Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Storm winds decorate the bikeways

Yesterday Very Northern Florida was hit by a storm. It rained, and the wind gusts were over 25 m/s. The winds came from the south and pushed the sea towards the Bay of Bothnia with it. The sea levels rose more than a meter above average, but I've not heard of any damages or casualties at sea.

The wind did some minor damage on dry land. Yes, there was a picture of yet another collapsed scaffolding in the newspaper. Aluminum tube scaffolding is light and easy to build, but due to it's light weight it's easily tipped over by wind.

Some trees fell or snapped in two, the bikeways have plenty of debris on them. Fallen leaves, needles, branches all over.

See the tyres cleaning a path through the debris. :-)

In the photo below, the tree has been cut to smaller pieces with a chainsaw, then dragged into one pile waiting for Mr. Tractor Guy.

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

What the roads look like

 A regular road about 10-15km from downtown. Basically all trunk roads on the countryside look like this. There's no shoulder to ride on. The gravel is lower than the edge of the asphalt, so one can't ride there. Cyclists are supposed to ride a little to the left of the white line. There is no alternate route, so I had to ride on this road.

Coming back, just a few kilometers closer to the town. You see streetlights above, although they're for cars, not for cyclists. The shoulder is wide enough to ride on. Still, it's less than a meter wide and this is a 100km/h (I think, I've never driven a car on this road :-) area so it does not feel nice when cars and trucks pass me.

On this strech, I did not have to ride on the road, but I did so to get the photo. There's a bikeway about 100 or 200 meters to the right, closer to the houses behind the trees.

There's no question which route is nicer.

Third Autumn Post

Almost a month since the last post! Well, I've been busy watching "Big Brother 2011" on tv and what time was left I was doing something else.

A few days ago it got below zero C during the night, but that was just the first warning. Today the weather forecast says temperatures between +4 C and +11C and rain for two days, as a low pressure moves over us. Maybe it's just a regular low pressure zone or is it the remnants of one of the hurricanes that hit the east coast of US a few weeks ago?