{"id":2033,"date":"2010-12-22T19:59:20","date_gmt":"2010-12-22T18:59:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ravenfamily.org\/sam\/?p=2033"},"modified":"2010-12-22T19:59:20","modified_gmt":"2010-12-22T18:59:20","slug":"engage-photon-drive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.ravenfamily.org\/sam\/2010\/12\/22\/engage-photon-drive\/","title":{"rendered":"Engage Photon Drive"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"avatar\"It’s always the same at this time of year. The snows come, drivers behave like a pack of lemmings infected with the Rage virus, and I do the sensible thing and leave my car at home. I get to work by bike.<\/p>\n

“LOON!”<\/p>\n

Yes. That is the usual response. As it happens, I feel safer on the bike. It’s smaller \u00e2\u20ac\u201d at the end of the day I can throw myself off the bike onto the verge and drag it with me if I have to. I can get off and walk. More to the point, I can manhandle it around in a way I can’t do with my front-wheel drive Ford Mondeo estate, which, in these conditions, behaves like a river kayak on a sea crossing. Once it goes it goes and there’s no stopping it.<\/p>\n

Winter cycling has its own precautions, of course. There’s triple insulation required and I even wear a lid for commuting because I’m more likely than normal to come a cropper involving a sharp fall sideways onto a kerb at low speed, the only incident for which a cycle helmet is really designed<\/a>; and, more importantly, because it keeps my woolly hat on my head.<\/p>\n

The other thing, of course, is visibility. While I refuse to dress in shades of radioactive custard, I do like the shiny. Spielberg Close Encounters Award several years running, don’t you know.<\/p>\n

This year Fingal is rocking two CatEye LD610s<\/a>, two LD170s<\/a> and a Blackburn Mars 4<\/a>, while I complement the ensemble with a pair of Fibre Flares<\/a> on my backpack and some green rope light, just for the lulz. Up front we have a four lamp cluster comprising two Lumicycle heads offering around 50watts of in-your-face halide splendour and a couple of EL400s<\/a>, because you can never go wrong with an Opticube. With a set-up like that, there’s no point in hi-viz, although I do have some reflective bands at wrists and ankles for the confusion effect (and signalling).<\/p>\n

I took this picture on my way home tonight, outside Real Foods<\/a> on Broughton Street, one of my favourite Edinburgh shops. I love the surreal colours of the evergreen on the shopfront, the Christmas decorations and Fingal’s frankly bonkers lighting.<\/p>\n

\"Warp<\/a><\/p>\n

If anybody knocks me down and says “Sorry Mate, I Didn’t See You” I may have to punch him on the nose.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s always the same at this time of year. The snows come, drivers behave like a pack of lemmings infected with the Rage virus, and I do the sensible thing and leave my car at home. I get to work by bike. “LOON!” Yes. That is the usual response. As it happens, I feel safer […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,83],"tags":[150,104,68,37,103],"class_list":["post-2033","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cycling","category-transport-cycling","tag-cycling","tag-edinburgh","tag-fingal","tag-transport","tag-winter"],"yoast_head":"\nEngage Photon Drive ~ Singularity<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ravenfamily.org\/sam\/2010\/12\/22\/engage-photon-drive\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Engage Photon Drive ~ Singularity\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It’s always the same at this time of year. 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