Sunday 18 October 2009

Today's ride through the countryside


I went along for the huneliggers ride this morning. The others at the start place were returning to Groningen by a fairly short route, so Peter and I rode back to Assen together in our Mangos.

It's been getting colder. When I rode to work this week it was -3 C at the beginning. However, this morning it was 2 degrees above freezing, and the sun was shining nicely. Very pleasant, especially in a velomobile so the cold air is kept off you.

I've lots more posts (and videos) of the huneliggers in action.

Read my review of the Sinner Mango Velomobile.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

How early in the morning are you riding? Or is it late afternoon? The sun seems pretty low.

How long a distance do you travel to the meeting place?

David Hembrow said...

We start at 9:30 - 10 am, so not particularly early. At first in the video I'm riding at about 9:45 on my way to the start which is 12 km from home.

kfg said...

Anon: "The sun seems pretty low."

I don't know where you are in the world, but one of the annoying things about winter in the northern latitudes is that that the Sun never gets very high, not even at noon. Go far enough north and it never even clears the horizon.

The Netherlands are at the same latitude as Labrador and the southerly reaches of Siberia. That's far enough north that at midwinter standing on an east-west street lined by two story buildings you'd never see the Sun at all. It would be too low, even at noon.

There's still a couple of months until the Solstice, but the daylight is already hours shorter at each end and the Sun is quite noticeably lower in the sky at all times than it was a couple of months ago. At the Solstice the Sun won't even rise until about 8:15 AM and will set about 4:15 (16:15) PM.

Zyzzyx said...

You're too modest about your speeds. Even as a Quest pilot I'd be working to cruise at 23-25mph as you showed.

But then, I've seldom got a truly flat place to ride. That, and I know you've got many more miles/year on the bike than I do, I look forward to riding through the winter and being a stronger rider next year.

Also, I've noticed that folks tend to not use the foam cover for the Quest/Mango, unless its really cold. Me, I'm using it when temps drop to mid 40s (~7C).

Overall, nice lil' vid, and I'm so pleased to see you enjoying the Mango.