A new tool for cycling

I was told to check out www.mapmyride.com and began playing around with the online tools they offered. I did the free registration and created maps of all my frequent rides and then some other ones that I was thinking of doing. The software is easy to use and has nice mapping features and elevation data. I'll be using this again for sure! Now if I could only afford a Garmin 406 GPS to map my mountain bike rides...

Drive carefully, be seen when you ride!

Just a reminder: Watch for cyclists on the road. My entire family was almost completely wiped out two days ago while riding to get Ice Cream. My wife with our oldest son and myself with our youngest son were riding the shoulder on Rte302 when a driver decided to beat traffic and cut the left hand turn onto a side road by driving down the shoulder of the road on the wrong side of the road! He swerved to miss us while going 45+ mph and then made the turn and pulled over to apologize. We were still in shock but managed to ask him to be a safer driver.

The next day someone I know collided into a truck when the driver decided to brake, signal and turn all at the same time. The driver admitted that he was just chatting with a friend and had no idea that there was a cyclist near him. Fortunately the rider is OK, just scrapes and bruises. The bike's front wheel is toast and the bike was scuffed with some battle scars. People are much more precious then bike parts and cannot be replaced. The 3000lbs of moving steel always trumps the bike in an accident, so we all need to remember to pay attention. We are supposed to be responsible when we drive around in these heavy machines. OK, rant is done, please resume normal blog...