Brewster

Friday evening, the start of Memorial Day weekend, was my third annual ride from home to Brewster on Cape Cod, via a fast ferry from Boston to Provincetown. The bike setup was based on the century 0f the previous weekend - for example, the fenders were still on. I added the big headlight and the relatively new Garmin HCx GPS.

As you may recall, I broke our previous GPS on a long ride last year, apparently from vibration through the handlebar mount. That was disappointing given that I used a handlebar mount made by Garmin, exactly as intended. This time I was determined to be more conservative, even though the new unit appears stronger than the old. I decided upon a couple layers of vibration dampening before the handlebar mount. First, I moved it to the end of my (carbon) handlebar so the length of this tube can deflect a bit to absorb bumps. My hands and upper body help dissipate shock and vibration here, especially when I'm "in the drops" as I am most of the time. This vibration dampening is the main reason I use a carbon handlebar. After that, I attached the GPS outside the foam handlebar tape, so the tape itself is a cushion. On the tape I mounted a short extender piece, which then had more handlebar tape on its tip, then the Garmin handlebar mount. And I tried not to compress any of the handlebar tape more than necessary, so the foam would retain its softness.

I left home after work and made good time down to Cambridge. I started the GPS as I approached the end of the bike trail, but it was unable to acquire satellites as I rode. At the end of the trail I stopped the bike and restarted the GPS, while I reworked the GPS mount. (It proved too loose on one layer of handlebar tape, so the whole unit kept flipping upside down.) The GPS locked normally this time, and I continued across Cambridge and Boston toward the ferry dock. One segment of the trip is still a puzzle: the bumper-to-bumper stopped traffic in front of the museum of Science - this time I tried the leftmost lane for a while, and that worked pretty well, but the sidewalk is likely the fastest route if I were willing to ride it.

My hopes for the new GPS included improvements in the routing algorithm. Both old and new units have a mode for "bicycle", but the old one didn't seem to act much different from "car" mode. Around a mile from the ferry dock the new GPS gave me a different turn from last time, evidence of algorithm progress! I landed at a security kiosk I'd never seen before, in front of a beautiful arch reading "World Trade Center". The route is already more scenic! Immediately after passing the arch, though, I found why I'd never seen this before: I was two floors above ground level! Rather than explore, I walked down polished stone stairs with my bike, stepping gingerly in my awkward bike shoes with their metal cleats. I'll take the old route next time.

After a quiet ferry ride, I started the second part of the ride as the sunlight waned. In Provincetown, the GPS periodically tried to divert me to Route 6, instead of the quieter 6A I've used before. The good bit of preparation I did included putting last year's route on the screen of this new GPS, so I could compare it with the GPS advice. (The bad part of my prep was neglecting all forms of paper maps and instructions.) After I merged with 6, the GPS started finding little zig-zag roads to divert me from 6. This must be a new "bicycle" algorithm - it was nuts. Route 6 is not very bad (PMC uses a lot of it), and it's obviously faster and smoother than the side roads. It's also pretty obvious that zigzags are not a safety enhancement since most of them require crossing the highway. After I figured out what was happening I just used the 2008 route and stayed on 6.

It was dark when I reached the transition to the Cape Cod Rail Trail, roughly my halfway point on the Cape. This was a lovely ride like last year, though very different in character because the weather was great this time. Here I turned off the GPS routing entirely, leaving it as a map only, and I turned off my other beeper too. No more gadgets or cars, just trees and wildlife - this was delightfully peaceful. A line of radio towers looked like an alien invasion as I neared then passed through the plane of their aircraft warning lights. I chased a coyote, rabbit and raccoon along the trail. The rabbit was the only foolish one - it veered away from my path then reconsidered and jumped high in the air in front of me. A quick stop prevented impact, but I can't figure out what it was thinking. Why not wait till I'm past to cross the trail? Maybe it recognized me as a mountain biker and offered me a bunny hop salutation?

This segment ended quickly too, and the ride was done. I've been buying water between P'town and the trail head, but from now on if I'm on this year's pace I'll skip that.

I concluded the GPS is vulnerable to vibration, preventing its lock on the bike trail. While it worked fine after lock, this makes me nervous that something is moving inside the unit, perhaps the antenna. This sounds like a recipe for metal fatigue, so I'm going to try to figure a way to give it yet more isolation from vibration. Ugh. Also, next time I'll try the "car" routing algorithm instead of "bicycle", and then constrain it to minimize highway use, etc.