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June 25, 2006
Bicycle Gauges
Hey Dan, where'd the daily updates to the riding go? DId you quit?
No, no I didn't. On average I'm achieving about 10 miles daily, with one or two days hitting somewhere between 20-30 miles. I've discovered two major challenges to this riding task I've undertaken.
First, transportation. Since one of my routes takes me to work, the challenge has been to get my bike on the train. I used to do this a lot, back when I worked at Worldgate in Trevose. Mainly because I'd get up late, and it was significantly easier to rush down the Ben Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia on a bike then it was to walk fast. At that time, the train didn't always allow me on, basically because of how packed it was. It seemed to be some unwritten rule. Around here the city is significantly more bicycle friendly, sorry mis-speak there, it's significantly more bicycle oriented. It seems everyone rides... and very few people worry about theft (why lock your tires, or take your seat? no one will steal them!). The trains here have spots for bicycles all the time, ranging from 2-4 per car. Now that the warmer weather has shown up though 4 spots per car is, umm, limiting. Mix that with the recent cut back in scheduled service, and you get a very very packed train. Daily. On more than one occasion I've been asked to get my bike off the train and wait for the next train. Ugh.
Second) It seems that my office has an interesting layer of RF being sent about. Actually it seems even more in tune with my T42p laptop at work. My bike's odometer uses a wireless TX/RX which works well enough. It has an extremely short range to picking up and needs to be almost in direct line of sight. Placing the odometer anywhere near my laptop though you can begin to see the MPH increase. I've discovered my odometer can attain speeds of 70 mph without having actually travelled anywhere. This threw off my first few calculations as I hadn't marked where I was before entering the office. Oddly enough, thermal throttling the laptop doesn't seem to effect the overall speed the odometer picks up. It makes me wonder what else it could (yes WiFi and Bluetooth are disabled).
Posted by Dan at June 25, 2006 11:51 PM