biffstephens

I am not sure about you but I am so waiting for this day to happen this year...

2007 March 11

I rode today.....ahhhh springtime in Oklahoma....Avg wind speed 13mph, Max wind speed 36 mph....

What a training tool....lol

slowandsteady

Moving DST earlier and making it last later in the season is the only thing Dubbya got right in his Presidency.

-VELOCITY-

What was the reason for changing it? But I agree it's a great idea. Especially since I ride after work.

biffstephens

The whole reason we have it in the first place is because of the energy savings so my guess is it is related to that.

People use less energy during Daylight savings time......

slowandsteady

It is supposed to conserve lamp oil for the farmers.

Actually some numbers thrown around are a savings of 1% in energy costs.

Nermal

Looking forward to it, but if it's really that great, why not all year and quit messing with it?

biffstephens

Yea 1% of a crapload is still a crapload...

slowandsteady

Because there is not enough light in the winter in the mornings. Children would be going to school in the dark among other things. It also wouldn't save any energy.

Portis

Unless you are an early morning rider, in which case, you view it as just another screw up in a long line of screw ups.

SaiKaiTai

It's sure made a lot of extra work for me...

Nick Carraway

I don't know how much of an impact this had on the decision, but apparently the candy industry has been pushing for years to extend DST into November so that it's still in effect on Halloween.

slowandsteady

Have a lot of clocks?

cyccommute 

We tried that in the 1970's energy embargo. Not only do the kids wait for buses in the dark, it's an hour colder in the morning...which is my biggest problem with the earlier DST. An hour in the dead of winter can make a big difference in the temperature.

The sun rises at 7 on 31 Nov at my parallel (40th) and gets later and later until 5 Jan when it rises at 7:21, so you'd be going to work and school in pitch dark until 8:20 in the morning during the worst of the winter months. Who wants that?

The other issue is why not just work out something with your employer if you want to go home an hour earlier? Go to work at 7 instead of 8. You get the extra hour of daylight without messing up the rest of us.

cyccommute 

The barbeque industry was instrumental in getting the change in the DST during the Reagan adminstration.

chipcom 

yup, it's just getting to the point where I have some daylight on both the ride in and the ride home, but now the morning ride will be in darkness again.

roadfix

We won't be having all this discussion if the Earth's axis wasn't tilted 23 1/2 degrees. But of course, if that were the case tomorrow there would be a whole set of other problems on this planet.

Portis

Yep. Like Britney shaving her head etc.

BroMax

Your meaning is clear...but

Thirty days hath September,
April, June and November
February has twenty eight alone
All the rest have thirty-one
Except in Leap Year, that's the time
When February's Days are twenty-nine

(I don't know why I learnt it with "hath". Probably some ancient teacher who learnt it from some ancient teacher in the nineteenth century.)

There was a deal of debate in Canada as to whether or not they should go along with the US in making the time change earlier in the year. I haven't been back since August, so I'm not sure what they're going to do. They probably decided to follow the lead of the US so commerce isn't disrupted; but there are parts of Canada where there is precious little daylight at all this time of year.

Later this month I'm going south to Toronto (~43 °N) from my home in the Willamette Valley (45°N).

BroMax

It never would have occurred to me that the candy or barbeque industries had any interest in how clocks are set. So are the electric lighting lobbies opposed?

Was that Reagan? I thought it was Carter. Maybe I'm just remembering the proposition during Carter's term (and the Arab oil embargo) that the United States go to year round DST.

slowandsteady

Where I work, I could theoretically work 7-3, but so few people do that most meetings occur until 5 pm. I can't leave if I want to. Not to mention who wants to be exercising or mowing their lawn at 4:00 in the morning during summer?

Maybe it is just because I am not a morning person, but I would much rather have my fun activies after work and not before. It just seems silly to have all that light when the vast majority of people are sleeping.

Nermal

More daylight after work in the summer will mean more air conditioning expense, I suppose.

Portis

eh?

cyccommute 

The months thing is easier if you use your knuckles.

Make a fist with your left hand, start with the first knuckle...it's January.


The valley next to it is February.


The next high point is March and so on.



You'll see that all of the high points are 31 day months and all of the valleys have 30 (or fewer)

cyccommute 

We went to year around during the Arab oil embargo but quickly went back. In 1986, the date was changed from the last Sunday in April to the first Sunday in April. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 extended Daylight Saving Time in the U.S. beginning in 2007, though Congress retained the right to revert to the 1986 law should the change prove unpopular or if energy savings are not significant. Going from 2007 forward, Daylight Saving Time in the U.S. begins at 2:00 a.m. on the second Sunday of March and
ends at 2:00 a.m. on the first Sunday of November. Quoted from here.

cyccommute 

I was thinking more along the lines of year around DST.

Unfortunately the nonmorning people win out over those of us who are morning people, especially with DST coming 3 weeks earlier. It's a giant inconvenience to those of us who ride to work because we now have to carry lights for 3 more weeks...with all the additional dangers of dealing with people who have to get up an hour earlier. I wonder how many cycling commuters will delay their season an extra month or so because of the dark. There go the energy savings

Additionally, for those of us living at higher altitudes, it's stinking cold in that extra hour of darkness. At least when I ride with the sun out, I'm a little warmer.