16th September 2016 Last really warm day?

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Friday 16th 60-65F, 16-18C, breezy. After a bright, sunny start it suddenly misted over and then cleared just as quickly. Very odd. Time for a walk. The top halves of the wind turbine blades were lost in cloud for a while but cleared again. Several large tractors were busy ploughing and sewing. It has taken several days to cultivate all the local "prairies." A buzzard flew off  between the trees of a field island copse as I passed.

This little electric scooter is absolute genius! Very nippy too! Girder front fork, swinging arm rear suspension and balloon tyres. He left me standing going downhill and went over the ridiculously high kerb into the supermarket car park far faster than I have ever dared to. Lack of a shopping rack is its only obvious downside. The Trykit looks on imperiously with its stacked, multiple, shopping bags akimbo. No doubt asking itself: "Does my bum look big in all these bags?" My sincere apologies for the bright blue "Athletic injury" binding tape on the handlebars. I don't know what I was thinking! I have never had an athletic injury.

The Brittex news covered motorists failing to give cyclists a legal minimum of 5' or 1.5m clearance when overtaking. The police were cheating really badly here by putting a camera and a real policeman on a bicycle. Then having a car up the road to stop offenders. Some drivers are fined and others are treated to a course of driving re-education. How do you treat the countless sociopaths and village idiots who think they can get away with vehicular murder?

Despite having around the lowest numbers of cyclists of all 28 EU countries, Brittex can still brag about having over 100 cycle deaths per year, every year. That said, the number of injuries from cycling per hour of exercise are lower than for tennis, indoor rowing or gardening. No doubt a lot of bad drivers will be very disappointed by this information. I shall have to warn The Head Gardner to wear a hard hat and industrial safety shoes with steel toe caps when she is supervising my outdoor activities.

Late morning ride for 17 miles. Headwind going. Tailwind coming home. Good fun pedaling at a steady 110rpm+ with the wind behind me. I keep climbing and sprinting out of the saddle to build stamina and leg muscles. I never had quadriceps when all if did was spin for over 10k miles per year. You really have to stand up if you want those trendy "hanging over the knee" muscles.
  
Flashing more shiny stainless steel than my Trykit, a huge Kenworth parked near a village truck workshop. I wonder if they'd polish the Trykit for me?

I can't help thinking I would look more sporting if I was leaning forwards more but the trike's geometry is what it is. I feel as if my nose is on the front tyre until I glance in a shop window. I do a lot of that. There are a lot of empty shop windows in the villages again. My back is only at 45 degree when I am going downhill. I am more upright when climbing even with my hands on the hoods riding both ways. Odd that.

Saturday 17th My weather details have vanished. No walk, but an early, hilly ride for 17 miles. Rather too breezy for ideal comfort on the way back. Going shopping after coffee. Another 15 miles dodging drivers doing 70mph in a 30mph [113kph >50kph] zone on narrowed roads for long term roadworks and a very ragged edge to the asphalt.  The [completely imaginary] national speed limit in the countryside is only 50mph.

The Guinness Book of Records maintains a constant hotline. Just waiting for anybody in Denmark who can report a car passing one of the countless speed indicator boards at below the actual speed limit. The flashing lights to indicate illegal speeding fire constantly and these routinely indicate at up to 10kph slow. Many of these boards are badly sited or pointed completely awry. So that vehicles have long passed before the lights flash. It would not take a genius lawyer to claim that a driver appearing in court was lulled into a completely false sense of speed by all of these badly under-indicating  <cough> "road safety" speed indicator boards.

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