Stretching out: A ride report

Today I finally got around to the long planned but not previously executed long ride. I left the house shortly after 8am intending to ride to Bald Eagle Lake. I met The Neighbor Couple Who Also Ride, Male Half in the cul-de-sac where he was warming up. In the course of the chat he passed along that TNCWAR, Female Half intended today to be her 50 mile ride. Fifty is an impressive ride indicating that TNCWAR, FH is in serious training mode for TRAM. It impressed me enough that I changed my plans to a circumnavigation of Bald Eagle Lake. I still didn't get 50 but I did ride 42, a distance considerably greater than my longest previous ride this year.

Bald Eagle Lake is mostly north but also east from home. I started out along the ride of the 8 lakes tour. That ride passes, by the way, Josephine, Mud (aka Judy), Island, Snail, Sucker, Vadnais, Owasso, Wabasso and Bennett Lakes. I rode out past Snail Lake to highway 96. Instead of turning and heading for Sucker Lake I for the first time this year headed across 96. I catch Hodgson Road near Turtle Lake. I turn on Turtle Lake Road and cross along the back side of North Oaks, crossing Rice Creek along the way. Then north through the neighborhoods to the county line, before heading to the east. A small jog to the north and a bit further east brings me to the turn back point. I still have a little ways to go east but this is as far north as I get. As you can see from the road sign, I am in Anoka County.Back towards the south to the county line where I cross 35E on Ramsey County Road J. I come immediately to Otter Lake and ride south next to the lake on Otter Lake Road. I had a picture of Otter Lake but camera operator error has resulted in that picture going in the recycle bin instead of onto this blog. No matter, I have a few more pictures anyway.

South to County Road H2 then east to the lake. North next to the lake and eventually around the northern bays and back south on the east side. I experienced two of the most ambitious instances I have ever seen of road watering on the east side of the lake. In two different yards the citizens had set their sprinklers up in configurations that watered well over half the road. That just doesn't seem necessary.

I also came to road construction which caused me to have to detour out on to Highway 61 for a couple of miles. Riding along next to 70mph traffic is not the most comfortable feeling in the world but the paved shoulder is exceptionally wide, I estimate 12 feet.

Here is Bald Eagle from the east side near Butters house. For South Park fans, no, not that Butters. Minnesota hockey fans will know which Butters I mean.Bald Eagle is a very pretty lake. There were lots of people out on the water today. In this morning photo most of the boats were fishing. I assume by mid-afternoon there is an abundance of water skiers.

I found only one wind powered craft. This was on the south shore of Bald Eagle just before I turned away from the lake. In tribute to the currently on-going America's Cup I got a shot of what from all appearances is a rarely used catamaran.I was completely out of water at this point but it was only a couple of miles to my designated rest stop. This is the Podvin Park Pavilion on 9th Street in White Bear Lake. I have been there several times over the years and, at least in the summer time, always find the bathrooms open and the water fountain functioning.I drank a bottle of water and ate my Clif Bar, 27 miles down, and refilled both bottles. The water in White Bear Lake has a quite distinctly different taste than Roseville water. I suspect White Bear Lake is not purchasing their water from the City of Saint Paul as Roseville is.

I had about 15 miles to go and I was about to put to the test the theory that give me a few minutes to rest and I could ride 15 more miles.

This is Birch Lake. What is interesting about this lake is that machine out in the middle. That is a watermilfoil harvester. It is a losing battle but several lakes use this technique to keep the weed from taking completely over.It was shortly after this point that I had my first significant wildlife sighting of the ride. It was my second deer of the year, this one a fawn still cloaked in its protective white spots. Those spots do not protect from cars, however, and the fawn was dead at the side of the road. This tends to illustrate the deer are vermin theme. We have too many deer. It is perhaps unfortunate that Bambi got killed by a car but it is also unfortunate that the owner of the car faces a $4-5,000 auto body shop repair bill.

After that I rode a short spell with another geezer who was riding a Colnago Master X Light. I gave him a "nice bike". He said "thank you" but seemed to never even notice that my bike is nicer than his. So there you go for those who think the entire bicycle world is fixating on what I am riding. He missed it entirely.

Here is Lake Vadnais from a vantage point seldom seen by me. That white structure is the pump house and the unvegetated shoreline immediately adjacent to it is the parking lot where yesterday's Vadnais picture was taken.As I rode past the south side of Lake Vadnais I was able to verify that yesterday's unknown avians in fact are cormorants. Cormorants have achieved pest status on some northern Minnesota lakes but I was unaware of any colony forming in the metro area. The cormorants were sharing the shallows with a blue heron.

No bald eagle today but on the other hand I rode around a Bald Eagle Lake. In my garage I finished off the last dregs of water from the last bottle of the season's first five bottle ride.