Tag: data

#365daysofbiking Everything counts

March 7th – It’s time for the periodic traffic survey in Walsall, and the sheer number of traffic counter units fitted across the borough’s roads is causing some comment on social media.

They aren’t sinister at all: By law local authorities have to take traffic counts for planning and other reasons and like most councils now, the work is deputised to a specialist contractor.

These Metrocount units – that use the familiar, traditional rubber air tube and pressure switch technique are surprisingly sophisticated and the manual for them was found online by The Stymaster – you can read it here.

I crossed at least eight between Brownhills and Darlaston. Just setting them all up and gathering them back must be a mammoth task, let alone analysing the data…

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December 15th – The magic numbers are important, so very important.

This is the data page of my bike GPS, the screen where I keep the figures important to me while riding – distance, battery level, time, average speed and all that geeky stuff. Top right number though, is sort of a mirror of the one bottom right; daily sunset time and sunrise.

Today, 3:52pm. This should, hopefully, be the earliest it gets. From now on, the sunset gets later every day (although the sunrise continues to get a wee bit later). This number is one of my small motivational yardsticks that get me through winter and this figure has several notable points; but none is more significant to me than this.

By January, it will be after 4pm again. It may be weeks away, but the darkness will be retreating, and spring will be tiptoeing in.

Today, as I wheeled the bike indoors from another wet commute, the raindrop-dappled glass glowed at me reassuringly in the darkness, and I knew in that instant that so very nearly, so very close now, so soon I will have beaten the advancing darkness for another season.