29 September 2009

Find Your way

Finding Way #1
If your gps-equipped cell phone runs out of battery, you may want to use one of these ancient methods:
Look at a map, or...
Finding Way #2
...ask a friendly local.

17 comments:

  1. Actually, to me it happens very often the other way round: pedestrians and car drivers ask me for directions while I'm waiting at a red light :-).

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  2. ". . .car drivers ask me for directions. . ."

    OK, you take your next left, then a right. That'll put you on the bikeway. Go about 2k and there will be a little shed on your right. Take the next left to get back onto the road for a bit and . . .

    Oh, you mean you want to take your car? Go figure. I'm not sure you can get there from here.

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  3. Are you still having "sandals-and-short-skirt" weather?
    That's the final straw, I'm emigrating!!! Be with you very soon...... :-D

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  4. @weather: No, but until a week ago it was ok. This morning it was 10 celcius...

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  5. What *really* amuses me is when a motorist asks me where there is a gas station nearby. I know I pass by them all the time, but where they are is a totally irrelevant detail that I never file away in my mental map, somewhere on the level of where certain pieces of discarded paper are languishing on the sidewalk...

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  6. Now that I've paid attention to the pictures those are two lovely bikes in the second one: one for its red and green paint job, and the second one for its swooping crossbar, the basket platform, and the bunched spokes on the wheels. Any idea of the make, Mikael?

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  7. When I ride, I try to leave the map behind - it can be a distraction, as I end up stopping to look at it too much. This is especially true with mt. biking. We just ride and ride and ask for directions when we absolutely have to.

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  8. @ kiwehtin

    The other day I had a couple of touring cyclists stop me and ask where there was a gas station so they could get some air - and I really wasn't sure.

    @ Andy

    If I used maps I'd only know the dozen or so direct routes to the places I usually go, instead of having seen every road in three counties. Many of those roads turned out to be very pretty.

    Although it does seem to disconcert some people when they ask me what route I'm going to take and I reply something like, "I'll point the bike east. When I hit water too big to ride through I'll reorient."

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  9. @kiwethin: From my full size version of the shot I can see it is a Batavus Cambridge.

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  10. Oh how i should be a friendly local right there... :P

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  11. Looking at that, i feel envy (can't find a better word*)...
    We are so far from that here in Brazil... I mean.. to use a bike so "naturally"!

    :-(((


    *Like jealous in a good way!

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  12. I love bike maps! San Francisco's bike map is topographical, shows all of the bike lanes and routes and even has markings for bike parking and bike shops. It is wonderful!

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  13. ". . .and even has markings for bike parking . . ."

    Ooh, that might be handy. Around here though it would basically be an otherwise blank sheet inscribed, "Here there be dragons, and if we're lucky they'll eat the cyclists."

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  14. Ah, jaaaa, het is een Batavus! I suppose if I had stayed longer in the Netherlands than four months, I might start to recognise the brand. (I can pick out a Swedish Kronan, though!)

    Thanks Lars! I hadn't realised Mikael wasn't doing the postings at the moment.

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  15. That's a lovely lady at bottom right. Her bike has a hefty front rack. But what's with the go-faster aero spokes?

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  16. Oh, that's what they are...? I just thought they looked rather nice and were done that way simply for the visual effect.

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  17. I guess you could say they look a little like flower petals or something.

    Anyway I bet it's just because she's going so fast, the spokes turn into a blur!!

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