Tag: gps

March 19th – Things that happen when you’re not looking….

Sunday must have been the mathematical vernal equinox: When day and night are equal in length at 12 hours. Today, with sunrise at 6:13 and sunset at 6:17, the day was longer than night by four minutes.

Of course, the equinox isn’t as simple as that; there’s a full explanation on Wikipedia here and the true astronomical equinox, when the earth’s equator passes the centreline of the sun, occurs on Tuesday 20th March this year (2018).

This is another little milestone to longer, better days; with the coming of British Summer Time on Sunday next weekend, it will feel like summer is just around the corner.

Hopefully, the weather will oblige too.

January 22nd – Darkness is on the run.

Sunrise, 8:04 – Sunset 4:33. A month ago it was 8:18 and 3:53. On a decent day, it’s now not properly dark until gone 5pm.

This is making me happy. Every day, I note the tiny increase snatched back from the night, Every day, I’m a little bit closer.

Just shake this cold, get some flowers out, and it’ll be well on the way to spring.

November 5th – Oh, and this. Up on the Chase at Rifle Range Corner, a wee accuracy error.

Most of the fire gates on the chase have their OS grid reference stencilled upon them. Helpfully, my bike GPS also give me a grid reference. 

Checking with a paper map, they’re wrong, not the computer.

That’s a bit regrettable…

January 27th – That was a cold one, and quite a fun ride, too. Coldest for a while. Wrapped up well, the roads weren’t particularly icy but there was a hard hoar frost.

It was the kind of morning when your breath burns in your throat and your forehead hurts in the headwind, but still a joy to ride in for the sheer challenge.

All we need now is a decent snowfall and it’ll be a proper winter…

January 4th – it has been a temperate commute in the morning, spoiled only by ten minutes of rain, but it felt reasonable for first day back, but in the evening my return was a shock. Not dressed for sub-zero temperatures, and on a bike without ice tyres, I gingerly picked my way through lanes and backstreets chilly and nervous.

That’s the trouble with having time off; you need to sharpen your commuting game on your return, because you get out of the habit.

September 1st – As I arrived home in darkness, I caught sight of a critical milestone on the bike computer: Sunset was now taking place before 8pm. From now until November, the darkest will positively gallop onwards, and summer, with it’s warm and light evenings will just be another memory of a season passed.

How I hate the encroaching darkness.

March 17th  – Something interesting will happen between today and tomorrow. Thanks to the GPS based bike computer I use these days, I’ve been keeping an eye on sunrise and sunset times to measure the progress of the seasons. Today, the daylight will be just shorter than the night; by tomorrow, the day will be longer by about the same.

This is effectively the spring equinox – when day and night are equal length of 12 hours. This isn’t quite the astronomical equinox, which this year occurs on the 20th, but it’s good enough for me. 

Another milestone of the changing seasons and the ascent from darkness.

December 30th – As I noted ten days ago, the sunset was now advancing from it’s nadir of 3:53pm. Since then the figure – top right on the bike computer screen – has advanced to 4pm. We are winning the battle, the darkness is in regret – we’ve gained seven minutes, and the gains now will only increase. A reason to be cheerful.

I noticed yesterday in Chepstow the sunset was as late as 4:07pm. Maybe I should move south for the winter, like some of the birds…

Note one unchanged thing, though: The device is still spattered with raindrops.