Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Spooky


Temperature at departure = 33° F ( 1° C)

By the way, tip of the hat to Jill at http://arcticglass.blogspot.com/ for the idea for noting the temperature when I leave for my ride. She's up in Alaska and braver than I.

Well, I made it home. Actually, if traffic got scary, I just moved off the road and waited until it cleared out. The parts of the commute home in the dark that were unnerving were the times I hopped on the Overland Park Bike Trail. The path is 8 feet (2.5 meters) wide and goes through the woods; my headlight did a fair job of illuminating a spot directly in front of my handle bars but I kind of felt like I was in M. Night Shyamalan's "The Village" - or - "The Blair Witch Project." It turned out to be a bit of excitement on what was becoming a routine ride home.

Lessons learned:

1) Slow Down - especially when I'm on a dark, wooded path. I actually found myself off the path and riding in the grass at one point where the leaves confused me a bit.

2) When I get to the previously mentioned Bridge of Death -- REALLY Slow Down. The picture is the bridge in the daylight -- just under 4 feet wide with the railing at the same height as my handle bars which are 2' 2" wide.

3) On leaves, Really REALLY Slow Down.

4 comments:

Web said...

Warren,

That's a nice looking bridge but it is narrow.

Do you have a link for this trail; how long is it?

Respectfully,
Larry Lagarde
World-Class-Bike-Trails.blogspot.com
Urging bicycling for recreation, commuting, health and a better future.

Warren T said...

The official site says it is 17 miles long but they've been adding to it. You can check it out at http://www.opkansas.org/_Res/Parks_and_Recreation/Places/Bike_Trails/index.cfm

If you're bored and want to see some other shots of the trail, I've got some pictures of my ride in posted at http://picasaweb.google.com/WarrenT913

It is a really, really nice path.

Warren T said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Warren T said...

Wow, the link got cut off. You can get to the info by going to www.opkansas.org, clicking on Parks & Recreation and they've got a link there to the Bike Path.

[edited because "like" isn't the same as "link"]