The Red Light Solution
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They (that’s the infamous non-attributable irresponsible “they” who do all the really annoying stuff) figure that in a lot of places lights can be set so one way is always green as long as nobody’s coming the other way. OK, cool. If you happen to be going the green light way. Or if they’re using some kind of motion detector or infra-red that happens to be aimed where your bike is or has a wide enough field to pick it up. But not so OK if it’s one of those magnetic induction pickups buried in the road. Ever sat there and sat there and sat there? Watched the cars going by the other way? It’s especially bad when there’s a cop car sitting over there on the side. You know who he’s waiting for, right? This isn’t usually a big deal at night - if there’s pretty much no traffic. But it can drive you nuts sometimes. What’s happening? Turns out a lot of bikes just don’t have enough heavy metal to trip the mag switch. Actually some of the new small cars don’t either (plastic just doesn’t cut it and neither does fiberglass or carbon graphite). Bicycles might as well just forget it. You may have seen some of these gizmos that you mount on the bottom of your bike to generate a field that will trip the switch. Cool. Unfortunately a lot of them are heavy and require wires. Not so cool. If sitting at those red lights annoys you, you might like to check out Iron Horseman’s solution. Look Ma, no wires. Lighter weight, more powerful. Check out the Signal Sorcerer - green is a better color. OK, I did my commercial bit for the day. It’s a cool device and easier to use than others. My problem this week is the weird weather. It’s summer here, but you sure can’t tell by the weather. Cold (well, it doesn’t actually get cold-type cold here, but relatively speaking, it’s cold for this time of year) and gray and raining on and off all day all week. Where’s the sun? Hell, where’s some blue sky and a few straight hours without rain? This town I live in has cobblestone streets. Not all of them, but mostly in the center of town and the main streets in and around the center. These cobblestones are kind of oblong shaped. They’re buried in sand/dirt/clay with the long side down. When they get wet, they are nasty. Slippery like wet painted lines on the road or smooth metal surfaces. With the way some folks drive here, 2 wheels are not a good idea when you’ve got the kind of traction a puck on an air hockey table has. So I really don’t like to ride in the rain unless I got caught in it or just have no choice. So not much chance to ride. Summer down here, you pretty much got to carry rain gear all the time anyway. It can be absolutely beautiful, not a cloud anywhere and 2 hours later you’re drowning in a cold torrential downpour that came up on you when you forget to look at the sky for a couple minutes. They come, they go. That’s normal in the summer and - usually - you can figure they’ll happen in the late afternoon or not too long after dark. Mostly that’s good, cools things off. But this weather is just flat out strange and deviant and annoying. Maybe tomorrow there’ll be some sun. Gotta get in a ride Rick |
