the inside of the back door with the new light. You will notice that the door handle is all blurry like it was a long exposure with a moving camera. It was. You see, in order to "turn on" the new light, you have to spin the wheel. In order to spin the wheel you have to pick up the front end of the bike. So it took two people to take this picture and still my "tripod" was not stationary (that was my wife's fault, I'm sure).Did you know that there was a feature somewhere so that you can turn pictures sideways... I should try it sometime. Anyway, you can see the old light on the handlebars and the new light is mounted behind the front brake caliper. Neither of the lights are on, but if you take a picture using flash into a reflective material it creates a bad picture, as you see above.
I really wanted to show what it looks like to be riding with the new vs. old lights on the road. This was my first attempt at taking a picture while riding (remember that to stop would mean that the light goes out except for the standby light which is not as bright). Well, somehow in taking the camera out of my pocket I pushed some buttons so that when I took the picture I saw in the viewfinder the camera was counting down from 10. So I aimed up the road, but by the time it got to 3, I noticed a car was coming... that was sort of awkward. Oh, and the flash was on. So this is what you see with flash photography with the new light and an oncoming car. It really isn't a good representation of what you really see.

So, I turned the counter thing off and the flash off so I could really get a good picture while riding with the new light. I should have waited for the passing car to get further ahead of me, but you can see the glow of the light in front of me, that's the new light with like a 30 second exposure, handheld on my handlebars while riding down the street. Riding with it, it seems a lot brighter than that. I'm not going to try any more to get a picture to compare the two lights, I am admitting defeat and leaving it alone.

Let there be light

Last night I finished truing the wheel and I got it all set up so I could use it on my ride in this morning. For the first time in the year and a half I've been commuting, I could see the road while i was riding at night. Now I can share some of the stories that I was afraid would upset my mother and grandmother because the problem has been cured.

For example, there's an area on my commute where I ride through a sort of swamp land next to the railroad tracks. It's on a road, but there is no development around so it's pretty dark. There also aren't any trees, except for a section about 400 meters long where there's a canopy of trees over the road. So on my commute I can sort of see on the open road (at least distinguish road from not road), and I usually ride right on the yellow line because that's the only part of the road that isn't black. The section that goes through the trees has no yellow line and the shadows from the trees make it so I can't tell road from not road. Luckily, there are a couple of street lights at the other end of the trees so I have something to aim for. So you go under the trees and it's like riding through a pitch black tunnel, you just shoot for the light at the end (and that was with my old headlight on). Today, for the first time in the dark, I was able to see the road I was riding on. I think this will be a good change

The other part of the ride where I have been a little nervous at night is at an intersection in the country with no lights around. Like I said before, I generally just follow the yellow line, because I can see it. At the intersection, the yellow line goes away, I have to turn left and hope to find the yellow line for the other road without riding into the ditch that I can't distinguish from road. Luckily I was batting a thousand and had never ended up in the ditch, but this morning I could actually see the road as I went through the corner. Oddly enough, i think i was able to take that corner faster today that I have previously. I'll write more about the new light when I have a bit more time, but as a preview, I love it!

On a completely different note, The Mugwump made a funny comment last night. He was sort of being a pill, and he wanted Mom to come in to the playroom while he got his things out of the dryer. She was busy, so I went in to help. He looked at me and said, "Dad, I love you, but I want someone pretty in the room, that's why I need Mom." They're so cute at that age.

The hub is in.

I got my hub yesterday. really I should be studying or writing a paper, but I'm excited to build a wheel. Anyway, someone commented that s/he wanted to know about the setup I would be running. I'll get some pictures when I get it set up, but until then I want to get some facts straight.
1) Sheldon Brown knows almost everything there is to know about bikes and has an incredibly informational site.
2) Peter White knows almost everything there is to know about bike lights and has the best site on the web for bike lights.

So while there are some rumors out there about generator hubs blowing up lights, I really don't think that is the case any more. technology has come a long ways and I think the new lighting systems are pretty good. I'll post more about what I got when I get it up and going.

I still feel like a complete traitor to the racing scene. I hold in my hands a really heavy hub that doesn't spin very well at all and I'm excited to put it on my bike. I feel like I should be making fun of the guy who bought it... Except that would be me.

What to write?

First off, I have had good intentions of blogging more frequently than weekly, unfortunately 14-18 hours a day at school have made it so I neglect the blog a little. Hopefully in a couple of weeks I'll be back to a more frequent schedule.

I had all sorts of wonderful ideas for a blog this week, but then my wife went and gave me no choice but to blog about her. So here I was, I had a HUGE test on Tuesday that I spent a little time studying for. I had a 12-15 page paper due on Friday in my first ever Civil Engineering class and I was running a little behind in my progress. I finished the test on Tuesday morning and stayed on campus until late Tuesday night. Wednesday is my light day at school, so I knew I had to put in some solid hours on my paper so that I had time to get it done. I went to my classes in the morning and was sitting down, getting started on the paper when I got a call from my wife. She needed me to come home. Why?

Really this should be a long story of what happened, instead it's going to be short, because not much happened. My wife was coming down the stairs. She didn't fall, she didn't trip, she just stepped wrong and heard a loud POP and felt a lot of pain in her foot. Then she hopped around and screamed until she got the chance to call me.

This is a photo of my wife's foot. Notice the bruising. She really got some nice color. It was pretty. So I offered to drive her to the OR, but no, she wanted to wait and see. I did some tests prescribed by the athletic trainers at school which suggested there could be a break and an x-ray was needed. Apparently, part of the peroneal tertious tendon pulled a small piece of bone off. My wife got a boot and that's about it. Final diagnosis: Fractured foot.

I had a racquetball student this year do the same thing. She broke her ankle going down the stairs. When she told me she actually made up a bunch of stuff involving being chased by a dog to make the story sound better. We need to come up with something better.

So I came home and spent the afternoon with the family instead of writing a paper.

The paper turned out fine and I enjoyed the time with my family, but it sure made Thursday sort of rough.

On Friday my dad and step-mom came to visit. We had a great time and enjoyed their visit. Six-pence is going to turn two next month, so we decided to have an impromptu birthday party for him. He liked that. He insisted on wearing his Halloween costume to open presents, and we insisted that he remove the costume to eat dessert. Here are some photos.

What do you do?

I'm currently spending my "free" time helping with a study that has followed about 250 women for the last 9 years. Each of these women comes in and we bombard them with tests. Anyway, rather than just testing them in silence, I like to ask questions and get to know them. The questions I usually ask is quite simple, "what do you do?" You see, this is a way not to offend (or at least that is the goal). Many of the women who come in do not work outside of the home, and it gives them an opportunity to say what they enjoy doing in life. Others have a job, and that is generally what they say they do.

When you ask people what they do, they often first think of their job. Is that really what defines you? Is that the most important thing that you do? How would someone respond if they asked what I did and I told them that I was a father and husband. They would likely assume that I didn't have a job, yet being a father and husband are my most prized responsibilities and quite frankly one of a select few areas where it really matters whether I succeed or fail.

This brings me to another identity crisis, one that is cycling related. I started my cycling career as someone who did long tours and then by the time I was a teenager I had started racing. I have identified myself in the "racer" crowd for the last 10 or more years, although I haven't really raced in quite some time (like 8-9 years). I look around at cyclists, and the groups associated with cyclists and I feel that I belong in the racing group, sort of as an exception because I don't race. I certainly don't belong in the MTB group or the tri group. I am a commuter, but that always brings to mind old guys on goofy looking relaxed bikes designed for comfort and not speed. I don't race, but that doesn't make me slow. Anyway, I like to be thought of more as a racer than a commuter, even though I don't race. I also have a tendency to make fun of those guys who don't race but think of themselves as "racers".

So here is what I've been dealing with for the past couple of weeks. I've decided to get a new light for my bike. The one I have is fine, but I can't see that well with it and something brighter would allow me to better miss the potholes on the roads I travel. The problem is that "racers" don't have lights, they weigh too much (that's why I currently run a really lightweight light... that and because it was cheap). More important to me now, is conserving the environment and making choices that will be a good use of the natural resources. So the obvious choice would be a generator hub. Perfect would be a generator hub combined with a high powered LED that is actually focused a little to make it so you can see with it. I've done the pricing, and I think that the generator hub is going to be the way to go. This is in COMPLETE violation of my desire to be thought of as a "racer"! Those hubs are a source of both weight and friction!

So why do I want to be thought of as a "racer", even though I haven't raced this decade and why does this light mean such a move to "the dark side"? I don't know. I think it's about image. It's who I am and who I want to be. I want to be a racer, but I also want to conserve resources. My two ideals don't mix so I have to decide. So doing something for the environment is more important to me than maintaining my image. It has really surprised me how hard it has been to give up my image for what I really believe to be more important.

So what do I do? Or better yet, what do I want to be known for doing? Exercise physiologist... no. Father and husband... YES. Cyclist... no. Someone who acts to preserve the environment... yes. Blogger... no. Christian... YES. ... and the list goes on.

So what do you do?

(the poor ladies in my study have no idea what question they are answering)

Family

I used to do these family posts weekly. Now I sort of do them weakly. I'm going to work on that. I like giving updates about the family, but the problem tends to be pictures. The best part of the family blogs is pictures and our home computer was on the fritz for some time. It's all better now (and I happened to bring my computer home for the weekend). Now we need to get back in the habit of taking more pictures.

This is a picture of the Mugwump with the carameled apple that he made. I don't know what we did different than they do at the fair, but boy, the caramel on those things was as hard as a rock. You sort of had to suck on it and let it soften up before you could get a bite. Then you could never get a bite that contained both apple and caramel. Isn't that the point?

We really don't have the money to go to Theme parks and other such things, and really it's not one of our priorities. This year, for the second year in a row, we attended Hee Haw Farms where they have a sort of harvest celebration with pony rides, free candy, corn cob guns, a hay ride and a big box full of corn to play in. Really it's a lot of fun. The only reason we go is because we get free tickets every year from our mortgage broker. I don't know why our mortgage broker sends us free tickets, but hey, I think it's cool. Oh, and the picture is of Six-pence on the pony ride.

Of course the Mugwump had to do the pony ride as well. He got to ride on the big pony, and he did it all by himself.

Do you know what I hate about digital cameras? If the sun is at your back, you can't see the little screen. And then when you take the picture, the screen goes blank for several seconds while the camera thinks about taking the picture. The result is pictures like this. Sure it looks like it's a picture of the boy in the orange shirt with glasses, but I don't know who that is. If you know him, feel free to download the picture. Really the picture is of the boys in the cow barrel. This is just a little train of barrels made to look like farm animals that is pulled around by a tractor. The boys loved it, and they didn't even stand up or start crying during the ride, which I was a little worried about as they disappeared into the dried up corn.

And here it is, the picture of the century... or at least the last two years. Both of the boys, facing the camera and smiling. And they're not even fake smiles, it looks like they're actually happy (which they usually are). How did we get such a picture, you may ask? Well, they were sitting in a box and having a great time with the lid closed (the lid was on the side). So we opened the box really fast, and the camera thought fast enough to get the kids while they were still smiling and surprised that the box opened.

Reporting bad drivers

In my last post I mentioned that I occasionally call the police on aggressive drivers. This is true. Someone in the comments sections asked me to expound. I don't have a lot of time (which is why I haven't written in awhile), but here's what I do. This is sort of a touchy subject for me because my main goal with my involvement with cycling is to make it safer for cyclists and a big part of that is improving cyclist, car driver relations. If you have any input in the matter, let me know.

The commenter (Chad, I think), said that he had called businesses about business cars that have been aggressive. I've done that too, and I feel that has been a worthwhile use of my time. I would also like to point out that I try to give compliments as much as I call to complain. For example, I pass through the industrial area of Provo every morning as the Provo city drivers are arriving at work or leaving for the days tasks. It only takes one bad pass and I'll make a phone call, yet I am passed by several Provo city trucks every morning and have NEVER had a bad experience. Which is more deserving of a call, one bad experience, or hundreds of non-experiences. Anyway, I called Provo maintenance people and got in communication with the right supervisor and personally thanked him and his drivers for being nice. Now I visualize in my head the supervisor sharing this call with his employees in a complimentary fashion and the employees reflecting on that as they pass me or any other cyclist. I think that helps car/bike relationships more than any call to complain.

Right, I know, the comment was about calling the police, but I wanted to put the most important point first. So if I think that complimenting is more effectively reaching my goals than complaining, why do I call the police? First, I think calling the police makes the police aware that I am a cyclist and I care about their enforcement of the law. Secondly, I want the passing motorist to know that I'm paying attention and can get their information easily enough. This is the one I wonder about though.

OK, I'm going to go through my procedures first. #1, I never call the police unless it was an aggressive maneuver that put me in danger. So I call on intentional close passes when there are no other cars around (being buzzed). When I'm on a road where there is not room for a car passing me to give me the 3 ft required by law and not collide with the oncoming car it often gets dangerous. In this case, I don't mind getting passed, but if I see an oncoming car, signal for the car behind me to slow, see the driver thinking and then trying to squeeze through, I will call the police. This is probably the most frequent reason for my calls (and I am generally positioned in the middle or to the left edge of the lane so they don't try to get by). The point is that I don't call when someone makes an unintentional mistake or is just obnoxious blowing their horn or whatever. I call when someone makes a premeditated decision to drive aggressively in a manner that puts my safety at jeopardy. I also only call if I get a licence plate number.

So when you call the police you talk to dispatch and report what happens. Then they contact a police officer who will have an officer call you back. Then you get to talk to an officer and explain the same thing to him (they've all been men so far) as you did the dispatcher. The officer will want to know if you want to press charges. I never do. I let the officer know that I just want the driver to know that their maneuver was dangerous and illegal and that my life was endangered and I'm a human being who does not want to be killed by a motorist. Besides, from what I've heard, pressing charges doesn't do any good in these situations because it ends up being your word against the driver's (if you got a physical description of the driver) and they generally don't work out. Normally the officer tells me that they will contact the person and have "a talk" with them. Do they actually do it? I don't know, I've never followed up. I have asked the officers if they feel that what I'm doing is a reasonable use of their time. They have always answered that they thought it was. They want the streets to be safer and that talk should help that come to fruition... in a very small way.

Are these reports working to improve cyclist/driver relations? Ah, here's the big question. I'm guessing that the driver is not thrilled to hear from the police about their bad choice. Then the real question becomes, will this improve their behavior around cyclists or cause them to hunt us down? I really don't think they're going to hunt us down, but I don't know that it will make a drastic improvement in behavior for the majority of drivers. But I do think that call raises awareness which is good, especially among the police that are out there day in and day out.

Let me know if you have a different opinion, I'm looking to do the best for all cyclists, but am not certain on this one.