Last week I wrote about my initial impressions of the CYCLIQ FLY6 taillight/camera. Yesterday I wanted to check out some trails on my Pugsley. I realize the intended purpose of the Fly6 may not be to record rides in this manner. But I had a reason for recording this ride. The Minnesota Dept. of Natural Resources last year put out a policy on where fatbikes can be used. Good on them for getting ahead of any potential crisis due to the explosion of fatbike interest. The policy essentially banned fatbikes from snowmobile trails. All the trails I use in this ride are trails I’ve been riding with my Pugsley for 10 winters. The first five winters I never saw another fatbike rider. All the trails are multi-use at other times of the year. All trails are in the city limits of Duluth, Minnesota. My contention is that the trails can be shared. In ten years of riding, the most snowmobiles I have seen on any ride up to 3 hours in length was 22.  Most of the time it’s less than 12. Those are very small numbers for trails set aside for a single use.

This ride was 2 hours in length. It was 14 miles long. All but 3.5 miles was on snowmobile trails. I was passed by a total of three snowmobiles. All 3 were at the end of my ride in video #12 between 1:00 and 2:16 below.

I don’t expect anyone will watch all 2 hours of footage here. But hey, if you’re bored and really need something to do, have at it. It was unseasonably warm in the mid-20’s Fahrenheit. The snow cover was minimal for this time of year. The trails were not groomed or compacted very well. The surface was loose and soft.

 

 

Those readers that remember my old cycling blog know I wrote mostly about my bicycle commuting lifestyle. They may also note there has been none of the usual bicycle commuting photos or stories. The reason for this is partly due to the timing of starting this new blog. At the same time I have also been going through a job change. I left a job I had held for nearly 14 years. Time for a change. I started a new position last week, it’s part-time for now.

During the 14 years of employment at the previous place I had developed a routine for my daily commutes. I had also grown from a 2 or 3 season fair weather commuter to a car-free ride every day no matter what mother nature had in store for me kind of commuter.

I had a secure place to lock my bike outside at work. I had a spacious low traffic restroom to change clothes in and clean up. I even had a place to hang my cycling clothes to dry while I worked. I had talked the maintenance guy into putting up four coat hooks on a wall at the end of a lightly used dead end hallway. It had excellent air circulation.

I had what I described as one of the most scenic commutes in the Upper Midwest.

The commute was 7 miles long. I started each day with a 1.5 mile climb up to Skyline Parkway. Then the next 4.5 miles was low traffic and incredibly scenic. I watched sunrises, the seasons change, wild life (deer, foxes, porcupines, skunks, squirrels, and even 2 black bears over the years), ships come and go from the Port of Duluth, the St Louis River (the worlds largest fresh water estuary), and of course views of Lake Superior. I marveled at how Lake Superior never looked the same. It has many moods and endless shades of colors.

My commute was always the best part of my day. I’m going to miss that commute.

My new job is in the cluster of buildings below in the above picture. It is only a three mile flat commute with the exception of a two block long hill leaving and arriving at my home address. After having the same routine for so many years, I’m finding it difficult to re-imagine my commute routine. I’m having a hard time finding a secure place to lock my bike. A bike I payed a lot of money for because I had a secure place to lock it up at the old place.

After experimenting for a few winters with finding clothes I could both ride and work in, I discovered it didn’t work for me. I’m a heavy sweater in any temperature. A full wardrobe change was the best solution for staying warm while on the bike. At the old place I had a place to change and a place to keep my clothes during the day. My new job has no convenient place to change or keep personal items. I come in, punch a clock, pick up a “key” for a company vehicle and head out into the field.

For the first week I’ve been utilizing mass transit, our city buses, to get me to and from work. This is an OK solution until I figure a new routine for commuting in the cold. With the help of another employee I did find a satisfactory place to lock up my bike. In fact, two places. The first is in the maintenance shop. Although the maintenance guy comes in very early and sometimes leaves earlier than I do. The shop is only unlocked while he’s there. Option two is a covered loading dock platform with a sturdy steel rail fence I could lock to. It’s also the “smoking area” for some employees. I think it’s the best option.

A plan is slowly coming together. Eventually I hope to be bicycle commuting to and from work once again.

 

A few weeks back I was at my LBS, Twin Ports Cyclery, and they had this new product in. It’s the CYCLIQ FLY6. It’s a rear LED blinky light with a built in HD camera. The owner wanted to get some feedback on how it works. He offered to let me try it. At first I turned him down. I’m not always that interested in all the new technology out there. After thinking about it for a few days I went back to the shop and asked if the offer was still open. It was. Home it went with me. The box sat for over a week. I also have a brand new smartphone, my first smartphone. So I had a bit of new tech toy overload. I tend to procrastinate over learning how to use new stuff like this. Without access to a teenager, I can never get this stuff to work for me.

Today I had the day off from work. I thought I’d better get this out and see if I could get it working. I’ve been keeping the bike shop in the dark about how it’s been going with this item.

After all my worrying about having to figure out how to use this it only took five minutes to get it up and running. I charged it up earlier. So all that was left was to connect it to my desktop computer to set the time and date. Then mount it on the seatpost of my bike. All I needed to do is pick the correct seatpost mount, slide the light into the mount, and then use two rubber straps to attach it to the post.  A power button on the side of the light turns on the light and the camera. A second button changes light modes. The camera and light are either both on or both off. It has 6 hours run time. The camera shuts off automatically  when the battery gets low giving you about 1.5 hours of run time left for the light. At 30 Lumens the light is very bright and rivals most other LED blinkies out there.

When I got home I connected it to my desktop computer. The video automatically uploaded. It uploads the files in 10 minute segments. If you rode for an hour, then you’d have 6 video files from your ride. Each file overlaps from the one before it and after it by about 5 or 10 seconds.  It couldn’t be easier. I wasn’t sure how to post it to my media, so I uploaded it to YouTube. Here’s two segments of video from my ride today.

In the first one watch for the women on the left side of the road 12 seconds into the video. Keep in mind it was 20F/-7C degrees outside today. She’s in a t-shirt doing tricks with a hula hoop.???

If my drivetrain in the video sounds unfamiliar to you, it may be because it is a Rohloff IGH Hub.

This next segment shows off my mad descending skills starting around 42 seconds in. I pass by my LBS at 4:45. It’s on the right side of the picture:

Overall the quality of video was much better than I expected. It’s designed to be good enough to read license plates. It’s fairly stable considering the rough roads I was riding.

I never thought I’d want or need something like this. But after one day with it, I’m sold. I learned drivers are giving me more room than I thought they were. It gave me a strange sense of security knowing that if someone was being a jerk I would have video proof of it. And just think, if the general population knew about this rear facing camera/light, they may think twice about harassing anyone on a bike with a blinkie light. Because they would know they might be recorded. It also caused me to think back to a local bicyclist that was hit from behind a year and a half ago. He survived, but was knocked unconscious and had some injuries. The driver left the scene and there were no witnesses that came forward. He had a hefty hospital bill. I keep thinking if he had this camera he would have the whole thing on video. The hit and run driver could have been caught. Something to think about.

For the record I did not buy this item myself. It is on loan from my neighborhood bike shop.

I managed to get in a little time on the trails after work today. The sun was setting and the light was flat in the woods. Hard to see all the contours in the snow. Or where the soft spots met the firm spots.

After a week of bitter cold we had a day time temp in the double digits, 11F/-12C degrees. Even the windchill was above zero this afternoon at 1F/-17C degrees. After a stretch of below zero weather, these temps felt downright pleasant.

The trails you see here are in Brewers Park. A section of new mountain bike trails built only one year ago. They happen to be on a wooded ridge directly above my neighborhood.

The view from the trail looking east towards downtown Duluth, the Harbor and Lake Superior beyond. This was taken only minutes before sunset. The last light of the day. Another good day to be out. And again I had the trails to myself.

Happy Riding