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!

Things I saw today, Mon 25 Nov 2013

The first interesting thing I saw today was a trailer. Someone had driven on the bikeway to drop the trailer here. (Driving on bikeways and sidewalks is not allowed without a good reason, like: it is the only route to get there.)

Whoever it was dropped some kind of ski track making machine here. I guess they expect this snow to stay... we'll see. The snow is only 5 inches deep. That's enough for the kids to take their skis and sleds out. .

And while riding downtown I heard this before I saw it. For some reason, the hydro power plant has opened some gates and is letting the water go. I guess the dam is near overflowing. But I expect the price of electricity to increase, now that the power company has to recoup the money they don't get because they have to waste the water!

Winter photo 5th Dec

After the days of -20°C or below the -11°C we had felt balmy. And the warmer weather brought a little of fresh snow with it.

From Very Northern Florida, With Love

To all tree huggers:

First Snow Videos

Here they are. The first one shows the skateboarding ramps are empty. Those tiny wheels do not work well in two inches of snow! <evil grin:->

The other is shows a real life braking test on a snowy bikeway. Not really icy yet because the snow hasn't been trampled on enough, but there was some ice on it anyway. The big trucks do not have studded tyres so they're  pushing the limit a bit by stopping at a steep hill. I'd say they couldn't have fit trough the underpass, so they would been stuck if they couldn't get up. They could have turned left or right but came up straight, and afterwards I was wondering if they turned back or drove through the no entry signs to the pedestrian crossing to get to the street at the very beginning of the video.

Note the mail van, it's a special, expensive vehicle designed for mail delivery ie. right hand drive so the mailman can reach the boxes :-)

The last of the videos I uploaded is sort of a video response to  bicycledutch's cycling past red lights blog post. The Dutch with their bikeways segregated from the road  often get to ignore the traffic lights. In T-junctions and when doing right turns there often is no conflict with other road users so why should a cyclist be penalized by a red light. This (cycling past red lights) is common in Very Northern Florida too.

Some commenter talked about the aversion to two-phase left turns: having to first cross one street and then wait at another red light certainly is a pain. Even if you don't have dutch intersections, if you have paths on both sides of the street you can cross the street when ever it's best for you and then make the left turn at will.

Picture of the day

This is what it looked like in the morning. First snow of the winter. It was still snowing so it looked very promising when I took the photo. A little snow on the ground would make the world a lighter place.

Isn't it pretty? Green grass, white snow and orange trees?

And then, fifteen minutes later the rain changed to sleet and then into water and the snow was gone.

Some pictures from the past week

Early week we had two or three days when it snowed. It kept the snow plow contractors happy, as they had plenty of work to do. For cyclists that meant difficult conditions on the streets.

The street below is is narrow and has no through traffic.  In the dutch classification it is a local access road (street) serving the housing along the street. It doesn't need segregated bike facilities, but sometimes they'd be good to have. If you look closely, you might see an inch of snow over inch of half-packed snow, and ice under all of that. The half-packed snow is snow that cars have squeezed tight, but it hasn't turned into ice yet. It has a fantastic tendency to crack under a bicycle wheel, and as it is not homogenous it doesn't crack evenly, but more to one side than the other side. In effect, it throws the wheels left or right a little, and makes me wobble. Not very nice to ride in.

On the bikeways there was some loose snow, but in general the conditions were good. The snow was so fluffy that the wind blew it around even after the rain had stopped. Here's a 3,5 meter wide bikeway and almost half of it was full of drift snow.

The pavement in front of the City Hall has heating, and it seemed to be mostly snow free, so the politicians can be happy that the who knows how many millions they spent on the prettifying project seem to be good enough to let them walk in without bringing in the snow on their shoes.

The pedestrian street Rotuaari has also heating under the pavement, but at least there were people milling about. We're choosing a new president in a few weeks- actually, the first round is next week! The campaigning is going hot, and all the candidates had booths in the square. The candidates themselves weren't there, just some poor volunteers or members of the campaign machines. So you might just vote for me, as I was there.

This street has bollards to stop cars using it as a through route. The almost knee high snow behind the bollards stopped most of the people using the street as a short cut. They had to resort using the sidewalks to get pass the snow piles.

A view from the opposite direction, two blocks closer to the sea. Actually this is taken at the market square which is right next to the sea. The street has been calmed by forbidding motorized through traffic. Although I've got video of this street from the New Year's eve, after the fireworks when all the streets were full of people leaving the Market Square. The street was full of cars ignoring the traffic sign and using it as a rat run. Including a police car! :-)

I seem to have forgotten to write about the News Year's Eve. But here goes: there was some music and fireworks at the market square. So a lot of people were about, and those who couldn't be bothered to go downtown to see them closer went for a walk e.g. on the paths north side of the river. The view was good from there and the bangs weren't so loud. After the fireworks was over, I decided to ride downtown to see what was happening there. The MUPs were full of people leaving the Market Square, and the streets were clogged with traffic. Half an hour later, the pedestrians and cyclists were gone, but the streets were still clogged with last of the cars leaving the scene. Nice. :-)

On a normal day there's only a few parked cars, so the snow plow men decided it was a good place to pile some snow.

And who needs street side parking, when the street can be used to pile snow! I also saw a car parked on a street, blocked in by the snow piled by the snow plows. That's why we don't have much street side parking.

The last few days have been more like January should be. A nice -10°C weather and white snow every where. :-)

Icebergs and sunken ships

Xmas was nice, nothing to report about that. So this is an after the storm report. A few days ago Scandinavia was hit by a storm. Here in Oulu it meant strong winds, temperature around freezing and rising sea levels. The sea got 1.8m above the normal, and flooded some parking lots near the sea and cut off some roads and paths near to the coast. As the temperature was near zero degrees Celsius and it was raining and snowing and then freezing again, and the wind pushing people around the meteorological institute issued a warning for "difficult conditions for pedestrians". Warnings about difficult conditions for drivers are more usual, so the conditions were really nasty for walking and cycling.

The westerly wind pushed some ice rafts upstream (or stopped them going out to the sea, who knows) on the mouth of the river. Here I'm on the bridge seen on my dirty bridge video. The flow of the river tries to take the ice away, and wind kept pushing them back.

The ice chucks were about 5 inches thick. Which btw. is almost strong enough to hold a small car. The waves broke the ice and pushed them on top of each other.

Not a very good photo, but that's some rowing boats upside down in the water. Many people pull their boats to dry ground and turn them over for storage. The boats will not get filled with water which makes them easier to use. And in winter the water will freeze and expand, which might crack the boat.

I wonder if the owners bothered to go and check their boats? Water is high and the boats are not on dry ground anymore. It is Xmas and New Year, but if it gets cold this winter they'll be frozen tight, and in the spring the flood will take them out to the sea with the ice. (Could I get a boat for free if I salvage it in the spring? :-)

All bikeways were rather icy, but especially nasty were some crossings where the street was snowplowed after the bikeway. A pile of snow was left, and when people walked and rode over it, it flattened and froze. Only it had nice 4 inch deep grooves on them, to capture your wheels.

On the other hand, the other sections were in pretty good condition.

Today it was snowing.  I took some photos of fresh tracks on the bikeway, but it was too dark already and I didn't get any good ones. And I tried to take an 'artistic' shot of a church, but it was lousy too. Blah. So you don't see them :-D Maybe better luck tomorrow. Or Next Year!

Happy New Year Everyone!

Letting things Slide

That's one phrase that came to my mind when I was trying to ride uphill on the icy bikeway. The short bikeway on the photo has not been gritted and is probably one of the lasts on the todo list. Other low priority bikeways had not been gritted yet. With the forecast promising temperatures between -1C and +1 C it will be needed, unless they expect all the ice will melt away?

 When the rear wheel started slipping when I pushed down on the pedal, I decided to take it as a sign that I'm getting stronger. I don't recall that happening in the summer! Not that the low gear I had on had anything to do with it. With two bags of shopping weighing me down and an uphill, gears are great.

Just a few days it looked like this:

when I was riding around. From that ride I also made a video video about taking corners when riding on ice. (Oh, the annotations buttons are working again for me in youtube, good. Didn't work for days. )

Photos showing snowing but no snow plowing

Two weeks since I last posted. What's happened since? Got some snow, which melted away. Repeat a few times. Last weekend we got more snow, followed rain and below freezing temperatures. Everything was glazed with ice. According to the newspaper the emergency rooms had a busier than normal weekend because people got wrist injuries etc. when they fell on the slippery ice. Even motorists were more careful than usual.

The first two photos are from last week.

And the last one shows the latest development in our campaign for global warming, the central heating under the pavement of Rotuaari, the pedestrian street downtown. It snowed today, and all the streets and sidewalks had snow and ice on them, except the Rotuaari was ice-free. Which was nice.

The blue sign on the left says "no bike parking on the plaza!" Another sign of lack of thinking from planners? Where are we supposed to park our bikes? And haven't they heard of the rule of fifteen steps? Any bike rack further than 15 steps from the door is too far and bikes will be parked closer to the door, if possible. Like a few scoff-law cyclists had done near the white semi-spere on the photo.

I'm sure I've heard the excuses to ban parking on the plaza, but I've forgotten them. Maybe they had to do with them blocking the plaza when the pedestrian street is full of people. But the racks on the narrower streets off the plaza will be no problem, hmm? Maybe they want us to use the underground parking hall they're going to build. That would have a negative impact on cycling. Having to walk (more than 15 steps :-) from some far-way parking to the destination increases travel time.

Also, it's been more than a year since my first post, so I'm working on a list of most popular posts. And I'm trying to find time to edit and upload some videos.

First snow of the winter

Yet another cloudy day.

It snowed last night. Just a little to make everything white. Unfortunately most of it melted away during the day before I got to my camera. But you already know what it looks like: it's white.

Today's first snow of the winter is almost two weeks later than the average. The permanent snow is due any day. There was a little mist/rain in the air on the way home in the afternoon. The forecast promised more rain/sleet for the evening and below freezing temperatures for the next few days. So if it snows instead of rains today, there might a chance this snow doesn't melt until spring. But I don't think so, as the ground is still too warm and has not frozen solid yet. The ground will melt the snow away.

Meandering stream and a sunset

If I had been driving a car, I wouldn't have noticed this meandering stream. I would have been going too fast to see anything except the road ahead. Also, I would have been on the road instead of the bikeway, so it would have been impossible for me to see it anyway.

The stream is a very good example of meandering, but all those trees got in the way of getting a good photo. Also it was pretty dark in the shadows of the forest and the sun was setting so I had trouble getting a picture without blurring due to the long exposure times. But as the winter is ahead, I'm sure I'll get more practice.

This stream is surrounded by roads and buildings, but it certainly doesn't look very urban. The path is made by dogwalkers and curious people who follow the stream to take photos of it.

Three turns on this photo

And 3 or 4 on this one.

And a few sunset photos taken at 15:50 on a bridge I don't usually ride.  In the photo you can see the railway bridge. I've taken some photos of the railway bridge from the other side, when I've been riding on the dam bridge.

Fishermen, Fog and Daylight saving

Last week I was on my way home from downtown when I noticed one of the fishermen got a fish so I decided to stop and see if they got another one. The photo is taken from a bikeway bridge crossing the "canal" coming from the hydro power plant. The power plant is maybe 300 meters to the right, upstream.

The fishermen are using scoop nets (long poles with a small net bag attached to the end). They put the pole on the water near the bridge, and the net is near the bottom of the river. Then they walk downstream and try to catch all fish swimming upstream into the net bag.  They're fishing common whitefish (Coregonus). The male fishes or females without roe the fisherman can keep, the female fishes with roe are taken by the government (fishing agency?)
Other fishes will be captured too. Some must be released (salmon, trout etc and some other fishes if they're too small).

He caught one! I'm not sure if this one was legal to eat  or one to that must be released. They took it out of the net and rushed it away. Obviously it was not one they could kill on the spot. What did they do with it? Either released back to the river or to a barrel where they keep the female whitefish with roe. They can't just throw it back to the water as it's too high. They must get to the stairs behind the trees in the pic above.

Looks like a big one. Blurry shot, but best shot I had :(

This week there has been two foggy days (or was one of them last week?) Cold air meets warmer air from the sea. Last two weeks have been cloudy and rainy, and the temperatures have been above average. Even at night it's been above freezing, but on the other hand it's been about +5C during the day, too.

These two foggy photos are resized, otherwise unedited so they're a bit darker than what the eye saw. They were taken at about 4pm. Sunset on that day was 15:50. Due to the daylight savings scheme, sunsets jumped one hour earlier when we adjusted the clocks last Sunday.

The first photo is taked towards the combined heat and power plant, but it's hidden in the fog. Even the railway bridge is hard to see, and that's just three hundred meters away.

Bikeway through the park.

A beautiful morning and first ice

It was a sunny morning after several days of either rain or gloomy cloudiness.

The cloudless sky during the night means a cold night. The clouds trap and reflect back the heat energy from the ground. With no clouds, the heat is beamed out into the space. With a northerly wind (like today) bringing cool air from the arctic, the temperature can drop below freezing even in the summer. In October below freezing temperatures are to be expected.

I had to wipe the hoarfrost off my bike saddle. It came off easy. Someone was cleaning the windows of a car at the parking lot and grumbling. I might remember to put a plastic bag on the seat and avoid the cleaning...

The small puddles were frozen through. The big, deep ones had a cover of ice that cracked when I rode over them. I guess I'm still a kid inside, playing at puddles.

Maintenance crews had been busy at work. The fallen leaves were mostly gone! They had also gritted some parts of the bikeways, like this one. A downhill section leading to an underpass. As the sun is blocked by trees and the noise barrier, this might be a good candidate for black ice. They'd gritted maybe 200 meters of my ride of a few kilometers.

Lapland had the first snow last weekend, and some ski resorts have opened cross country ski paths for skiers. They'd stored snow from last winter, and now they've spread it over some short paths so skiing enthusiasts and athletes can get on the skis.

I'd say it'll be two or three weeks until first snow in Oulu. Late October or early November. Want to place bets on the date?

Hurricane Ophelia Hits Very Northern Florida

Hurricane Ophelia started it's journey about two or three weeks ago at the equator. First it travelled west towards the Caribbean, then turned north and now has crossed the Atlantic. Looking at some maps showing its track, looks like it did not hit Florida. It it possible that we're getting a hurricane that missed them?

The cold sea has sapped a lot of it's strength and what we get is rain and strong winds (15m/s, with gusts over 20m/s).  What makes it interesting is that the media has been telling the storm we have is the remnants of a hurricane, not a normal storm. If the media hadn't told us, I wouln't have known any different. Due to the global wind system, most storms we get come from the west, across the north Atlantic.

 On the bike bridge, the wind from the right forced the cyclists lean 10 degrees to the right to maintain balance. Of course, when I stopped to take a photo there was no cyclists in sight. Dark and gloomy, due to the heavy clouds. The photo was taken just before 6 pm, about half an hour before sunset. Yes, you read that right. Sunrise at 7:44 and sunset at 18:26.

The almost empty racks at the library: it seemed that the rain and strong winds had made people to stay indoors. Then I tried the door and noticed it was locked. All libraries were closed today due to training day.

It did strike me a little odd that there was only a few bikes on the racks, as there was quite a lot people on bikes. Still, I should have realized something was wrong...

 Gotcha! A tree is about to fall over, despite the firm hold it has on the ground. Strong roots do not help if the soil gets turned too.

A view from between two changing cubicles on the Nallikari Beach. I rode there on the way back to see if the waves were impressive. Not so, the wind direction is wrong and the islands break the waves too. This is the same beach I visited on the midnight ride. Only this time you can't see the sunset.

The water in the front is on an asphalt path. I'm not sure if it is rain water or did a storm surge reach that high? The sea level was 1.2 meters above average and flooded some boat docks. The record changes in the sea levels are -1.5m and +2m. That's all due to the winds, as the tide is only a few centimeters here.

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?

Second Autumn Post

Autumn is also a season for mushrooms. When I'm walking the forest looking for berries, it's easy to pick a few mushrooms for example for...

I ate it and I'm still alive: not poisonous.

mushrooms, onions, cucumber, paprika.

...pasta sauce.  This sauce was pretty good. I wonder if I can make it twice. My cooking is pretty experimental, and the results are sometimes not so good.

Yes, the yellow spots are leaves from the trees.

Most of the leaves are still greenish, but some are totally yellow and red already. It's not the cold that turns them yellow, although it can get below freezing at night on a cold day. It's the shortening of the daylight that triggers the  change. Sunrise was today at about 5:50 (am) and sunset is about 21 (9pm).

Some of the newspapers already have articles for cyclists to remind them to check out the reflectors and lights on the bikes. With mornings and evenings getting darker and a lot of kids and students going to schools by bike, they're a good reminder. Sadly some of the articles cointain factual errors, but it's not a very big deal if the reflectors are wrong color or something like that. When they write articles about yielding rules for cyclists, the errors will cause danger for cyclists and confusion for everyone.

Speaking of lights, maybe I should check the batteries in my bike light...