On-Street Parking in the winter

On street parking in the winter is not nice. It's not nice for the poor Mr. SnowPlowMan who has to clear the treet but the snow pile zone is full of parked cars. Nor it is fun for the drivers who get their cars blocked by the snowpiles, and have to scrape the windows clean and shovel the snow off the roof. And then they have to try starting the car without the benefit of electric heating, causing extra wear and tear in the engines if it's cold. And create clouds of pollution from the cold-start.

Meanwhile, bike parking on the bikeway is not really a thing. First, one can usually park the bike easily in the racks near just a few meters from the front door (if indoor parking is not available/rider too lazy) so why would anyone leave their bike on a bikeway? That'd also mean they walked away, and that's not something we like to discuss here in Very Northern Cycling Blog. Bikes were invented to stop people from walking, you know!

And there's the danger of snow camouflage. What happens is the bike fell over and then it snowed a lot and Mr SnowPlowMan does not notice there's a bike? Well, he plows it away!  I think most of the worst ones will get sent straight to the recycling, but many mangled ruins of a bicycle gets sold every time there's a "Lost&Found" sale.

Still, short term parking does happen. Met a friend on a walk, flat tires, the chain came off, it was colder/more slippery than you thought so one has to walk instead, or too much alcohol. In the autumn picking berries and mushrooms are good reasons to stop, but usually one should carry the bike 100 meters into the bushes to leave no clue for others to find your good berry bushes. Maybe the dog got an interesting scent and dragged the rider off to the woods?

An unusual sight; on-bikeway parking! Of a bicycle, that is.

November snow spotted!

Here's what the bikeway conditions have looked like during the last two weeks:

Snow, nice winter temperatures of maybe -10C. There was enough snow for the plowers to plow and get some piles on the sides. And kids were already sledding, of course.

Then it rained water, eww! with the temperatures a little above freezing with some black ice thrown in to make cycling and walking more interesting. Same spot as above, I couldn't be bothered to cut this picture to exactly same view.

And then it got a little colder and snowed a little. So far this snow hasn't melted away yet. The rivers and the sea has not frozen yet, and I think even small lakes do not have enough ice for kids to skate on safely. Maybe there's enough some ice fishers! :-)

Not quite snow yet

We did get some sleet and maybe even some flakes of snow. First drop was in the morning, and it snowed enough to get the ground white. The snow didn't survive the day and melted away.

In the afternoon it snowed/sleeted again. The ground was wet and warm enough that the sleet melted away pretty soon but the rooftops of garages and other unwarmed buildings kept the white cover.

The weather forecast promises below freezing nights (-6C today) and above freezing (+2C tomorrow) days so this snow will be gone tomorrow. No rain expected but I'm not sure how soon the roads will dry. Expect black ice on the mornings. My mom already volunteered me to change the winter tyres on her car. :-)

English weather

We got a cloudy day, with some drizzle and mist. Very english weather. (I've never visited the UK. I've just heard it rains there all the time. And fog. :-) The trees have been covered in white frost and postcard scenes were everywhere. Now it warmed above freezing and the trees have lost the shine. Bikeways are a bit sloshy and will need the gritting once the heat wave passes.

Ice fishers do not like this weather either, as there is water on top of the ice, too. That makes harder to see if there are any holes in the ice. And it also makes walking on the ice extra exciting. :^)

I tried to get some of the fog in the picture... there are some high buildings behind the cars but they are not visible... so I guess I got the fog. Here we are salmoning safely on the bikeway. I hope the plowers find time to remove the slosh pile on the left before it freezes solid. Although with their 10 ton wheel loaders they'll be able to crack it even if freezes. The railings might get damaged in the process, though.

New Tracks

First!

Today I saw the "First Snow" of the winter. The meteorological office rules say a minimum of 1 cm of snow to qualify as "official" first snow and we had that. On centimeter is not a lot, but enough for the kids to get out the sleds! Although they noticed they didn't slide very well, the gravel beneath was not slippery. :-)

And it's enough for bikes to leave tracks. I was the first here!

Measures

Despite hits by a lightning, truck, space debris and attacks of bears and ducks, and bouts of brain tumors and heart attacks and decapitation, I'm still alive. Sorry, but I've been busy and lazy so I haven't posted anything.

I did some videos during the summer, but by now the videos are several months old so there's no point in posting them. Browsing the folders, I did find one that was not too outdated. (Last I saw they had dug up the underpass.)

That's a bunch of signs. Maximum vehicle height 3.8 meters, "Other Danger" sign with the plaques below telling what the danger is: "limited height" and "flooding". The 40km/h area limit ends here.

But the water depth meter is something new!

It's there to give drivers a way to see how deep the water is, so they do not have to find out the hard way. This underpass has drainage problems and gets flooded after heavy rains. Sometimes the drivers find out their car is not amphibious. But they're fixing the drainage problems by digging up the underpass. But how will drivers get to the other side of the railway tracks? Ooh, Carmageddon! :-)

Uneven melting

Last week I was driving along a rural road. I couldn't drive very fast, as the conditions were not very good.

(Here should be a photo, but the upload does not work. Use your imagination.) Edit: it worked today! :-)

Parts of the road were covered with ice, with nice four inch ruts zigzagging on the ice. On some spots the plowman had done a closer shave, and the sun had melted the ice away and revealed the soggy gravel road. The soggy gravel works like wet sand, it is soft and can drag the car to the side.

Here I am, with the car sliding a meter to the left and right on the ruts and the quicksand pits, enjoying the improved conditions on the road. Because the Summer is coming: snow is melting fast. The fields are mostly snow free, the forests still have some. Rivers will flood and the ice will float downriver this weekend.

A few days earlier, the ice on the road was a few inches thicker. Which meant that the ruts on the ice were six, even eight inches on some spots. If there had been no plowing, this road would not be driveable for a few weeks.

Results of plowing

Case 1: Three meters of smooth, gritted bikeway. The snow gets dumped in the ditch on the right. This is one of the major routes between downtown and the northern parts of the town.

Case 2: On street lane. Most of the snow has been transported away as there are no piles like in the pic above. No gritting to be seen. Ice and snow on the right. Left side of the lane might be clear asphalt or black ice. Oh, that's right, cars are riding in the bike lane and the lane marking is gone already. On the left is an entrance to the parking cave, and the drivers are afraid of crashing into the concrete. After the intersection they do not drive in the bike lane as much and the whole bike lane is full of snow.

To even things out, I cycled  along the right wheel ruts, too. :^EP

Dealing with the snow

A week or two ago Streetsblog.org had a post about dealing with snow on cycle lanes. It does snow here, and we have a lot of winter cycling, so we're now world famous to be mentioned in the Streetsblog article! Although they got it a bit wrong when they claimed we have an unique method of dealing with the snow: instead of salting, brushing or plowing, we compact it!

Just the thought of  anyone actually doing that makes me cringe. Apart from a ski resort or the jogging paths turned into ski tracks trough the forests, it does not make any sense. Although maybe it might actually work during the early winter, it would fail spectacularly every time we get a heat wave with above freezing temperatures.

Even with regular plowing we get 20 or 30 centimeters of accumulated ice on the roads. Snow turns into ice under the tyres of the cars and from the sunshine etc. By compacting we'd get more ice. Not all ice would be equally dense, some would be compacted more under the tyres and feet.

In the spring, maybe the softer ice melts a bit faster. The tyre ruts would be higher. Imaginne trying to drive along greased backs of pigs. Or maybe the ice starts to crack under your tyres. Pretty soon you'd be driving along 30cm deep ruts filled with slosh, hoping you'll be able to get out of the ruts when you want to turn. 

We don't use brush a lot for snow. Brushes are for street cleaning and collecting the gritting sand in the spring. For snow it's plowing, only on motorways and other big roads some salt is used as it's pretty difficult to try to keep the road surface ice/snow free.


Some comments re cycling and plowing:

1. Wide paths. 
2. On street lanes suck.

Bikeways need to be big enough for the plows used to clear them. A pickup truck can deal with small snows, but they can't push the piles further away if it keeps snowing. A wheel loader or a tractor can be used to make room for the pickup again.

The bikeways I'm riding are practically roads for bikes. The get plowed and gritted properly. The few on-street lanes in downtown are horrible, full of snow and ice. The gritting was not visible so I can't comment on that. :-/

Fixable? hub dynamo cracks

A few weeks ago the hub seemed to be frozen (with ice) and when the nuts were a bit loose the whole hub rotated and the wires were cut. I tightened the nuts, reconnected the wires and all seemed to be OK.

This week I rode to grocers, shopped and when I tried to ride back the front wheel seemed stuck again. Well, guess what? The nuts were loose again! I disconnected the wire and tightened the nuts with fingers but for some reason the wheel didn't want to spin. So I loosened the nuts and walked the bike home to prevent further damage.

Took the bike to the shed and examined the hub more closely and noticed the hub has cracked! On the side where the electric wires come out there's a big nut which seems to be part of the aluminum side wall. The side wall has been bent in as if the nut were pushed in on one side. How that is possible, I have no idea. There is no damage to the electric connectors which are on the same side so I don't think the earlier incident caused the damage.

To add insult to injury, my camera refused to work. Blinked the "on" light for half a second, but didn't start. So I had to shoot close ups with my md80 clone.

The red dots are where the cracks are. The big nut seems to have bent in a few millimeters where the arrows are, exposing the black sleeve under it. Ball bearings are also visible trough the crack. the sidewall has cracked under the nut and about one centimeter from it, half way to the outer edge of the side wall. There are also some vertical cracks connecting them.

Now, is that side wall important, load bearing part of the hub or is it just a dust cover? Does it come off if I try to screw the big nut? Gotta google for some blow out pictures.

In the mean while, where's my spare front wheel? And is the rim on it wide enough for the studded tyre? I gotta make the bike rideable again, I need to do a beer run...

Going Nuts!

The other day I took my bike of the rack and noticed the front wheel seemed to have frozen during the night. Not really surprising, as it had rained and snowed and sleeted during the night. I pushed and pulled and the wheel started to rotate a bit but there was still some resistance. So I put more weight on the bike and pushed and pulled and the front wheel started rotating again. Nice!

Well, the wheel started rotating again, but, unfortunately something had gone wrong: the wire from the hub dynamo to the lights was cut when the wheel and the dynamo connector rotated but the wire stayed put. One nut had become so loose that when I tried to get the wheel spinning, the hub spinned with it. Not Nice.

And this happened a few days after the other light on the bike stopped working. Two lights, neither working. Double Not Nice.

So, although Movember just ended, I recommend you to check your Nuts!

Scary... Evil... Disgusting...

I was riding home in the dark. The sunset was 16:01 and it was cloudy and no snow on the ground so it was pretty dark after 6 pm. I did have lights with me so no problem with the dark.

But then I saw some lights ahead, but off the road. I smelled something... vile. The smell got stronger as rode closer. I knew instantly something evil had happened there. But there was no way around...

It was a small campfire, with several small figures skulking in the shadows... you know, vampires, zombies and things like that. When they noticed me, they called out: "Who goes there?"

In my most impressive, deep monster voice I could make I answered: "MONSTERRRR!"

Satisfied, the evil monsters returned to their task at hand: trying to put out the fire by peeing on it.

Hauskaa Ällöweeniä!

( Happy Disgustiween! :-)

Missed the Supermoon

There was a Supermoon in the shadow this morning. But when I looked outside this morning, I saw clouds so I missed the eclipse. (Looked outside, saw clouds and then I went back to bed. Too darn early!) I tried to take some shots of the moon with my pocket shooter but apparently a camera on a bicycle seat is not steady enough for taking good pictures of the moon. All I got some roundish or oval shapes with no lunar seas visible.

Fortunately, aiming at the ground a few meters ahead of me worked fine. Ah, puddles! At least this road isn't all mud. It rained a whole month's worth of rain in one day last week, and some showers later meant the puddles havent gone anywhere.

 And here's a tree which had nice colours on it a week or two ago. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera with me until this time. About half or two thirds of the leaves gone so the tree does not look very impressive. And practically no berries either. Did the birds already eat them (the winter food?) or was the summer so bad none grew?

How is the summer going?

One thing is for certain: years are not alike. Last year we had a cold early summer (it even snowed) and then later about a month of hot days (above +25C is considered hot here). This summer were still hoping we might break the +25C limit, though we've had some days above +20C! On the other hand, the winter is coming :-) and the weather starts cooling soon. Jaakko throws the Cold Stone into the lake in a few days and the swimming will be over for the summer soon!

 And it seems it rains every other day at least. In June it rained double the monthly average (the monthly average is something like 50mm) and so far July has been the same. I wonder what happens in the Autumn when it is supposed to be rainy?

Cycling related: I've transported my lumber jacking tools on my bike to/from the woods. So if you've seen someone riding with a helmet, take note: it is probably the only time you'll see me riding with one this year. Lumberjacking helmet is imho great for cycling: the visor protects the face from flying insects, it's well ventilated, the earmuffs protect my hearing from honking cars, and best of all it is bright orange!

Growing grass

1st of May: no green.

5th of May: some green on sunny spots

And a bunch of pictures May 18th to June 8th.

May 25th: not a lot of leaves on trees

June 8th: green!

Question: what is this?

What is this and why is it here? Was I testing out a new camera?  Someone shot at me? Bike ads on the newspaper?

Why is this here?

Any guesses? :-D

A clue:

Artsy photo!

Had to dig out my sunglasses

A few days ago there was some snow coming down in the morning. Once the clouds cleared the sun was shining with full blast:

I had to dig out my sunglasses! :D That snow didn't stay long, it was half gone on my ride back and all gone the next day. Today, though was another day and I didn't need protection against the sun. There are a few low pressure systems circling us so it'll most likely be varying weather for the next few days.

Now, if only i could figure out how to get rid of those specs on the pics.

Beach Barbecue

It was a sunny weekend so what to do? How about a beach barbecue?

On the way to the beach I saw some cyclists I hadn't seen before: a five year old with his dad and brother, and a four year old with kiddie wheels with her mom. Of course I'm guessing their ages but I'm pretty sure they were new cyclists. Warm weather (above freezing in the sun) and mostly ice free bikeways meant that there was a lot of people about. Some were skating on the ice of the sea:

although there were some rough spots on the ice. The bright areas in the picture above are smooth ice created by frozen water, and the darker areas

is uneven ice aka frozen slosh. There were some cracks in the ice where the water gets on the ice, so it is not all due to the melting process. And I guess the ships going by will splash some water on the ice, too.

And I also saw some people sitting by the docks, something that doesn't happen when it's cold or windy but it wasn't either. The sun was up, people! (11 hours 52 minutes today ;-)

A Sleeting moment

A nice little layer of sleet/snow covering the bikeways... is that clear asphalt or rutted ice under my wheels?

Exciting and blah!

I've got two different photos taken while riding. The first was taken a few weeks ago, early February. There had been some fresh snow, about 30 cm, which is quite a lot for one snowfall around here. The snow was powdery and dry, which meant the strong winds whipped it about and made nice snow "dunes". Although the snow drifts can be a hazard to the unwary. If half the lane is filled with snow, the thick drift can 'pull' the car deeper and you'll get stuck, or maybe you just lose control and spin the car. Well, with bikes that's less of a problem.

Anyhow, here's a nice lid of snow and the powder snow flying. The road is a small rural farm road. The snow banks are not man-high, I was kneeling a bit. :-P

Looks like a photo! :)

And here's a mundane, everyday bikeway. Nothing spectacular about that.

Blah!