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Eye test
Here's a fun eye test:
http://home.comcast.net/~carlfogel/download/eyetest.jpg The picture shows the items listed far below. They're lying on a smooth black plastic notebook in a well-lit room about 18 inches from a shaded 100 watt bulb. One of WalMart's finest $15 digital cameras was used to capture enough detail at 8 inches that you can make out the heads on the dime and penny, as well as the blurred "LIBERTY" on the left of the penny and the blurred "1977" on its right. See if you can identify which objects some people claim only careless or near-sighted riders fail to avoid while riding at 10 to 40 mph (15 to 60 feet per second). Decide for yourself how often and how successfully you swerve to avoid such debris, dangerous or otherwise. Remember, you can't avoid them all on a cracked asphalt bike path or marked shoulder only six feet wide, littered with sand, pebbles, leaves, and so forth, particularly if lots of light-colored pebbles were included in the asphalt mix. A blink, sneeze, or sideways glance would probably cause you to miss spotting them (much less avoiding them) at 20 mph (30 feet per second). And it's a good idea not to be too close behind another rider--it's hard to see these little devils through his backside. 6 goathead thorns (the 6th may be hard to spot) 2 elm seedlings (they're covering the roads here) 1 piece of a twig 1 locust tree leaf 1 wicked-looking, but harmless unidentified seed 1 whirligig leaf 2 pieces of glass extracted and saved from flats 2 pebbles larger than others extracted from flats 1 2mm spoke elbow 1 knurled Presta valve stem retaining nut 1 rusted bicycle chain pin 1 toppled green plastic Slime Presta valve cap 1 upright black plastic normal Presta valve cap 1 #5 lead sinker 1 #15 Eagle Claw fish hook 1 1-inch wood screw 1 Sara Lee Premium Bakery Bun sesame seed no sand, although there's plenty of it on my roads no cactus (never had a cactus flat) no long-burr thorns (harmless) no 9mm shell cases (occasionally spotted) Feel free to submit guesses in any form. Can you spot all 6 goatheads? If there's enough interest, I'll post the answers. For anyone curious, here's a clean, classic goathead posing on a dime like a Playboy model on a bean-bag chair: http://home.comcast.net/~carlfogel/d...d/Goathead.jpg For foreign currency holders, a dime is about 18mm, and a penny is about 19mm. Real goatheads rarely choose shiny, well-lit backgrounds and are often dirty, dark, and rounded down except for one deadly spine. The six in the picture were obtained from the soles of my sneakers after a fifty-foot walk, so they're warranted to pierce 700c tires. For fun, plant an object resembling any of the 6 goatheads somewhere on a 15-mile ride and offer to buy a friend dinner to spot it. Somebody will get a good meal out of it. Happy squinting! Carl Fogel |
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#3
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Eye test
wrote: For anyone curious, here's a clean, classic goathead posing on a dime like a Playboy model on a bean-bag chair: http://home.comcast.net/~carlfogel/d...d/Goathead.jpg I'll never be able to see *either* of those things without thinking of the other, now. Curse you. But yeah - on my commute, I'm lucky to spot that new unsigned 30mm steel plate sitting in the road, as I peer forward among the cabs ans streetcars. |
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