Paris-Roubaix

Stuart O'Grady is today's winner in Paris-Roubaix. The season is in full bloom in Europe, this is one of the last, or maybe even the last of the Spring Classics (Paris-Roubaix will be featured at 4 (5 Eastern) on Cyclysm Sunday on Versus). The Giro d'Italia is scheduled for May 12 to June 3. The Tour de France is July 7 to July 29. The Tour this year features a prologue in London.

In other Euro sports news, Chelsea scored in extra time to defeat Blackburn 2-1 to advance to the finals of the FA Cup. Chelsea will face Manchester United, a 4-1 winner over Watford in the Saturday game.

Today's ride again headed to the northeast, the ride out was the same as yesterday's ride. The temperature today actually exceeded the average for this date and in fact eventually topped the 60 mark. Wednesday it snowed, Sunday it was 62 and perfect.

The return ride deviated from the standard ride. We here are aware of the recent chirping from the eastern time zone contingent about the names of our lakes.This pretty little gem is Lake Emily. There is no marking sign but I know it is Lake Emily as I have perused the Official Inventory of Protected Waters as promulgated pursuant to statutory directive by the Commissioner of Natural Resources. I assume there are no complaints about this name.

Today's interesting sights? Well, at the VFW softball field I saw a fairly large gang of mostly guys playing cricket. I have seen cricket on TV, it is a staple of the soccer channel during the soccer offseason. I am fairly certain I have never previously seen it in person. So cricket.

Today's bicycle oddity was a recumbent tandem, side by side. This contraption and a married couple were traveling the same direction I was so I was able to slow down and engage them in a brief chat. I said, "Nice rig." The husband replied "Thanks", the wife replied "We enjoy it." I asked, "Did you buy it like that or did you assemble it?" The wife replied, "You buy the two bicycles and it comes with a kit to put them together." They had a platform mounted between the two bicycles on which they were carrying a cooler, probably full of cold drinks.

And then within a mile of home I observed a grey haired woman washing her windows. I didn't get a good look at her face but it seemed pretty obvious to me from her posture and body movements that her grey hair was not of the premature sort. She appeared not old, but certainly, shall we say, "mature"? Nothing odd about a woman washing her windows except that she was wearing leather pants to do so.

That's all for now, Paris-Roubaix is on TV in two minutes.