2009 Beach Rides

A Week At The Beach

DATE ........ Dist .. Time . Averge . TotT . TotDst

THU 23 JULY . 49 km . 2:30 . 20 kph . 8:07 . 162.05

WED 22 JULY . 26 km . 1:16 . 20 kph . 5:37 . 113.19

TUE 21 JULY . 32 km . 1:36 . 20 kph . 4:20 .. 87.06

MON 20 JULY . 30 km . 1:34 . 20 kph . 2:44 .. 55.00

SUN 19 JULY . 25 km . 1:05 . 20 kph . 1:05 .. 25.00

Thursday Sister Laviece, cousin Sarah (cousin Genie's daughter) and I rode to the Fort Fisher Ferry, borded the ferry to South Port. At South Port we headed out of town and over to Oak Island. Once on Oak Island we biked down to the Oak Island Light, our turn around pont. A super ride. Sarah is quite a cyclists.

Wednesday Sister Laviece, cousin Leighton and I rode down to the Ft Fisher Ferry dock then turned around and road back to Kure Beach via the NC Aquarium. Laviece stopped at the cottage (she needed to do some paper grading) and Leighton and I continued to the end of the island via Dow Road then back to the cottage via US421.

Tuesday Sister Laviece, cousin (Rob) and I rode to Dow Road then on down the island to Snow's Cut Bridge, over the bridge and then onto River Road. This road parallels US421 all the way to Wilmington NC. W turned around at 15km and retraced our route back. It was a beautiful day for a ride and everyone had a grand time of it.

Monday Sister Laviece and I went to Fort Fisher first then then back to Kure Beach and down Dow road to Carolina Beach State Park then under the bridge to the boat launching location then back down Dow Road to Kure Beach.

Sunday Sister Laviece, nephew Zach and I rode right down US421 to downtown Carolina Beach then turned left toward Carolina Beach State Park. Then down Dow Road back to Kure Beach then on US421 south to the Fort Fisher and the Ferry Docks. Back out to the end of the island (END US421 the other end of wich I rode by bicycle past - lake Michigan - 5 years ago this month). Finally back to the cottage.

Here is a photo montage of the rides:

Le Tour (Stage Four)

This is why cycling is a serious sport.

More on Cycles

I think I got "this post on the Aphelion of the earth's orbit" mostly right. It really does not make a lot of sense to locate the latitude of this event. I think the more interesting one would be the latitude of Perihelion because that is when we are closest to the sun. Because of the disconnect between the solstice and these events it would be really interesting is to see what schedule these events are on to line up. So I started looking around and found there are (at least) three movement two of which have a cycle:

• The Orbital Eccentricity (a variation of the shape of the ellipse) and is a function of the gravitational attraction of all the other bodies in the solar system. When a body is at the extreme end of its ellipse it is said to be at Aphelion and when it is in its close end of its ellipse it is said to be a Perihelion. This value can be computed but I have not found a cycle associated with it.

• The Axial Tilt (a variation in the tilt from the orbital plane of the axis of rotation of the planet). Presently this is around 23.4 degrees and is on a 41,000 year period and is getting smaller which means the earth is pointing more upright as time progresses.

• The Precession of the Axis of rotation of the planet. (think how a gyroscope's axis describes a wobble as it spins). This is on a 25,800 year period. The north pole of the earth describes a circle of radius 23.5 degrees (equal to the axial tilt) around something called the ecliptic pole.

Aphelion 2009

Aphelion (When an object is at the 'long-end' of it's orbital ellipse occurs in 2009 for this planet at 0402UT 4 July (a couple of weeks after the solstice). Here is a link to a composite picture that of how large the sun appears in the sky at Aphelion and Perihelion. And again as we did for the solstice we can find the location on the earth where it was 12 noon. That would be line of longitude about 15 degrees east of where we found the solstice since this event occurs about an hour earlier than the time of day the solstice occurred. Doing the math we have 4 hours east of Greenwich is 60 degrees East (4*15=60). Then 2 minutes of longitude east of that line brings us to 60^o 00' 30" because there are 4 minutes of time for each degree of longitude that comes out to be 1/2 degree of longitude for 2 minutes of time. The graphic above is a google-earth view near that that line of longitude. (I've tilted the planet toward the view to simulate the view from the sun to the earth, I did not put the tropic of cancer right at the middle of the picture but just a bit up from the middle indicating that the 'sun-overhead-at-noon' is now a bit south of where it was on the 21st of June).

Four Bridges Ride 2009

I did it! The four bridges ride. I started this morning at 6:45am and returned 5:09 h:mm later (riding time). Here are some stats:

LOCATION .............. TIME ........ DISTANCE

Harlow Canal & NC101 .. 1:15 h:mm ... 24 km

Newport ............... 2:04 h:mm ... 40 km

Cape Carteret ......... 3:10 h:mm ... 69 km

Emerald Isle .......... 3:30 h:mm ... 70 km

Indian Beach .......... 4:10 h:mm ... 84 km

Fisher Street ......... 5:10 h:mm .. 103 km

Here is the 'map-my-ride' link to this ride.

5:10:41 hh:mm:ss -- Total Riding Time

102.68 km --------- Total Distance

19.8 kph ---------- Average Speed

40.0 kph ---------- Maximum Speed (Coasting Down A Bridge)