Sensor(y) overload!

Cruzbike Chris

Cruzbike Chris

Well-Known Member
I haven't had the chance to ride my glorious Silvio in about 4 days now due to helping my son move so finally had the chance to get out this AM. As I am starting off I am paused just exiting the driveway due to a bunch of traffic and a bus full of little kids, probably grade school 1-6 I'm guessing. The bus stops down the street a bit for loading of a few more kids so I have to wait patiently behind 3 other cars to get going again. I am of course monitoring my Garmin for MAF HR so I don't get too flustered and go over my ride of 124bpm. I see I am only cruising at 8 MPH and heart rate keeps warning me it is too LOW! Yes, I set it up to warn me so I can stay above sleeping rate and below MAF in zone 2. I turn the corner and the bus is pulled over to the shoulder of the road so I have to pass on the driver side. As I pass I hear all the kiddos yelling out the window commenting on my bike and of course my cool Giro Shield helmet. I laugh and start to think about all the input we get whilst riding our beloved bikes. To start with we all (most anyways) have, at a minimum, a few bike sensors such as: a heart rate monitor, some type of cycling computer or GPS for speed and maybe cadence, and some may even have a power meter as well. These "bike" devices also may help us track the distance we ride and of course our route and time out away from home.

Well, as you would know it, about 5 miles into my ride I hear the train pull up on my far left side tracks heading south blowing his horn and smell the beautiful smell of diesel fuel and I start pondering all the other sensors we never talk about on here and began to recognize all the cool thinks we are so privileged to enjoy out just on a bike ride. Our own sensors are normally in peak mode when we ride our bikes out on the country and especially the city roads we travel. Below are but only a few I am sure, but, these are just a few of the ones I encountered today on my awesome ride in the country! From best to worst rating:

Heart felt laughing/seeing all the kiddos on the bus:p:p:p:p:p
Train noise and smell of diesel:):):):):)
Wind blowing in my face and keeping the sweat pretty much dry :):):):)
Sunshine-not too bright and not too cloudy:):):)
Sweet smell of cow and horse manure in the country pastures and back roads:):)?
High humidity/sweat getting in my eyes (heading home into the wind):(
Sheriff blocking road off that road I was going to come back home on :(:(
Nasty dead skunk in the road:(:(:(
Farm truck cutting too close on a tight corner while I am speeding down a slight elevation:(:(:(:(
(Elevated heart rate but still kept in check)
And the worst for today, a stream of 3 big-ole-trash trucks parked on the side of the rode where I had to stop 3 times for a stop sign :mad::mad::mad::mad::mad: (yes, I almost threw up in my mouth on this one)

Sometimes you just need to get out and ride and enjoy the human sensors we are so blessed to have!
 
DavidCH

DavidCH

In thought; expanding the paradigm of traversity
I live in a very rural area. Lots of crops are sprayed with all sorts of stuff. Mostly liquid s**t but the other day I could smell fish. I think they do use a certain type of seaweed too. The bit I don't like is pesticide ... If they are spraying that then I try to hold my breath.

Sometimes you get the tractor that's quite easy to drag off but they are big so you can't quite see when they are going to stop. But it can be fun.
 
B

bladderhead

Zen MBB Master
Going through the park when the rain has just stopped. That is a good one. Approaching a red traffic light that goes green just at the right moment. Good. Downhill at 40mph and overtaking the cars. Dangerous, but earbleedingly good. What do the drivers think? I used to commute on the A12, and passed the same deteriorating dead fox every day for about a month. Not good.
 
thwaters

thwaters

Member
Always-Learnin said:
It must be a Texas thing...I swear I have had the very same experience, especially the skunk, garbage trucks, and manure. :)
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Skunk, manure, dead roadkill -- heat, humidity, sweat, and diesel fuel -- the smell of Texas when cycling! There's a dairy near my house -- that's one kind of manure smell. Horse farm -- different manure smell. Feedlot for beef cattle -- awful - much worse. Animals under stress! But the worst is when they spread chicken manure on pastures from huge chicken farms. Birds don't urinate -- that is the pasty white stuff in their poo! Very acid nose-burning -- and nasty. Cycle past a huge chicken farm some time, or smell the chicken fertilizer spread on a pasture -- you will NEVER forget it! But the one that gets me most is when the "good 'ol boys drop a gear while passing you in their modified diesel and do the "rollin' coal" thing, enveloping you in a thick, black cloud that burns your lungs when you're chugging up a hill. Ah the smell of spring and summer in the woods of East Texas! Makes you really appreciate the wild flowers and the smell of fresh-cut hay in the pastures.
 
ratz

ratz

Wielder of the Rubber Mallet
ratz said:
I'm waiting for a local to do that to me; so I can drop off the video with the license plate to the local cops.. We get $50 reward if you can provide a photo with a license plate.
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We've also been working on trying to design a readable sign for the back of the helmet that says "Live Streaming" just to give people an idea that they are on camera :)
 
Rick Youngblood

Rick Youngblood

CarbonCraft Master
I had the rollin coal childish behavior done to me several years back. No camera. However, it happen at the same exact spot the truck driver drove me off the road a couple years back. The rollin coal incident caused me to spend money on the cameras. This happened on a country highway that is used by the loggers, no shoulder to ride, and it was into a short climb. It left me blinded, I had no idea where I was in the road or whether or not something else was headed at. No one else would have seen me. At home looking in the mirror I looked like a raccoon, a thin layer of black covered my face except for where my glasses were.

Anyhow, I dont think the CHP would have done a thing had I had a video of the jerk rollin coal. Because, I did have a video of the logging truck incident with all the trucks id license codes in which they blew me off.
 
ratz

ratz

Wielder of the Rubber Mallet
Rick Youngblood said:
I had the rollin coal childish behavior done to me several years back. No camera. However, it happen at the same exact spot the truck driver drove me off the road a couple years back. The rollin coal incident caused me to spend money on the cameras. This happened on a country highway that is used by the loggers, no shoulder to ride, and it was into a short climb. It left me blinded, I had no idea where I was in the road or whether or not something else was headed at. No one else would have seen me. At home looking in the mirror I looked like a raccoon, a thin layer of black covered my face except for where my glasses were.

Anyhow, I dont think the CHP would have done a thing had I had a video of the jerk rollin coal. Because, I did have a video of the logging truck incident with all the trucks id license codes in which they blew me off.
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Yeah but Coal rolling makes better news; we got the local fine by showing a video to the little town news paper; they made a big stink about it because the city council was busy trying to get funding for a down town "Revitalization project" to bring families and tourists to the city; bullet point on slides was 100+ of safe bike trails.... Timing was good. It's just a local ordinance but it's a start. On the plus side our jerk encounters are about 1-2 per 45 days or riding so not too bad; the lights help; and if we can just figure out some sort of sign that indications "you are on camera" I think they would mostly drop to zero.
 
thwaters

thwaters

Member
Well, after all, this is TEXAS. And I live out in the COUNTRY. A mile back towards town is a diesel truck shop with a dyno and a huge business installing "power chips" and other devices (like those that enable rollin' coal.) Local kids (including the ones I used to teach - I'm a retired science teacher) have them installed, along with many 30-40 year old "kids." That sound of a huge exhaust pipe diesel gearing down is the "national anthem" of red-necked Texas. I'm also the only one 'round these parts with a recumbent, and one of the few bicycles out on the roads -- easy to identify. A lot of our roads have nice 8 feet wide shoulders which make great bike lanes -- but the diesel truck traffic is thick -- and quite a few of them are modified - usually hauling nothing but air in the bed. Cars? We don't need no stinkin' cars! If it ain't un-American to not like diesels, it's definitely un-Texan!
 
pedlpadl

pedlpadl

Well-Known Member
Bruce B said:
Rollin Coal deserves a left hand salute.
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Can't remember this happening to me, but I've had a couple of Harley's slow down, get next to me and jump on the throttle. I had a guy in a log truck blast his horn in my ear while on a slow climb right as he was passing. Was on a group ride a couple of years ago on a back country road with nothing on it except a little church. A little old lady slowed down next to us in her 1995 Buick and shouted obscenities and told us to get on the sidewalk (there was none), then roared ahead and turned into the church parking lot.
 
MrSteve

MrSteve

Zen MBB Master
There are lots of threads that share the bad and the ugly.
This one is more good than bad, isn't it?

Like the time I wanted to see exactly how far the shop bike could go on five gallons of gas:
It was a 500cc 4-stroke single that we had retrofitted with a big translucent plastic five-gallon enduro tank.
After hopping onto the freeway, I looked for someone to draft... and found a cooperative
semi-truck doing ten over the speed limit.
The driver was awesome! He kept his speed very steady and allowed me to draft him by tucking right behind his big
left-rear dually wheels.
For hours.
A personal best was set that day on that bike, thanks to that awesome dude in that truck's cab.

Another safer-driver-than-me lent me a hand:
I was trying to pass a loaded logging truck, while the truck was speeding downhill to generate enough energy
to to make it up the next hill.
The shop bike topped out at eighty and, well, I almost made it past the truck.
To clear the oncoming traffic, I rode formation by his floorboard, behind the front wheel and in front of the tractors' drive wheels.
The driver moved his truck over a bit to give us all enough room... giving me a high-sign (thumb-up).

There are lots of awesome people in the World... the un-awesome people just make them look that much better.
 
ratz

ratz

Wielder of the Rubber Mallet
MrSteve said:
There are lots of awesome people in the World... the un-awesome people just make them look that much better.
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I assume most people wake up in the morning intending to be the "awesome" person; I find I met more of them when I adopt that attitude.
Very few people have bad intentions from the start; it's the unintentional stuff that makes it seem like more. I like to think very few people wake up eat morning plotting against me.
 
JOSEPHWEISSERT

JOSEPHWEISSERT

Zen MBB Master
Sociopaths wake up every day with bad intentions. That is what motivates them. Four percent of our population is sociopathic. They hide in plain site and most are not in prison. Most are not murderers, but they lack a conscience and lack empathy. If you've ever known one, you know what I mean.
 
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