WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE

February makes me shiver

With every snowstorm it delivers

Bad news across the websites

Could our rides ever be alright

I so remember how I cried

When Dark Sky was taken from me. Why?

Apple ripped something from me deep inside

The Day the Weather Died

It seems sometimes that the smart tech we have gotten so used to these days has gotten … dumber.

Newer GPS models don’t play nice with others, and some apps that were spot on when they first came out, work far less dependably as time rolls on.

You must wonder why an app, that worked brilliantly back in 2018, was snatched away and its replacement….? 

Well, sucks compared to what it replaced.

My case in point is Dark Sky. Support for the Dark Sky API ended on March 31, 2023, and was replaced by Apple’s WeatherKit API. 

Gag me, now.

Sure - all the plethora of apps out there can tell you what is happening, and what might be coming down the road you are riding. But these days radar is far from the seer-like information we’d once get.

Dark Sky was superb at precognition. In fact, if it was still up and running, it probably would have known a week ago that I would write this on Sunday February 2 – Groundhog Day - and finished the next – the Day the Music Died.

Apple’s Weather App, that was Tim Cook’s replacement, can give you a basic forecast, that can change in front of your eyes, but its radar and watch on what weather is approaching has two options. One hour – useable if something is imminent, and 12-hour… okay for the short term – and fairly accurate. But I want to know where things are coming from days before and, more importantly, where they are headed in the days ahead. Exactly, or close to it.

Dark Sky would take the radar and allow you to run forward for days – and it was pretty damn good at calling where storms were going. – almost with JPL-like precision.

Case in point.

Shira and I were in Iceland, we had ridden out of Reykjavik a few days earlier and running up the middle of the island nation, along the edge of Vatnajökull National Park – with its massive ice field – and there was growing concern that we’d be getting whapped by some severe storms coming from the southwest. We had mostly been riding on Iceland’s infamous “F-Roads.” F could stand for fun, or f%#k’d, depending on your machine and attitude. We were two-up on this jaunt, and our riding buddies, new friends to us and that we began to call The Horde, were almost all accomplished dirt, or at least gravel riders.

We were the slow, steady, yet always upright (although there were moments) couple from New Yawk… They did not know us, and to them we seemed to have more money than sense. 

They were wrong on the former, and closer on the latter. 

But, as we spent a few days with them we did begin to garner a little respect from them, especially when Shira took to the truck, and I got to ride solo up a boulder strewn mountain to see The Wall left by glaciers over the millenniums. 

At dinner one night there was talk of scrubbing a portion of the trip because of the oncoming weather. Very bad weather. The talk was to head back south.

While this was being discussed, Shira was glued to her phone, vigorously studying the screen, and manipulating it with Spock-like precision.

As the new plans were being bandied about, she looked up and said… 

“I think we should keep on keeping on. Seriously!”

The rest of the group, all male, all riding their own bikes, looked at the one female, and passenger, with raised eyes, and cups.

I had thought from the beginning they planned to use Shira as a bargaining chip if we ran into wayward Vikings, but they simply asked her for a reason. She held up her phone and the Dark Sky app.

“We’re going here… Dark Sky says in four days this storm will pass right here.” She pointed to a point mid-way up Iceland. “We’ll be here.” She pointed at a destination, which was still less than a hundred miles to the north of the tempest’s path according to an iPhone app being read above the 65th latitude. “It’ll miss us if we stay on our route. If we go south, we will get very wet or worse.”

There was a bit of harrumphing, and whispering… I heard the words enchantress and witch bandied quietly between a few of them. To their defense they had been at the bar for a bit since we arrived in the early evening.

What sort of sorcery was this?

Maps, and other weather apps came into play. None could match my own Morgana LeFey.

Dark Sky still called for the approaching storm – that you could plainly see, scooting just south of where we’d be that night.

The decision was all but unanimous.

A round of drinks were bought, the men all toasted Shira the Sorceress, with a few still mumbling about selling her to locals if she turned out to be wrong. I would never let that happen – well, not without adequate compensation – we were in Game of Thrones territory, and I know the drill.

Dark Sky was beyond accurate, as the monster storm passed just 50 miles to our south – as predicted - and kicked the snot out of the southern parts of Iceland; we all were toasty warm and dry, The Horde were now discussing how they could sell off one their own who decided he couldn’t muster the custard to carry on after a hard get-off.  Interestingly he was that one dissenter a few days back.

All thoughts of selling the redhead vanished as she was the only one with Dark Sky and, like Queen Cersei, she let them know it.

All would be good if she got to see a puffin, or dragon; and she would under clear blue skies – just like Dark Sky said it would be.