Sunday, November 2, 2008

A warm day not wasted



My nephew, 1stSgtJacques Poirier, and me; he on his way to winning a competition, me watching (Note: click on any image to enlarge).


(A helmet does wonders for your hair).


I live in Northern Virginia, where it is not too cold to ride at least part of each month, but I stick to dry pavement and when the sun is shining.

I have never tried commuting on my bike because this area has heavy traffic at rush hours, and bikes are not much fun when you are in bumper to bumper traffic.


The good part about where I live is that just to the West of me the country opens up and we have some pretty good roads. The thing about touring on a bike is to stop when you want to really enjoy the scenery. On any road, not just mountain roads, if you spend much time looking at the scenery you will become part of it. Unlike cars that hold steady when you look away, bikes a "great" at taking a tiny movement as a hint to head off in that direction.


Once you get your clothes sorted out, riding in weather down to about 40 degrees is not to bad. Below that you run some risk of hitting a patch of "black ice" water frozen on the pavement. "Not really fun in a car" can be truly ugly when you are up on two wheels.

This bike (BMW R1200RT) has 25% of the weight, 300% of the horsepower of my first car, and about 80% of the braking of my current car. Try not to lock the wheels up when you are ahead of a motorcycle.

I'm not sure about the economy of any bike, mine gets 52 mpg, but so did my 1970 Toyota Corolla diesel, and it could carry 4 people and a couple full shopping carts of food. Bikes carry less.

In days when most people are insulated from the world by glass and air conditioning, bikes are pretty much fun, and not too risky if you ride during the daylight, ride with friends, and don't "push the envelope". Your body could hurt more than a fender on someone's car.

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