cool rain

in both meanings honestly. it was a cool morning, drizzling tapering off to just wet roads by the time i got to the city.

lots to think about

just feeling pretty mellow and slow

visitors and chasing skinny whitey for two hours on mt bikes yesterday kinda wore me out

that and last couple days i've been riding the knobbie MTB to work

the added KJ required to get that thing from point a to b isn't trivial, but it is fun

i like riding it

alot

and yes i'm wearing knobbies down but they are 15+ year old knobbies - only Conti's are durable, well made enough to have lasted that long... the compound is pretty hard, not so good with the traction on rocks... slip slip

i stopped to grab a few images with the ancient digi-cam

i got to thinking and just riding

just me

my old made in cali custom timbuk2 back from before it was 'popular' to use one back before every college kid and sporting good store had more than one timbuk2 accessory

I remember when they were making them on site at CABDA, you went to the booth, picked the colors and the size and gave em some cash - came back later that weekend and picked up your bag. it was cool

i got to thinking about hybrids and really how freaking cool they are

for accelerating there isn't much better/more efficient method than an electric motor, very high torque, good efficiency... it is horribly bad at sustained cruising though... internal combustion great at sustained steady state constant load situations - terribly inefficient at accelerating...

hybrids are brilliant systems - couple them with a diesel that has a torque (fuel economy peak) right at 2000 rpms or so and you can return freakish fuel economy numbers 100+ for a compact (Golf/Jetta) size car. I did hear on the VW add with the wicked cool talking bug (i like the Heidi Klum one the best) that next year VW diesel technology will be available in all 50 states. now with the ULSD available everywhere the new euro technology can be brought stateside...

about cars - i always come back to another american paradox:
People buy Horsepower and drive torque...

gasoline engines typically have pretty crappy torque specs - and peak horsepower is generally (almost exclusively) at the highest RPM range.

always funny, what has more torque? diesels... by far... more efficient, can be cleaner.

people bitch about NOx but if it wasn't for the stupid gasoline car particulate emission NOx wouldn't form smog. It takes both. Think of it this way - a diesel combustion chamber is so efficient at oxidizing it actually uses Nitrogen as fuel (okay well it just oxidizes it because it runs so lean but it does actually burn Nitrogen...) I still wonder about the ability of plants to make use of NOx. N2 is completely unhelpful to plants but i wonder if they can use NOx... probably should be able to find data/research on that in 30 seconds with a few well selected keywords...

i found a civic hybrid driver without a lead food! it was amazing... no hard core braking... no jack rabbit starts... cool...

had a high school physics teacher work really hard (he drove a Z car - old original ones) to convince us 10th graders that it was more efficient to accelerate as fast as possible to cruising speed. Wide open throttle.

In actuality he could be right... esp with a throttle plated engine. Gasoline engines are most efficient w/o the throttle plate. But nearly all of them (at that time at least) used a throttle plate to regulate engine RPMs. But it was so counter intuitive and odd for all of us. Most of our parents were pretty upset that this guy was encouraging us to all drive like the Force family on race day.

i bounced that off an individual who seems to be on a post comment moratorium here and the point was brought up that comparing moderate rates of acceleration it probably is try that high rates are more efficient... and that to achieve some measure of economy when accelerating (w/o a diesel or an electric motor) one would have to royally piss off the line of cars behind.

to bring this wild train back home, the ride in was punctuated by cars flying past, driving well above the speed limit.

it had me composing signage...

SLOW DOWN OR QUIT COMPLAINING ABOUT GAS PRICES

Would it work? Nah... people are too pig headed...

they don't seem to get the connection between driving habits and fuel costs...

they fill up the car when the light comes on

they freak at the bill

the bitch and moan

and then burn rubber leaving the gas station

paradox

the rain was nice

overcast and like home... those years growing up in the valley of two big mountain ranges actually conditioned me to enjoy these gray cool wet days

even on the bike they are amazing... but i am slipping... while taking the can and bin to the curb i had a thought about not wanting to start the morning in the rain... the thought and feeling was gone by the time i had rounded the corner of the house... it lasted two paces only...

riding is pretty cool

amazingly efficient

my brain doesn't hit overdrive when in the car it just gets pissed and grumpy

i need to pull the pictures off the camera

i won the post comment race at BSNYC today - cozy beehive has a kick ass jacket concept up there this morning (posted yesterday tho)

so until i get my brain some more much needed caffeine

heddwch
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