Kenny's Blog of Greatness

Tank 304 - Two Clicks, So Close

2012-01-26T12:43:00.001-05:00

Probably the coolest thing about today's refueling at the Wawa near my office is that the first click stopped right exactly at $37.00. But since my process is to squeeze the pump again until the second click, I squoze the nozzle and then the second click shut the pump off at.... 11.001 gallons!

That's pretty close to 11.00, so almost two clicks stopped at totally round numbers.

Anyway, I managed to go a long 444.7 miles on the tank, so my mileage was 40.42 mpg, a high for the young year and more than 10% better than my last tank.

Many of my commuting trips on this tank were spent behind tractor trailers, at a safe distance of course. Some of these drafting experinces were at much higher speeds than I normally would go by myself in the car (72+ miles per hour behind some of the trucks), so it's likely that some of the mileage gains were negated somewhat by the additional speed.

The Delta Touch Faucet is Still Terrible (With Video Proof)

2012-01-25T06:56:00.001-05:00

So last night I was finishing up the dishes, quietly suffering the Delta Touch faucet's fussiness.

If you get the water temperature right, it's not coming out hard enough to do any good. If you get the pressure right, it's too hot or too cold.

And the freaking spray will splash all over the place and make the whole area wet and sprinkled with water at any pressure worth using.

So as I'm finishing up with the last pan, the spray feature obviouslt splashes up and some warm water lands on the faucet and this happened:

This was going on for long enough for me to 1) find the camera, 2) find the battery, 3) get back to the kitchen, and 4) STILL record 43 seconds of this horrible malfunction.

Imagine struggling with a horrible faucet like this every day.

Please don't make this mistake, people! Spend less money on a regular faucet and be happy instead!

Rain and Slick Ice Ruin the Weekend!

2012-01-23T13:25:00.001-05:00

Bad news is that Saturday was an icy washout of a day that halted my bike riding plans.

Good news is that Friday's commute home wasn't bad at all, and that I got to go out for almost an hour on Sunday, on the old yellow bike.

A short work week this week, and my friend John might be up for a long ride on Friday morning while all out kids are in school.

I'm 5 hours down, and it's looking to get worse this week as I have meetings in the afternoons that will preclude my healthy wellness rides.

Forecast: Slippy, Icy Rain

2012-01-20T12:53:00.001-05:00

Well, I'm entering the weekend down about four hours on the bicycle, and the weather may not cooperate very well to let me catch up some time on this deficit here.

This week, however, I learned that the plans to move the office from here to ten miles closer to my home have been advanced, and now it appears that the move will be happening at the beginning of September and not the end of September as I originally thought.

I think the move will reduce my daily total commute time by at least 40 minutes, which would be about three hours and twenty minutes per 5 day week. Seeing on how I've carried a four-hour deficit for two consecutive weeks, I think I can conclude that I'll chip away at least three hours against the commute total each week after the move.

So instead of being all bummed out at the ever-growing red portion of commuting time, I'll remain calm and optimistic that the move in September will be the beginning of the time that the green biking part will grow and hopefully surpass the red car part.

If I get motivated enough, I might take my spreadsheets and fill them with dummy number estimates based on historical data to see how it might pan out.

Tank 303 - 18 January 2012 (Worst Mileage of the Year!)

2012-01-18T07:33:00.001-05:00

So this morning I refueled at the most convenient gas station to my house. Yes, I stopped at the Fas Mart, home of the world's second-slowest gas pumps, at o'dark thirty, after going a mere 405.3 miles.

When the low fuel light lit at 381.7 miles yesterday, my suspicion that this would be a bad tank was confirmed. I put 11.036 gallons of gas in there, making for a fuel economy for the tank of 36.73 miles per gallon. Yuck!

I don't know exactly what I did wrong to achieve such mediocre results. But I'm ashamed. When I changed the oil last week, I noticed one of the little plastic covers underneath the front of the car had gotten loose, so I duct taped it back into place, as the little plastic connector piece went missing. I was hopeful that that would have improved things, since the plastic cover thingie was no longer flapping in the breeze as I drove.

Alas, my driving efforts for this tank were not rewarded with great mileage that I have come to expect from myself and this car.

However, so far I am averaging 11 days between tanks of gas for the year, which is a new record if it holds up.

On the bike ride vs. commute front, I am excited to be able to go out on a ride today. The weather report calls for wind gusts up to 30 miles per hour, so I hope to be going in the right direction when that happens on my "healthy wellness" bike ride this afternoon.

Finally, there appears to be a nearly abandoned little girls bike in my neighborhood. There's a sign on it, and from the pieces I can read as I drive by, I think that if nobody takes it by the weekend, the guy's going to take it to the dump. It looks like the bike is in decent shape. So I'm going to collect it on my way home today and fix it up and give it to our church yard sale in April.

So I guess this is step 1 in becoming the crazy old bike repair guy. There are worse things I can envision myself doing as I approach my golden years...

Cold Weather Kind of Hinders Bicycling Time, Commute Has a Comfortable Lead.

2012-01-17T07:25:00.001-05:00

If only my New Year's Resolution was to compare my commuting home times with my bicycling times, this graph would be always more green than red.

But common sense and fairness dictate that commuting time should include trips both to and from the office, so the chart will likely be skewing red for the foreseeable future.

I had a super ride on Saturday morning of two and three-quarters hours and forty miles, and I got to see a whole lot of the surrounding area near my house. It was cold, and I misremembered the distances of some of the roads I took, so the ride was longer than I anticipated. When I got home, my toes were very cold and it took many minutes to get them warmed back up by tucking them into the air register as the heat was blowing. Other than that, my layering was wildly successful in the 30 degree temperatures outside.

I skipped Sunday but went for a ride again yesterday morning. It was even colder, about 20 degrees in the morning, and I only lasted about 70 minutes and about 16.5 miles. But I managed to take down a fair number of ugly signs along the side of the road, so I got to do that. Again, when I got home, it was my toes that fared the worst. The little piggies were even colder than the big ride from Saturday.

Today it's a little rainy and I will be attending a doctor appointment this afternoon, so no ride for me. The appointment is after lunch, so I'm leaving work and going north. I suppose I'll start the "commute home timer" as I pass by the office on the way home from the appointment. That seems fair.

An unfortunate place for facebook to truncate a longer posting...

2012-01-12T13:32:00.001-05:00

Thursday Morning Update (If Only I Tracked Just the Trips Home!)

2012-01-12T07:38:00.004-05:00

I expected the early pie charts to favor the commute, but if it continues to be this much of an advantage, my three months of a shorter commute to end this year just won't be enough for the bike riding to catch up!

If my trips to get to work weren't included, this chart would be slightly in favor of the bike riding: 479 minutes vs. 443 minutes. And it likely would remain in favor of the bike riding for the entire year, so it wouldn't be a challenge.

Happily, this is my last work day of the week and it's going to be a four-day weekend. Unhappily, it may snow/ice tonight to make for a difficult ride tomorrow. I'm going on a "healthy wellness ride" at work today for about an hour, but then will drive it home.

So when I get home today, it'll be about nine hours biking/fourteen hours commuting. And over a four-day weekend, I'll probably be able to get five hours of biking in. So next week it'll likely be back to a 50/50 split.

I think this is how the effort will go for the year. The car commuting will pile up during the week, and I'll valiantly try to catch up and ride more on the weekends. The days are getting longer, and the sun is rising earlier each day so I'll be able to get out earlier each Saturday. But there will be some weekends where I won't be able to ride for 2+ hours to help in this effort. I know in May I'm going to a graduation, and in June I'm going to a wedding.

But then again, in April I might ride a century ride, which will take at least 6 and probably 7 hours, so that'll make up for a Saturday or two as well.

And I can't forget that I'm still less than two weeks into the new year, and this is a year-long effort.

Let's Go, Bike!
Let's Go, Bike!

It's the Bike, by Two Minutes!

2012-01-09T06:53:00.001-05:00

Yesterday morning I went out on a bike ride, but cut it short and came home after 46 minutes. Just for grins, I had installed my old 8-speed cassette with my new chain, and sure enough, it skipped in the gears I used most frequently, just like everyone said.

My choices were to suck it up and accept the skipping and chattering whenever I pedaled with more than gentle force, or use the biggest gears and smallest gears, as they didn't chatter, but that worked up to more cross-chaining than I really wanted to do.

And I immediately started thinking the worst- that every little skip and chatter of the new chain would immediately screw it up so that when I got home and switched back to the new 8-speed cassette the new chain would be totally ruined and I'd be compelled to start new again.

So I got home before my mind exploded from the painful thought exercise. I'd gone ten miles on the new chain/old cassette combination, and immediately (8:15 in the morning) took off the old cassette and put on the new one again. I don't plan on riding a "healthy wellness" ride today at work (It's supposed to rain, and I'm a wimp), but I will tomorrow, since it's due to be sunny and warm-ish.

Thus, my weekend bike ride efforts were truncated, but happily it turns out that I had ridden just enough to keep the bike riding ahead of the car commuting: 423 minutes vs. 421 minutes. This was primarily on the strength of a two-hour and sixteen minute ride on Saturday morning, where I covered just over 34 miles. It started out near freezing, but warmed up to about 45 degrees as I enjoyed the country roads of Spotsylvania and Caroline Counties. Plus, I found three pennies in an intersection.

Tank 302 - 6 January 2K12 (It Took Two Gas Stations This Time)

2012-01-06T07:49:00.001-05:00

So this morning it was dark and the Mighty Corolla had gone 438 miles, so I stopped at the Sunoco near my office. I'd gotten gas there before, but the pump was acting up. After a minute of squeezing the handle, only 0.041 gallons has trickled into the tank. Fourteen cents worth. I lost patience and drove down the street to a Mobil station. Happily, gas was about ten cents cheaper per gallon there, so thank you Sunoco for having a broken slow pump!

So the Mobil pump was a little faster and I put in 11.160 gallons there, making for a total gas input of 11.201 gallons for the 438.4 miles I had gone. And thus, my fuel economy turned out to be 39.14 miles per gallon.

I'm pleased with this result, because several of my commutes on this tank were following tractor trailers at unreasonably high speeds, for me anyway, of 70 to 75 miles per hour. So drafting at high speeds seems to result in fuel economies similar to driving granny style in the slow lane.

Meanwhile, I am driving to and from work every day this week and haven't ridden my bike any more. I hope to change that today and go out for a "healthy wellness ride" after lunch. And hopefully manage a couple good rides over the weekend. Then next week's a four-day week and a four-day weekend.

Early Swing Towards Car!

2012-01-05T12:59:00.001-05:00

I fully expect, well hope, really, that this is just a factor of it's been cold and windy this week and I haven't ridden my bike for "healthy wellness" purposes at work yet this year, and I can't again this afternoon because I have a meeting with a guy at the place so I won't be able to ride again today, so tomorrow this chart will be even more skewed towards the car.

But perhaps I can bring the bike to work tomorrow and ride it before I go home. That'll help. And then I'll have Saturday and Sunday for some long rides- it doesn't look like it's going to be rainy for a while, and night time lows will stay above freezing.

I think this will be the format for the chart. It's got the easy visual pie chart, and a good summary of the supporting data.

My prediction is that the car will have a slight advantage for most of the year, but the bike portion will slowly make gains starting in October, as my office is moving closer to home at the end of September so my commute will take less time. Indeed, the worst part of the commute will be gone, the part that sometimes takes 35 minutes to go ten miles.

So now the challenge is so totally on.

I really hope the bike wins!

Commute vs. Bike - Chart Test

2012-01-04T07:45:00.001-05:00

So I have my Excel spreadsheet all set up so all I need to do is enter my travel times for each item I'm tracking this year- commute to, commute from, and bike ride- and this snappy pie chart adjusts accordingly.

Right now it's just showing the relative proportions of time and nothing else.

But I have lots of data: times (of course) but also number of each ride, average time for each ride, and well I guess that's it for now.

Who thinks that's a good idea? I do.

Mostly today is a first try to get the pie chart into the blog post in an easy way for me.

As the year goes on, probably within the next week or so, I'll get the pie chart to look better with more information that will seem helpful

This was only a test. Except with actual data.

Tank 301 - 27 December 2K11 (End of Year Round-Up and 2K12 Preview!)

2011-12-28T08:00:00.001-05:00

Yesterday I refueled on my way home, at the Stafford Wawa. I had gone 441.4 miles, and the tank accepted 10.924 gallons of gas, making for a quality mileage of 40.41 mpg. It was my 39th and likely final tank of the year.

The Corolla's gone 16,757.5 miles this year, which turns out to be about 2,000 miles fewer than last year, but about 700 miles more than the year before. So about average. It averaged one tank every 9.51 days, with an average fuel economy of 38.19 miles per gallon for the year.

That's better than the advertised fuel economy of 35 highway, like 9.1% better!

Gasoline apparently was an all-time high cost, at an average of $3.356 per gallon over the course of the year.

I spent $1,475.30 on gas. This works out to $37.83 per tank, or about 8.798 cents per mile (not including maintenance costs like oil changes (I performed three or four this year) or tires (I don't think I bought any tires, but I might have) or wiper blades (I bought some of them) or anything else. I think I had something done in the late summer but have since forgotten, but I have the receipt for it).

Looking forward to 2012, I may need to get a front wheel bearing replaced. I described the sound to the guy at the car shop and he said it sounded like a bearing may be worn irregularly that makes the odd humming noise that goes away when I curve left.

Also, my office is moving to be roughly 12 miles closer to my house. I had 201 commutes home in 2011. When the office moves at the end of September, there will be about 45 commutes from that location. This will reduce my commuting miles by about 1080 miles for those three months, so close to 4,000 over an entire year.

Overall, the Mighty Corolla is doing its job well with few problems.

I'm looking forward to 2012 where I'll not only track my mileage and length of time it takes me to drive home each day, but also my time to drive to work each day and the time I spend riding my bike (using the same rules I use when determining my time driving home), so I can track if I spend more time commuting in my car or riding on my bike. I think it'll be really close and a fun thing to track over the course of the year.

End of Year Traffic?

2011-12-27T14:57:00.001-05:00

Well, I-95 frommy office to my home is pretty much showing up as a red and black stripe for about half of the way. Fortunately, US Route 1 seems to be green and yellow.

From this, I conclude that I-95 is filled with holiday travelers who aren't aware that Route 1 is an acceptable alternative during heavy-traffic conditions.

Also it's raining cats and dogs outside.

Tank 300 - 15 December 2K11 (The Best of Tanks, the Worst of Tanks)

2011-12-19T09:38:00.000-05:00

I refueled the Mighty Corolla on my way home last Thursday afternoon, stopping at the Wawa in Woodbridge, near my office. I had gone 421.3 miles, and probably could have driven home without any problems, but I was concerned that traffic would bad and I'd be sitting and not moving for a long time, and in those situations I grow painfully stressed out about running out of gas.

So I put in 11.392 gallons of gas, which made for a fuel economy of 36.98 miles per gallon for the tank, which isn't that great, but given my recent streak of stellar mileages, it's okay. Plus, my recent habit of "never getting gas at the same pump twice" has, I think, supported my argument that pumps shut off at different sensitivity levels.

Indeed, last tank the fuel gauge was down 1/4 tank at about 100 miles, and this tank I've gone close to 100 miles so far and the gauge needle is barely moved down a little over 1/8 of a tank. If this trend continues, the current tank will result in a great mileage, which will make this tank seem less horrible, and add to my theory that different pumps shut off at different times.

I am a big liar. But not on purpose (most of the time)

2011-12-15T11:25:00.001-05:00

I'm going to get more gas for the Mighty Corolla today. And there's 7 more commuting days left in the year. If I drive extra-miserly, it's about 450 miles more, so conceivably I could make it without another tank, but probably I'll need to gas up again on the 28th or 29th.

But it will all work out.

I discovered a major flaw in my goal of riding my bike more than I commute in 2012, and that is that my bike computer stops the timer when I am stopped on my bike. When I am out on my one hour bike ride at work, the timer usually reports back 42 to 51 minutes of riding, because there are a few long stoplights I must wait for.

My commutes home count the entire trip, including traffic and stoplights.

Simple solution, though, is to look at the clock at the beginning and ends of my rides and keep track of time that way, so there's more of a direct apple to apple comparison.

This will make my biking time seem longer in the data collected. But I still anticipate it will be a close race throughout the year.

Tank 299 - 7 December 2K11 (Hypermilers Do It Granny-Style!)

2011-12-08T08:32:00.001-05:00

Refueled on my way home last night at the Sheetz near Central Park (which is neither central nor a park). The Mighty Corolla had gone 444.2 miles and the pump at Sheetz, following the practice of stopping at the second click, dispensed 11.298 gallons. The second click happened much earlier than I had thought it would, but the rule is the rule.

So my mileage was 39.32 miles per gallon for the tank. The average mileage for my last five tanks is currently 40.06 mpg, eclipsing my previous-best (and four-yrar-old) record of 40.03 mpg, set in October 2007.

I went 15 days between tanks this time, a feat unseen since July when apparently I went on vacation.

I enjoyed at least two commutes on this tank where I managed to draft behind (at a safe distance and reasonable speed of about 60 miles per hour) tractor trailers.

It's remarkable to note the difference in sound levels when driving behind a tractor trailer compared to driving behind nobody. The wind is drastically reduced. At least in the Mighty Corolla, the sound level reduces considerably as well.

Looking forward to the rest of the year, it's likely I'll only get one more tank of gas before the end of the month, which will be my 38th tank for the year, to match my current low of 38 tanks set in 2008. However, this will be my most expensive year for gas, as I have spent $1,404.35 on gas for the car so far this year.

2012 ought to see these stats reduce, as my office is scheduled to move closer to my home in September. And I hope to ride my bike to and from work during those last three months, to the extent that I can. And I hope to use more vacation days to reduce my trips to the office even more. Well, just a couple more days than this year, but every trip counts and makes a difference.

Fantastic link?

2011-12-06T12:11:00.001-05:00

http://thechart.blogs.cnn.com/2011/12/05/smoking-can-make-your-nipples-fall-off/?hpt=hp_bn10

Tank 298 - 22 November 2K11 (It's Better than a 7-11, it's a 5-12!)

2011-11-28T08:09:00.002-05:00

(not my real face)

I wimped out and refueled on my way home from work last Tuesday. I was about 15 miles from home and the tank had already given me 447.2 miles when I arrived at a "5-Twelve Market" in Stafford. The eccentric pump at this eccentric store deposited 11.412 gallons of gas into the Mighty Corolla, making for mileage of 39.19 mpg for this tank.

So now my average fuel economy for the year is a strong 38.13 miles per gallon. It appears the duct tape on the front lower bumper has improved fuel economy to some degree as well.

Looking at the calendar, I am not going to be driving to work for a full five-day week now until 2012. This should help reduce my driving and spread out refills. Probably I'll refuel twice more this year.

I'm looking forward to next year's goal of "more time on the bike than in the car commuting," but have forgotten (well, "forgotten" is a strong word, since I haven't forgotten, just not paid much attention to it because I'm on schedule) about my goal for this year, which was to ride my bike on at least half of the days of the year.

Considering the goal for the year, I have ridden on one of my bikes 196 times. Nine of those times were "double days," meaning I did two trips in one day that counted, so even subtracting those days from the account, I have ridden my bike 187 days of the year so far. So, mission accomplished with a month to spare!

For the year so far, I've ridden almost 3,537 miles. Around October, I thought it would be cool to reach 4,000 miles for the year, but it's looking like the remaining 463 miles may be a tough chore to finish, as Christmastime is here and there will be more competition in my free time, with all the social activities and such that happen around here. Plus there will be at least one 4-day stretch where I won't be able to ride at all. So in the 29 remaining days, if I can ride on half of them (14 or 15 days), each ride would have to be 30 miles.

Unlikely. Achievable, but unlikely.

I am permitted to ride for three hours per week at work, and typically those rides end up being 45 minutes and about 13 miles each time out.

Still, I'll try to reach 4,000 miles, probably won't make it, and that's okay. It's been a fine year with lots of good rides.

And only one flat tire!

Probably No Gas This Week (If You Know What I Mean)

2011-11-21T07:40:00.001-05:00

So it's a short holiday week this week and I'll likely not refuel until perhaps 28 November, one week from now. In the meantime, I can only report that commutes have taken a long time and mileage indicators appear to show less than 40 mpg but not abnormally low.

I've been working on three spreadsheets to track my commuting time and bicycling time in 2012. I have them all on a nice Excel spreadsheet with a little pie chart that automatically updates with the hours commuted vs. hours ridden on the bike. I am trying to figure out the best way to save the chart so it can be uploaded here in an easy way. Maybe the blogger has a chart option I can make and add to the side here or something. There's time to research it and figure it out.

Probably it's just me who's interested in seeing if I can log more time on my bike than in my car commuting next year. But I'll have the data here and it'sll be a nice distraction and interesting to me, anyway.

Tank 297 - 13 November 2K11 (These 4-Day weeks are Killing Me!)

2011-11-15T07:19:00.001-05:00

I refueled the tank of the Mighty Corolla on Sunday afternoon at the nearby Fas Mart, whose gas pumps have no limit as to how slow they can pump. Maybe they just never change the gas filters in the holding tanks or something. Yet I still go there as it's quite convenient.

So I had gone 419.8 miles and added 10.572 gallons, making for a fuel economy number of 39.71 mpg. My wild hopes and aspirations for a three-peat streak of tanks of over 40 miles per gallon was smashed. But that's okay, as this tank still brought up my average for the year to over 38 mpg. It's shaping up to be the highest mileage year ever for the Corolla, and that's not too bad for a car with over 117,000 miles on it, I think.

So I have driven over 15,000 miles so far in 2011. It's a lot, but last year at this time I had driven 16,994 miles, so I have actually cut back! And nect year is looking to be even better as my office will move about ten miles closer to my house, which will save 20 miles a day, or 80-100 miles a week, or 360 miles a month, or over 4,000 miles over the course of a year. Except we're not moving until probably the end of September, so the impact may not be seen until 2013.

Looking forward to my goal of "riding my bike for more time than I commute in my car," I am up to about 183 hours driving home in my car, and about 215 hours riding my bicycle. But this is just for the drive home, not including my commuting time on my way to the office. It's a safe bet that my commuting time to the office is at least half of that 183 hours. It will be a great challenge to spend more time on the bike than commuting in the car. When the office moves in September, the game will be so on, as my home trips ought to be about 30 minutes shorter and my trips to the office should be about 20 minutes shorter.

Alternatively, I could try to take more vacation and/or sick days to reduce the number of times I go to the office, and ride my bike for "a couple/three hours" on those days. Perhaps this will happen. And also, I have tentatively planned a century ride in May with a friend, and if I can ride a second one later in the season, that'll be a large swing of hours towards the bicycle as well.

I'm looking forward to this effort in 2012.

Objects at Rest Tend to Stay at Rest

2011-11-10T08:09:00.001-05:00

This morning, I stopped by the ATM to withdraw some cash. There were two machines there, a sidewalk of maybe 8 feet wide and then the parking lot. A car was stopped right at the curb and was running as I arrived. A fat woman stood at one of the ATMs.

I parked in a parking space and turned off my engine. My walk was perhaps 50 feet to the open ATM.

This scenario really got me angry! There's people everywhere who complain about gas prices being too high, but these same people are the ones who leave their engines running for several minutes as they wait for people or, as in this case, go to the ATM. And this woman's fatness just added to my frustration. She probably (well, I hope that she) is aware that her fatness could cause health problems and makes it hard for her to walk around, but she couldn't make the connection that a little walking would be helpful as exercise.

I was so angry at the whole situation I could barely contain myself.

There I was, 6:30 in the morning. It was dark, a pretty much empty parking lot at the strip mall, only one other person in sight, and she got me all worked up in anger about my shallow conclusions about her and her fat lazy lifestyle.

I am so in the wrong here it's probably not funny.

Maybe she has a medical condition that causes her metabolism to operate slowly. Maybe she just had hip replacement and can't walk more than a few steps. Maybe her ill grandmother or child was waiting in the car and needed the engine running to keep the life support or air conditioning or heat running or something.

Instead, I immediately assume that this woman is fat because she has no self-control over her horrible eating habits, and is too lazy to walk ten extra steps to the ATM, and too stupid to realize that an idling car is using the gasoline that she feels is too expensive at $3.299 a gallon!

The older I get, the more bitter and judgmental I become. It's sad and pathetic and shallow of me and I need to fix this about myself and my attitude.

But fat lazy people, really? Don't they realize how fat and lazy they are? Can't they take little steps, literally, to start improving their situations? Do they really enjoy being fat and lazy?

Oh, I am the worst person of the most hypocritical and vile sort for posting this baseless rant against people I don't know. I need to reassess my priorities and goals in life here, and must learn to accept other people as they are and not be so quick to judge harshly.

In the Middle of a Tank, but I Got This Great Picture.

2011-11-09T12:30:00.001-05:00

Mostly I am excited that a sign like this was up in a public park where I was visiting in-laws last weekend in North Carolina. It was near the ground level, although a dog probably couldn't read such a sign.

Tank 296 - 2 November 2K11 (A First!)

2011-11-03T08:10:00.001-04:00

Refueled on my way home at my most favourite gas pump at my most favourite Fas Mart!

The low fuel light came on as I was driving home, at 433.7 miles, which is the longest distance ever traveled before the light came on, eclipsing my previous record set in 2008 by two miles!

When I refueled, I had gone 461.3 miles, and I squoze in 11.314 gallons of gas, making for a fuel economy of 40.77 miles per gallon for this tank. This is my 14th tank of over 40 mpg, and the very first time I have achieved mileage over 40 on two consecutive tanks of gas!

This tank has also pulled up my average mileage for the year to 38.05 miles per gallon, an all-time high as well. If I can maintain this level, I'll see an improvement of close to 3% better fuel economy this year over last.

Although the jury is still out concerning the effect from the duct tape over the bottom vents in my bumper, it's looking like the duct tape isn't harming my mileage.

Please enjoy this picture of a hipster squirrel I have included with this post.

Bumper Still Duct Taped Looks Like Success, but GPS MapMyRide Fail?

2011-10-31T09:58:00.001-04:00

As I drove into work this morning, the fuel needle for the tank was right at the halfway point at 267 miles. This is close to what happened last tank and I got 41 miles per gallon, so either this is clear evidence that the duct tape is working, or that my driving style grannification is nearing completion.

It's supposed to be a nice day, so I brought my bike with me for an one-hour ride before I go home.

Last Saturday morning, it was 41 degrees, rainy and windy for my short ride. I brought the iphone with the "MapMyRide" feature activated. On this day, my bicycle computer reported 11.367 miles, while the "MapMyRide" said 12.01 miles. This appears to be a 5.6% difference in distance measured.

My confusion was increased when I was tripping through the settings of the "app" when I got home. First, I was happy to see (and activate) the "auto-pause" feature, which I suspect pauses the timer when I'm stopped at a traffic light. Second, I was super-excited that there was a "tire size" feature, and I quickly changed the tire size from 7005c. EUREKA! PROBLEM SOLVED!!

Later, I started to ponder things and realized that the iphone isn't connected to my wheels in any way, and that the speed and location information is taken from the GPS satellites, so there's probably no point in putting my tire size into this app. So I remain troubled at the disparity between my bike computer and the iphone "MapMyRide" app.

But on the good side, I was riding up a hill in the rain, and the asphalt was nice and new, and I was pedaling so hard and the slope was so large that I think I felt my rear tire slip under all my power. So I got that fun memory of riding in the bone-chilling rain.

I suppose my next step is to take my bike to a high school track and ride four laps with the computer and iphone on, and see what each says. I don't know if I can continue and stay in my right mond knowing that somewhere there is a truth between this 2-5% discrepancy between my trusty bike computer and new-fangled iphone app.