Month: April 2003

Concrete Parking Stops

You know those 6″ high things that are there to prevent you from pulling to far in? Well because of the lowered stance of the Miata I have to be very careful how close I pull in and park anywhere. This one snuck up on me in a restaurant parking lot. It was the first in a line in the middle of a run. The usual visual clues were misleading as the car to my left could actually pull up closer because of the staggered shape of the sidewalk. Fortunately this one was short enough that it only scraped the bottom of the spoiler on the way in. On the way out, because that was now against the shape of the spoiler it made an ugly noise, but didn’t do any more damage. Luckily all these bits are made of flexible space-age polymers, if they had been custom fiberglass parts I’m sure shards of my front end would still be lying there in the parking space.

Rolling Party

We were in western Georgia to follow the Tour de Georgia professional bike race. We used to do this back in the early/middle 90s for the Tour DuPont in North Carolina and we were looking forward to doing it again. Our plan is to try and catch the race as it passes by in one or two spots then heading to the finish line to see the riders come in. Today’s plan was to drive south and catch them near Franklin, leapfrog around them to see a sprint in Cedartown, leapfrog again and end up in Rome for the circuit finish.

Our timing in Franklin was near perfect. We were the 4th car back when the State Troopers shut the intersection in front of us. The riders were going to the left and our escape route was back the way we came in. We got out of line and parked in a local eatery’s parking lot. Donna and I picked a good spot near the apex of the turn to watch them come around that curve. While we waited we chatted with a fellow from Rome who had talked the local paper into letting him cover the race as a freelancer. As it turned out our spot was about a 100 yards after a feed zone for the riders and after a while he headed down there to try and get a picture or two. Pro racers don’t pull into a country store and get a bottle of Gatorade like we do on a Club ride, each rider gets a bag with water bottles of water and/or fruit juice, some power bar things and/or the snacks of their choice. They ride right by, while team support members hand them a little bag while they pass. The riders then take what they want and ditch the rest. Apparently it is good fun to try and toss this stuff near spectators as they pass because they make nice souvenirs. Here I am looking through a viewfinder trying to take pictures and all of a sudden water bottles and mussets start landing around my feet with splats. I felt a little like one of those guys in those old western movies that the gunslinger fires bullets at the ground near him and says, “Dance.” We picked up three bags and about 7 water bottles to take home. After they passed we went in to Buddy’s where we parked and had some lunch. Figured that was the least we could do for parking there. Besides it would take a few minutes before the traffic would clear. Donna and I split a fried catfish dinner and it was pretty darn good.

Because we had a sit down lunch we were going to be too late for the sprint in Cedartown, so we just headed up the road to Rome. About the time we got into town, just as they were closing the streets, it started to rain lightly. The rain only slows the cyclists a bit on turns, nothing stops these guys. After zigging and zagging around the closed roads we finally made it into downtown by blind luck and ended up parking just a block or two from the finish line. There was a three lap circuit around the streets of Rome before they actually crossed the finish line, so we would get a few good chances to see the racers flash by. While we waited for the rolling party to arrive we checked out the festival area near the finish were they always have sponsor booths and a souvenir stand and of course the jumbo TV for watching highlights of yesterday’s stage. At the Tour DuPont (or France) it would have real time race coverage, but this is only the first year, maybe after this Tour is established they’ll get that too. After we watched the racers do the initial pass of the finish line, Donna and I then made our way towards the Clock Tower to see these guys struggle up a mean assed little hill that we learned about earlier. I don’t know what the grade was but it looked like a climb of about 100′ of elevation at about a 50 degree angle. These guys are awesome machines who usually average near 30 miles an hour for a 130-150 mile ride, but they were reduced to 8 or 9 MPH by this bump in the road. We even saw one rider resort to tacking up the hill like a weekend duffer.

Because it was still raining we didn’t stick around much, we just headed back to our hotel in Cartersville about 25 miles away. Fortunately the cable was back on so we could check the Weather Channel to see that tomorrow looked like a nice sunny day for the riders (and us spectators) in the mountains.

Purchased Today: $12.25 in gas
Money spent since 03/03/03: $118.82
Started up, went down, went up, back down, back up, still up.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 61

A Modified Echelon

Right after work, we packed the car and headed west, destination, Cartersville, GA. We started with the top down. Kept it down, but put the windblocker on for Donna’s Interstate drive as it was starting to cool off. When I picked up the driving again about 60 miles outside of Atlanta we put the top up as it looked like we were coming to rain. Of course it started to rain at dark, at about the time I started to navigate the dreaded I-285 loop around the big city. On Atlanta’s beltway there are at minimum 5 lanes of road in each direction and at 9:00 PM on a Thursday night they all are quite busy.

I was traveling in the middle lane at around 70 to keep all my options open and ahead I noticed the back of a Miata with one tail light out, first one we had seen in the first 150 miles of our journey. As we got closer Donna said, “Hey, there is a Miata.” About that time I noticed in my left rearview mirror the distinct light signature of a set of barndoors approaching in the lane to the left of me. Almost at the same time as I pulled along side of the one-tailighted Miata, the other one pulled along side of us. I tooted the air horns and got a beep-beep from my right. As the three of us rolled down the road in a modified echelon for a moment we passed a 4th Miata in the extreme right lane. The Blue Angels had nothing on us, too bad it wasn’t a bright sunny day so we could have acknowledged what was happening and drove like that for a while longer.

We arrived at our hotel and base of operations for the next two nights at around 9:30 after 230 miles (and no other Miata sightings.) A brief storm had just passed through the area knocking out the hotel’s cable, but we didn’t care we were tired and just went to bed.

Purchased Today: $0
Money spent since 03/03/03: $106.57
Started down, went up, still up.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 57

How’s This Work Again?

After living with the 4-Way Stop at the end of our street for 6 days and having passed through it a couple dozen times I have come to the conclusion that people here in Aiken don’t know how a 4-Way Stop works. It is not just because they are unfamiliar with this particular one, they just plain don’t know how to deal with one. As a public service here is the section on 4-Way or Multi-Way Stops from the South Carolina Driver’s Manual:

Another situation is at an intersection where all streets have stop signs. When this occurs, a sign reading “4-way” or “Multi-Way” is added to the stop signs. A motorist arriving at the intersection must yield the right of way to motorists who arrived before him, waiting his turn to enter the intersection. If two motorists arrive at the same time, if on different streets, the driver on the left should yield to the driver on the right; or if on the same street, a driver desiring to turn left should yield to the driver from the opposite direction.

This is one of those things that is remembered long enough to pass the test and then forgotten if you never use it. This may be part of the problem, my wife and I racked our brains trying to locate another 4-Way Stop in town and couldn’t do it, Aikenites never get to practice this art.

RADIOIO II

To listen to the free stream with Windows Media Player you need a plugin called Abacast. Tried installing it here at home and for whatever reason it doesn’t work. The low band (mono) mp3 stream is still there, but I can’t listen to mp3 at work because it uses an IP address and the network weasels have blocked access to anything with just an IP. In searching for a replacement I found something really close, Radio Paradise, and there stream is stereo. They are also listener supported and if I can get the stream at work I will consider donating something to the cause.

Test Mule

I removed the flasher from the third brake light today. I’m a test mule for a device that a friend is going to make. It addresses the big complaint that everyone over on Miata.net has with the flashing 3rd light, incessant blinking. This thing has a small circuit board with a couple of components on it, so that it flashes real quick for 5 times and then burns steady. It takes a minute to reset to flashing, so if you are in stop and go traffic it always burns steady after the initial 5 flashes (unless you sit for more than a minute without applying the brakes.)

While I was at it I took off the instrument hood and drove around the block a couple of times. There is a squeak in the dash on bumpy roads that goes away when you press on the hood. My hood is only held on by the 2 screws and only one of the three snaps so I thought maybe a replacement hood would fix the problem. As with any squeak, it’s not that easy, even without the hood it is still there. Got to be somewhere deeper in and when I press it stops a lot more than the instrument hood from vibrating. More trouble shooting is required.

Purchased Today: nothing
Money spent since 03/03/03: $96.63
Started down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 54