Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2005/05/21

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Subject: [Leica] Cell phones redux- two wheels good
From: telyt at earthlink.net (Doug Herr)
Date: Sat May 21 07:42:34 2005

on 5/21/05 2:04 AM, Nathan Wajsman at nathan.wajsman@planet.nl wrote:

> ...on bicycles!
> 
> One summer in Switzerland, I rode my motorcycle to the Gotthard Pass. On
> the way up I passed several cyclists and was very impressed by the fact
> that a seemingly sane person would subject himself to a 17-km climb. On
> the way down I was riding conservatively--it is a curvy mountain
> road--not exceeding 80 km/h. At one point I was passed by a BICYCLE!
> 
> Nathan
>

Maybe I should mention bicycling on Mount Diablo...  when Adam Bridge and I
went to Reed's last year in Walnut Creek for the DMR (on topic!) demo we had
some time to spare before the demo so we took a drive up the mountain.
Rising about 3800' above the surrounding east bay area communities, it's the
highest point in the region; from the summit on a clear day you can see
hundreds of miles, even into Oregon and Nevada.

The road to the summit is narrow and winding and I believe Adam's car was
totally in its preferred habitat.  On the way down the mountain we saw
several cyclists headed up... straining hard for headway up the road, sweat
running off their clothes (or was it runoff from the rain?), and each one of
them had a silly grin in anticipation of the ride down.  Hard to believe
that several years ago I made the same ride, regularly.

The ride down the mountain is a BLAST!  Not once in the half-hour from the
summit to the north gate did I have to pedal the bike.  Brakes smoking, eyes
popped open in terror, screaming the whole way down (perhaps I'm
exaggerating), once I reached the north gate entrance to the park my only
thought was "that was GREAT!  Let's do that again!"

Doug Herr
Birdman of Sacramento
http://www.wildlightphoto.com



Replies: Reply from bonvini at optonline.net (Jay) ([Leica] Cell phones redux- two wheels good)
Reply from rdcb37 at dodo.com.au (Rick Dykstra) ([Leica] Cell phones redux- two wheels good)
Reply from tedgrant at shaw.ca (Ted Grant) ([Leica] Cell phones redux- two wheels good)
In reply to: Message from nathan.wajsman at planet.nl (Nathan Wajsman) ([Leica] Cell phones redux- two wheels good)