using new stuff
Mon Jan 13 23:00:00 EST 2020
I think I'm going to like the new light once I get used to it. I keep wanting the beam to be more focused. I spent a lot of time adjusting its height on the ride home tonight. (When I mounted it Saturday morning, I pointed it rather low to keep it out of drivers' faces. But it needs to be pointed farther down the road.)
I don't have the remote in a good spot yet.
The gloves are not warm. It was 50°F/10°C when I left the office tonight, and they weren't keeping my fingers warm. Windproof? Not. But they look fairly visible. They may be OK for warmer weather.
The electric "bell" is missing the rubber/silicone band to attach it to the handlebar. Amazon apparently doesn't have a way to request a simple missing part, so I'll have to send it back for an exchange. (I'm not seeing replace/exchange as an option either. ☹) I find it ridiculous to send a package back and forth when the missing part could be just dropped in an envelope and mailed.
Tuesday 23:22
I have a better understanding of why it was so hard to aim the headlight: different brightnesses need different aim. Last night I got the light aimed well for full brightness. This does not put enough light on the near pavement on dimmer settings. If the light is aimed lower for lower brightness, it's wasting the brightest light on close-in pavement/ground when it's cranked up. I don't know that there's any fix for this - just finding the happy medium, and making do.
Maybe using the broad-spread lights for low power?
Wednesday 22:22
At low power, the broader beam does put more light on the close pavement than the more-focused beam. That seems to be the answer.
I plugged the battery in to charge tonight. It's done 3 trips home and a dreary trip in, and reported in the 40%-60% range. It can probably do a whole week of trips home if I keep it mostly at mid-to-low power. But I need to allow for occasionally using lights on the way in, too, when it's overcast and darkish.
Thursday 13:34
The rear shifting on the bike has been a little noisy, and it was particularly out-of-sorts yesterday. One of those things I've been slow to learn is that this is a cue that the cable is about to break. I took a look today and saw that about half the strands of the cable had broken. (And as you lose strands, that increases the stress on those that remain.) I've replaced the cable. This was also the time to replace the barrel adjuster, since the cable goes through it.
The adjuster would let me tweak things to account for cable stretch. (Like when the cable is about to break. ☹) There were 3 kinds in this last order. The one I was most sure would work still hasn't arrived. One of the others was very similar, although it was expecting to be installed at the shift lever, not on the derailleur. There's no place for doing that on my "bar-end" levers, but it fit right in where the existing adjuster was. I'm not sure how the old one got so battered up, but it is also frozen (rust? corrosion?) - won't unscrew to adjust, so it's useless.
Thursday 23:04
Arlington had pre-treated some roads when I left for work. There is a little snow in the forecast tonight.
I've felt a little guilty about recharging my bike lights at the office. I feel less guilty now; I'm using less electricity than other people are wasting. I'm one of the few who turns off my monitors. Most desks have 2 monitors. I walked around the room before I left tonight. There were 70 monitors on. They're on all night. They're on all weekend. Some people aren't at the office most days. I think some of those desks aren't even occupied.
It was cold and very windy going home tonight. That front bringing the snow is pretty feisty.
I took the towpath home for the first time this week. (I rode in that way Monday, and it was muckier than I expected.) This was the new light's first use off road. The broad beam at mid power is good on the paved Capital Crescent Trail and the dirt towpath. The lower settings (25% and 10% (of half the LEDs) are much kinder to approaching traffic, although I thought they still looked pretty bright when I first mounted the light last weekend. Considering the weather, there was a surprising amount of traffic going the other way on the trail. (More often than not, I don't see anyone else.)
I may need to use the more focused beam, or more power. I overtook pedestrians twice, and was much closer than I like before I could see them. One had a backpack with a reflective strip; I could see it a long way off, but he was really close before I could see that it was a reflector on a person, not a deer's eyes. (Those reflect quite a ways off, and the deer just stand there because they feel safe in the park.) The other pedestrian had dark clothing and nothing reflective. I was very close, swerving around a fallen branch, before I saw him.
Right after I left the CCT for the towpath, someone overtook me on the CCT. He must have been coming up without a headlight, since I would have seen the light in my mirror. Maybe he thought my light was plenty for both of us, before I left the trail.
[This entry was originally posted as https://syntonic-comma.dreamwidth.org/1114598.html on Dreamwidth (where there are
comments).]
I think I'm going to like the new light once I get used to it. I keep wanting the beam to be more focused. I spent a lot of time adjusting its height on the ride home tonight. (When I mounted it Saturday morning, I pointed it rather low to keep it out of drivers' faces. But it needs to be pointed farther down the road.)
I don't have the remote in a good spot yet.
The gloves are not warm. It was 50°F/10°C when I left the office tonight, and they weren't keeping my fingers warm. Windproof? Not. But they look fairly visible. They may be OK for warmer weather.
The electric "bell" is missing the rubber/silicone band to attach it to the handlebar. Amazon apparently doesn't have a way to request a simple missing part, so I'll have to send it back for an exchange. (I'm not seeing replace/exchange as an option either. ☹) I find it ridiculous to send a package back and forth when the missing part could be just dropped in an envelope and mailed.
Tuesday 23:22
I have a better understanding of why it was so hard to aim the headlight: different brightnesses need different aim. Last night I got the light aimed well for full brightness. This does not put enough light on the near pavement on dimmer settings. If the light is aimed lower for lower brightness, it's wasting the brightest light on close-in pavement/ground when it's cranked up. I don't know that there's any fix for this - just finding the happy medium, and making do.
Maybe using the broad-spread lights for low power?
Wednesday 22:22
At low power, the broader beam does put more light on the close pavement than the more-focused beam. That seems to be the answer.
I plugged the battery in to charge tonight. It's done 3 trips home and a dreary trip in, and reported in the 40%-60% range. It can probably do a whole week of trips home if I keep it mostly at mid-to-low power. But I need to allow for occasionally using lights on the way in, too, when it's overcast and darkish.
Thursday 13:34
The rear shifting on the bike has been a little noisy, and it was particularly out-of-sorts yesterday. One of those things I've been slow to learn is that this is a cue that the cable is about to break. I took a look today and saw that about half the strands of the cable had broken. (And as you lose strands, that increases the stress on those that remain.) I've replaced the cable. This was also the time to replace the barrel adjuster, since the cable goes through it.
The adjuster would let me tweak things to account for cable stretch. (Like when the cable is about to break. ☹) There were 3 kinds in this last order. The one I was most sure would work still hasn't arrived. One of the others was very similar, although it was expecting to be installed at the shift lever, not on the derailleur. There's no place for doing that on my "bar-end" levers, but it fit right in where the existing adjuster was. I'm not sure how the old one got so battered up, but it is also frozen (rust? corrosion?) - won't unscrew to adjust, so it's useless.
Thursday 23:04
Arlington had pre-treated some roads when I left for work. There is a little snow in the forecast tonight.
I've felt a little guilty about recharging my bike lights at the office. I feel less guilty now; I'm using less electricity than other people are wasting. I'm one of the few who turns off my monitors. Most desks have 2 monitors. I walked around the room before I left tonight. There were 70 monitors on. They're on all night. They're on all weekend. Some people aren't at the office most days. I think some of those desks aren't even occupied.
It was cold and very windy going home tonight. That front bringing the snow is pretty feisty.
I took the towpath home for the first time this week. (I rode in that way Monday, and it was muckier than I expected.) This was the new light's first use off road. The broad beam at mid power is good on the paved Capital Crescent Trail and the dirt towpath. The lower settings (25% and 10% (of half the LEDs) are much kinder to approaching traffic, although I thought they still looked pretty bright when I first mounted the light last weekend. Considering the weather, there was a surprising amount of traffic going the other way on the trail. (More often than not, I don't see anyone else.)
I may need to use the more focused beam, or more power. I overtook pedestrians twice, and was much closer than I like before I could see them. One had a backpack with a reflective strip; I could see it a long way off, but he was really close before I could see that it was a reflector on a person, not a deer's eyes. (Those reflect quite a ways off, and the deer just stand there because they feel safe in the park.) The other pedestrian had dark clothing and nothing reflective. I was very close, swerving around a fallen branch, before I saw him.
Right after I left the CCT for the towpath, someone overtook me on the CCT. He must have been coming up without a headlight, since I would have seen the light in my mirror. Maybe he thought my light was plenty for both of us, before I left the trail.
[This entry was originally posted as https://syntonic-comma.dreamwidth.org/1114598.html on Dreamwidth (where there are
comments).]