Peder:

Wow, was this in Norway? Or does your father live in the States?

______________________________


rydabyk:

Outstanding! Is that the ONLY police cruiser for the town of Shalimar? I used to to have a '55 Bel Air four-door sedan. It was painted that horrible dark green color that they seemed to have so much of after the war, and it still had the original wheels --- that same green color --- with the stock hubcaps. Looked like your typical 1950's Dad's Car.

However, under the hood was a different story. It had a 327 with a big cam and a two-deuce manifold. I bolted a set of glass packs directly to the headers, so that the exhaust was only a couple of inches from the pavement. You could lug the engine down nice and low, so the whole exhaust filled up with gas, and when you tromped on it the flames out of those mufflers would leave a scorched area on the pavement about the size of a manhole cover. The transmission was a three-speed out of a Chevy Nova. Can't remember what the rear end was.

(sigh) Just one more car I wish I'd held on to.

My father lives in Norway the whole family moved back in 1970.
There are many classic cars from the USA and from other countries here.
On a recent Sunday ride I passed over 50 old cars in the same direction they where riding slow. They had a meeting place were they had to turn off the road and then it went really slow.
I have never passed so many cars before some were very old some of the drivers commented my P 52. I didn’t know about this event but many people were out taken pictures some even took pictures of me!

Peder

Walt:

Chevy Nova's were land going rockets! The engine and transmission in my '55 Bel Air were out of the same car; which had met the same fate as yours. Luckily, nobody was seriously hurt in the crash that ended the Nova's life. Lucky for me, too, I blew up the engine in my '55, I didn't wreck it.

____________________________

Peder:

I have a buddy who was stationed in Germany right after his Vietnam tour. He has always said how surprised he was by the number of American muscle cars on the road in Europe where gas prices have ALWAYS been astronomical.

Right after I pass that nifty old Nash, I enter another set of mature neighborhoods, riding another mile or so before the road curves around to the right and I have a choice of two directions to go. Just after the curve, on the left, is Option 1:



This underpass goes beneath the freeway. The path on the other side winds around through the neighborhood and then climbs up to merge with another canal road. This is the route I take if I have plenty of time in the morning. There are usually a lot of bicyclists and pedestrians here so it is not wise to go flat out through this underpass and along the path on the other side.

If I'm late or just want to get more exercise on this commute, I continue on the road around the curve and see Option 2:



If you look at the white, bike path lane marker over on the right, you see that the road climbs slightly, then dips down a bit, climbs a bit more, levels off, then breaks into a pretty steep climb at the end. This is the biggest “hill” of my ride. My gosh, with my fully loaded panniers and rack bag, I have to drop down to around 12 mph! Whew!

At the top of this “hill,” I turn left onto the same canal road as Option 1. I go northwest on the canal road, down beneath the freeway through another underpass where I reach the top speed of my ride to work: 23.3 mph. Although this option adds almost a quarter of a mile to my commute, it is actually faster than the other one because I am always on a straight road where I can spin up as fast as I wish to go.

Just after the underpass for Option 2, the canal path comes up and meets the Option 1 path right here:



Once again, I have a great route free of traffic for about a half a mile. At the end of this stretch, I am at a complex confluence of multi-use paths and main arterials which used to be the most dangerous part of my journey.


Next up: Part 8 – My Recumbent Saves the Day

There was another meeting of old cars http://www.fvn.no/bilder/article676684.ece
There was also some motorcycles of different ages that meet not so far from me http://www.agderposten.no/article/20090614/LOKAL8/608295789/1004/ABONNEMENT
Klikk ( Se bilder fra veterantreffet her.)

Peder

BluesCat,

Your commute looks to be a great ride. I see that people park cars in Bike Lanes in your neck of the woods too!

Walt

Peder:

Terrific pictures, man.


Walt:

Yeah, and I've started noticing citations under the windshield wipers of some of them, especially down around the high school I pass on another route. The gendarmes are discovering it is a nice, productive thing to do as they wait for the kids to come roaring out of the parking lot.

In the last picture of Part 7, if you look over on the other side of the canal, you see another paved multi-use path. That is the path I used to take when I first started commuting to work over a year ago. I knew the path I follow now went through an underpass up ahead, and I thought that there was no way to cross the canal and go straight north at the intersection coming up; I thought I had to continue going northwest until somewhere far out of my way. Here's the intersection that multi-use path empties into:





This is looking back south-southwest. The rear windows of these two cars line up pretty well with the seat back of my EZ Sport and point to the last post of that black iron fence. That is where the multi-use path I used to follow empties out onto this very busy road. It isn't really too busy in the morning, when I am coming towards the camera in the above picture; maybe three or four cars I have to wait on before I can cross here to continue north. But in the afternoons it is a nightmare where you have to play Frogger in order to get across. It usually took me about 5 to 10 minutes to get across here.

Well, that was when I was riding the Giant Yukon, hunched over the handlebars and not able to look around and – most importantly – UP a bit without getting a crick in my neck. On the very first day I rode my recumbent, I was sitting in this very spot, taking a slug of water and preparing to take my life in my hands. That is the first time I saw that sign, on the other side of the road, just above the roofs of those two cars you see in the picture above. Here, let me blow it up for you:




Yes, a major WTF moment.

An UNDERPASS? Yeah, sure enough, you ride in the direction of the arrow, and make a right just before you cross the canal, this is what you see:



Yes, right in the middle of this picture you see a bridge which crosses the canal. When you cross the canal bridge, and turn left, to the southeast, this is what you see:



Dead center of this picture is that underpass which goes beneath all that traffic I used to have to challenge on the roadway above it. If it were not for my EZ Sport with its relaxed view and the ability to look up and around, I may have never seen the sign and would have continued risking my life every day I commuted.

But that's not all! If you turn directly left in the above picture, cross back over the bridge, cross the bike path, cross a canal service bridge and turn around, this is what you see:



The canal service bridge is directly in front of you with the canal bridge in the background. If I turn to the right in this picture, I follow this little, paved service road/multi-use path through the back parking lots of some apartments and then along some quiet, residential streets and arrive here:



This is where I spend 40+ hours of my week as IT support for a medium sized civil engineering firm. My company sponsors discount memberships to a gym which is literally right across the hall from our offices. (The gym also has a contract with the resort hotel next door for their guests to use the facilities. Supposedly, there are all kinds of celebrities who use it, but I have yet to have an “OMG! That's so-and-so who stared in the film Whatchamacallit!” moment.) To take a shower after my morning ride, I park my bike in an empty, secure conference room and have a walk of less than twenty-five yards to the showers.

Hope y'all enjoyed my slide show/travelogue.





Always on the lookout for improvements in my route, I have discovered a road which follows a faster route and avoids the Mall Tour. It also takes me through an upscale residential area where there are urban horse farms and multi-million dollar homes. There are supposed to be celebrities in that area, too, but once again I have not run across any.