The Fear of Traffic
Thursday, 28 July 2016
Well, since it has cooled off a bit, and of course as usual I woke up too late to catch the Metro #101 bus for Giant Eagle (and be able to return), I once again ventured out into Summit County traffic on North Cleveland-Massilon Road today.
I took the trike onto the asphalt and headed south to get a frozen pizza for dinner tonight, and some sugar to make more sweet iced tea. Originally I had planned on the 1.6 mile trek (each way) to the Panda Chinese restaurant on Wheately Road, but Ed, the on site maintenance guy who also rides the area on a Schwinn single speed cruiser, informed me that the last 1,000 feet to the restaurant is a dangerous uphill climb with no marked shoulder for bikes.
So instead, I pedaled downhill the .6 miles to the Circle K Mart at the intersection of Ira and Cleveland-Massilon Roads. Or rather, I coasted down the 66' incline, using my brakes intermittently.
The almost 6pm traffic was busy, and the intersection was actually scary, even though it has a traffic light, and there are 2 crosswalks with walk indicator lights.
4 minutes total travel from the motel, including my jay riding (is that even correct terminology?) during a break in traffic to cross Cleveland-Massilon. $15 later, I was back aboard my trike with headlight and taillight both set for flashing, and started my climb back up!
The hill actually starts about 250' from the intersection that is known locally as Hammond's Corners, and is a steadily increasing rise that when viewed from below appears deceptively shallow and easy!
The hill itself is really not difficult, at least it would not have been for me a couple years ago on my 10 Speed Holdsworth. But again as I explained before, having a correctly fitted bike frame, crank arms, and even handlebars, make cycling more efficient, and the uber short one piece crank arms of the trike, and my shorter saddle elevation are keeping my legs cramped and not allowing me to utilize all of my leg muscles, not just my thighs and adding excess pressure to my knees.
And the upright riding position of the tricycle format compared to the rider forward position of the ten speed with drop handlebars, also limits pedaling efficiency, especially for low gear ratio hill climbing and high gear ratio speed work!
All well and good, if I was riding the high performance Holdsworth! But even with the Special Needs (yes, I have handicap platform pedals on the trike) strap on my pedals that mimic the high performance toe clips and straps of the ten speed's aluminum road cage pedals, I still had to stop 4 times climbing the shallow grade.
My cobbled together bike flag combined with the LED head and tail lights, seems to be working well, as I get good clearance from motorists and all seem to see me. I do keep myself on the 6'+ wide well marked shoulder, but of course with poor soil conditions underneath and the amount of heavy traffic in this area on this aging asphalt, the deterioration requires that I sometimes cross the white barrier line into traffic to avoid possible spills cause by the pot holes and the sections completely devoid of paving product!
But, after the 4 short breaks, and using some perseverance, I conquered the hill and made it back to my residence! I am now enjoying the huge cookie I purchased at Circle K, that I so definitely earned!
Of course now the chocolate chips have melted in the heat (yes it is cooler outside, but my room is usually 15 degrees or more hotter inside!), and I am now dirtying the keys of my keyboard while typing!
LOL!
But it tastes good, and I need no excuse to enjoy it.
Still waiting on the factory replacement front fender, and the bike flag. I guess I'll have to call Blimp City Bike and Hike again tomorrow to find out the status.
I wish I still had my work safety vest, as it was a heavy duty mesh model with lots of pockets and had the PSI Logo on the back! For safety and because there was a chance for rain, I did take along my reflective green work jacket. Way too warm for today, but waterproof and very hi-viz!
I guess when I hit Wally World again, I should grab a few hi-viz orange or green tee shirts for riding, as the only ones I have now, are a 2XL PSI Tee, and the free blimp City Bike and Hike XL that was gratis with my trike.
I'm still shopping for a decent bicycle helmet, as my old school hardshell Vetta from the 1980's is a collector's item and demanding $$$, and I certainly don't need a stylish and $$$ helmet like my Giro Mexico road helmet that I wore the last 10 years of my 2 wheel riding.
As I shop and read the reviews on commuter helmets, I am finding that even though they may be CE/CPSC certified, they are either poorly made, poorly fitting, or inadequately ventilated.
The ones that do meet my needed criteria tend to be pricey or hard to find, but there are 4 or 5 models that if I can find one in my size (58cm), in a nice color (I will not wear pink, lavender, or other too bright colors, though a nice blue matching the trike would be cool!), and at a reasonable price ($40 or less), I will buy it.
I am also searching for a Gore-Tex helmet cover like I had on my 1980's vintage Vetta hardshell, to protect the helmet from cold winds and prevent snow and rain from entering the helmet vents in inclement weather, but that is an old school item too, apparently.
So I guess in the meantime, I will be wearing my Gentex MICH Kevlar helmet with the Team Wendy fitted pad suspension system and sporting a Multicam Camo cover!
I don't think I will wear the matching Plate Carrier with my SAPI armor, IFAK & 2 Meter HH Radio. At least not for a while yet!
I did consider a radio mount on the trike for my 2 meter, and a mobile ¼ wave antenna, but then I run into issues as my current location is on the western ridge of the Cuyahoga Valley, and has poor enough altitude to work any traffic or access any repeater towers with a 5 watt portable, and if I venture into the park in the valley, I will have no coverage at all.
So that makes the HAM outfit superfluous at this time. I would like to work on finishing my HAM Go Box project, but again with no way to test it and not being able to set up a base antenna here, it is all sitting in Joe's basement, waiting to be installed and wired in the Gator travel box. Hopefully I can complete it before some natural or manmade disaster makes it so that I am sorry for not having it ready and tested now.
I do hope to have my Yaesu Mobile 2 meter completed with a 12v separate power supply, solar panels to charge the tractor batteries, the 120v stepdown 13.8vdc 35 amp power supply, and a 120vac power inverter so that I can plug in a laptop and other electronics, and a variable DC output for charging mobile cell phones, portable radios, GPSs and other items.
I also want to include 3 electronic clock readouts (24h Local Time, Zulu, and an elapsed timer), my aircraft radio receiver, various monitoring meters and some other accessories, all contained in either the 6 unit EIA electronic rack portable case, or a ventilated (power muffin fans for both the Go Box and the battery box) case that houses 12vdc batteries and the solar panels.
I have all of the components except for the digital readout clocks and some semiconductors I need to make the variable DC outputs. I also need to engineer a takedown base antenna using the antenna, cable, and connectors I already have.
My friend Craig made a really cool 80 meter antenna using USGI fiberglass tent poles, that we erected at training and for several Field Day events, with 32' of mast and a double ring of guy wires secured to tent stakes.
So I am thinking something a bit smaller in scope. Craig's rig requires a grassy area or at least an open unpaved section, to drive the tent stakes to provide side and downward tension to hold the 4' tent pole sections straight.
I'd like to design and build something that would work on pavement, concrete, a building roof, or a rural field, be easily portable and erected/dismantled, secure in moderate winds, and of course effective for the necessary range.
From my past engineering experience, I am thinking that a tripod apparatus on a modular scale, with foot plates that can be sand bagged for security.
Now that I think about it, a while back, I helped my friend Kenny set up his DJ/KJ rig in his living room, and he had just purchased a commercial light unit that had programmable lasers.
The light bars were supported on heavy duty aluminum tripods, and were a smaller version of what traveling rock bands and theater groups use for their stage lighting.
Hmmm…
Oh well, it's just more $$$, and we all have plenty of that! Right?
My dad would have solved this engineering problem by building a huge framework of 1 1/2” PVC Schedule 40 pipe and fittings, and making it portable in a huge bundle. That is how he built all of the stages for his puppet productions. But then, he never used a stage more than once, erecting and testing a new one in their back yard, then dismantling it to transport it to the venue of the play, then bundling it up for possible future use in the back of their garage.
(He never, ever, reused any of them. And when I had to clean out my tools and wood I had in their garage for my workshop when they were selling the house, my mother had me indiscreetly dispose of the many hundreds of feet of schedule 40 that was in bundled in 4' sections with a variety of fittings glued on them!)
My original plan when I was starting this project for our HAM unit, was to either incorporate a telescoping antenna unit on the 6x12' Atlas box trailer we used for storing and transporting our tents, field kitchen, personal and tactical gear in, or possibly using a dedicated utility/landscape trailer for a HAM antenna.
Now that I am not driving, and I had to sell the trailer 2 years ago, I have to think on a much smaller scale! So now an 8' aluminum tripod that collapses into a 3' gear bag and many sand bags make very good sense!
Well, I want to try to make the Metro #101 bus tomorrow morning, in order to go grocery shopping, so I think I will wrap up now and hit the sack. But then I never sleep when I want too, and always fall asleep when I don't want to, so who knows? Maybe I will add to this later!
So until the next time, Stay focused, stay alert!
