autonomy

So, thanks for the tip. I had a long, crappy day at work yesterday and decided to do a longer-than-usual Wednesday morning ride and then work from home as I had no meeting scheduled. Just doing a loop on the regular roads in the morning didn't appeal to me so I decided to punt it and go to Haystack myself. Very fitting, because last night my daughter and I were looking at the sky and pointing out stars and planets.

I got up early and pedaled here to eat a fancy almond butter/homemade kumquat sandwich while watching the dishes do their thing:

I'm breaking every single bike photo rule there is and I don't care! The facility has two 'whisper' dishes installed to demonstrate the focusing they are able to achieve, you can see one of them in the top of the photo above my handlebar bag.



This thing was super-impressive


The long-range tracking dish gave me a bit of a show on the way down. It's impressive how smoothly and quietly it operates, save for the hum of (cooling?) machinery.


Frustration-free navigation thanks to my new $10 mount (same one LimeBikes use, apparently), an old phone, and OsmAnd. The screen visibility and battery life are terrible but I can deal with it for now and not pony up $250 for a dedicated GPS unit.

On the way back I started getting tired of all the cars whizzing by on 225 so took a bit of a detour on the Bruce Freeman. It's a very nice trail! Super wide, excellent pavement, all marshy, and I bet it will be beautiful in the fall. However, given the abundance of 'private property' and 'no trespassing' signs, one gets the idea that it took a lot of effort to cut through the opposition to get it built.




After filling my bottles in Concord I had a nice chat about technology of today and yesteryear with a retired math teacher and then all of a sudden we both had to split because the sky was starting to look like it was going to ruin our day.
Just a hair over 50 miles for me, which is a big ride for a workday but it's amazing how much you can do if you get up early (damn you, sleep!). It worked out well with traffic, pretty much no one was leaving Concord on my way in, and I was coming back after the peak rush hour on the way back. 99% of drivers were courteous, except for one very close pass and one lady that decided to pull out in front of me. Sometimes I wonder if the risk is worth it on such busy workdays.
There's a lot to be said about having a destination on a ride, and stopping at the destination to hang out for a bit. I need to do more of that.