Fall at the Falls

It doesn't really qualify as an after work ride. A brief explanation: Yesterday was an extremely nice day and I rushed away from work hoping to get in a few miles. But I ended up in idle chit-chat with the painter after the bedroom got painted. By the time we were through . . . Well, anyway, no ride yesterday on a spectacular late October day.

But today might have been even nicer. So I took some time off and left work early. I really, really wanted a chance to ride.

The traffic conditions, wind direction, and desired mileage all aligned in such a way that I ended up at Minnehaha Falls.The Falls have been pictured numerous times here and at TT but it is a location that still stands up to another look.

I call this one: "Fall at the Falls".

Wild and wacky in Niort

FC Nantes won today in Niort, 1-0 to once again edge past Le Havre and back into first place.

I tried to follow the action on the live update page at the FC Nantes website. I don't speak French but the zaniness transcends the language barrier.

The game was 0-0 deep into the second half. Someone check my French. Here is the entry from the 73rd minute:

BUTTTTT DE DAVID DE FREITASSSSSS !!!!! Le milieu de terrain nantais file côté gauche du terrain avant de s'infiltrer dans la surface et d'ouvrir son pied dans un angle très fermé. Le petit piquet enroulé du Canari trompe Simon Pontdeve pour la première fois de la soirée.

I think David de Freitas, the Nantes midfielder infiltrated down the left side of the pitch and found an opening from a sharp angle. The small "piquet" from the Canary player eluded Pontdeve, the Niort keeper, for the first goal of the game.

74th minute: David De Freitas est sanctionné pour avoir manifesté sa joie irrégulièrement...

The goal scorer receives a yellow card. He is sanctioned for expressing his joy in an irregular manner. In American football this would be called excessive celebration.

In the 91st minute: Michel Der Zakarian donne de la voix en cette fin de rencontre pour recarder ses joueurs et notamment Jean-Jacques Pierre qui avait "déserté" son poste...

The Nantes coach complains to the referee about the many yellow cards Nantes has received.

Et l'entraîneur de Nantes se fait expulsé du banc !!! Mr Auroux demande au technicien nantais de suivre la fin de rencontre depuis les vestiaires...

The coach is expelled from the bench! The referee demands that the Nantes coach spend the end of the game in the "vestiarires".

Not over yet, 92nd minute: Et carton rouge pour Aurélien Capoue !!! Nantes va terminer à dix suite à un second carton jaune pour un accrochage avec Denis Tsoumou. Fin de match houleuse au stade René-Gaillard...

A second yellow card for Capoue, two yellows is a red card, carton rouge. Nantes will finish with a ten player side because of a dust up with Denis Tsoumou. An exciting end to the match at Rene-Gaillard Stadium.

And then: Denis Tsoumou est également sanctionné...

Tsoumou also receives a yellow.

I don't speak the language but it seems clear to me that it was a wild and wacky finish.

Allez Nantes.

Above average fall day

We had an at least unofficial freezing temperature overnight and a chilly morning but it was glorious this afternoon.

I took a short ride. The buzz is that the fall color peak is past here. Someone forgot to tell these maple trees lined up along the east side of Langford Park.On the way home I heard a car accident. I was coasting up to Garden and Snelling, expecting to cross, looking behind me to check traffic, when KABOOM. No life threatening injuries but two police squads, an ambulance and a fire truck convened. The ambulance did get used by the passenger in the smaller car who looked to have an arm injury which was causing some pain. The fire guys casually did a little sweeping and made sure after the tow that no gasoline had been left on the street. One of the officers asked me if I saw it. I told him I was there but I was looking the other direction.

The rest of the day will be devoted to raking.

Weekend solo

There was a hockey game this afternoon so I had to try to get in a ride this morning. It was only about 42 when I headed out. TOPWLH has been a bit under the weather so I rode alone.

I have tinkered with the layers a bit but I had just exactly the right combination for today. I was warm, I was dry.

I have a different base layer than I have used in the past but I also have switched from fleece under the jacket to a windstopper vest. I am uncertain which of these changes to ascribe the effect to but in any case this is a set up which is now fine down into the low 40s.

It was a pretty day, the sun was shining. The breeze was mild out of the NW. This picture is taken shortly after the turn around. This is Sucker Lake, next upstream from Vadnais and always passed on the 8 lakes tour but pictured far less often.It seems obvious to me that the reason why this lake is pictured less often has not a single thing to do with whether or not it is deserving of a photo. It is a pretty nice spot.

I think I achieved a season high today. The road to Snail Lake goes abruptly downhill. I routinely achieve 30 or 31 mph on this hill. Today I turned to go down the hill and I also had a slight tail wind. It felt fast on the way down. When I checked the computer a few miles later and flashed through the various settings I was a little surprised to see a maximum speed of 33 mph. I don't keep track of such things but I think I would remember and I do not remember going that fast any time earlier this year.

Calmer crowd

Curling yesterday, hockey tomorrow, today's ride is the last after work ride for this week, and just possibly for the year. Only a week of daylight savings remains but even with the clock change there is barely enough daylight being saved to allow for very many miles after 8 hours at the plant. All it would take is a bit of inclement weather or some emergency at work and the after work opportunity would just not present itself again. Truly the season is nearly over.

There are good things about the end of the season. The end of the season crowd is all that is riding now. Racer boy has pretty much disappeared from the streets. During the time when racer boy is out and about there is an aggressive rudeness which bubbles up all over the city. Racer boy has gone inside and the remaining riders are actually cordial to one another, greeting each other with a raised hand or a nod, civilities which completely disappear during the heat of the summer.

I don't miss racer boy.

It was 57 today, a disappointment to some as the forecast high was for something in the 60s. But the average high for this date is only 54 so it was an above average day. The wind was tolerable, the ride was nice. We have had frost but have not yet had an official temperature reading of freezing or below so it seems possible that we will get out of October without seeing our first snow flurry. Knock on wood though, a lot can happen in 6 days, including snow.

My route today was to the south and the return took me through the campus. Here are the cows in probably their last appearance for this year. I call it "Cows in Repose in Fall".Life is good.

3,900

As recently as last Tuesday I may have said aloud that I was having doubts about my ability to reach my mileage goal for the year. It seemed to rain every day.

The best antidote to such gloom is the opportunity to ride. The weather has cooperated and I rode my bike again today. Five days in a row on my bike and 102 miles later I now am restored to confidence. Heck, I am starting to feel like there might still be time this fall for another 3 or 400 miles. Who knows? Anything suddenly seems possible.

This is what I was doing at approximately sunset today. This picture is again on Roselawn, this time at the Falcon Heights Community Center. The trees and the radio tower are on the University golf course. Again I am about a mile from home, all on side streets.Also at this time I was composing a newspaper headline in my head to amuse TOPWLH. When I got home I repeated it to her, complete with punctuation and she was amused. Ask her.

Records have been falling

According to the local newspaper the endless days of rain and leaden skies we have just endured washed out a 107 year old record. The total amount of rain broke the previous record for the 3 month period of August, September and October set in 1900.

The paper also said that the climatological observatory at the University of Minnesota's St. Paul campus reported that the first 16 days of October were the cloudiest stretch for that time of year in the 45 years the observatory has been measuring solar radiation, measuring less than three-quarters of average.

So yes, it has been pretty rainy and quite dreary this month.

But today was very nice indeed. It was cool, very Octoberish, a high of about 52. But the sun was out and it was glorious.

It was so nice that it ended up making my ride a bit shorter than I intended. The fabulous light conditions made me stop 3 times for photos. The delays meant that I barely made it home before dark.

Here is Garden Avenue just east of Lexington providing proof that at least some of the trees in town are going through leaf color changes.I figured at this point that I had successfully completed my mission of obtaining a photo and continued along on my ride.

But when I turned off Hamline onto whatever that street is along the west side of Lake Josephine I came upon these bushes. It didn't come out quite as stunning as it was in person but I think you can get the idea. The sun filtering through the bushes, highlighting some leaves, leaving others in the shade created a very nice effect.But by now I was too far from home and had to ride hard towards the barn. The dark falls precipitously at this time of year, virtually without twilight. One minute it is still daytime and almost without warning it is suddenly dark. Really dark.

This is over the corn field along Roselawn, less than a mile from home (but with two miles more to ride). I was hoping to catch more of the clouds but with lighting conditions being what they were I am just glad that there was enough light to capture an image.As is probably pretty obvious, it was getting to be too dark to be out on a bicycle.

Today's numbers in the 50s

Yesterday was a nice day. Today? Not so much.

The numbers today were in the 50s. Temperature 52, probability of precipitation 59 percent. Oh, and 18, as in miles per hour out of the NNW. So a bike ride looked like it might be a stretch.

It rained a tiny bit this morning making the driveway wet. But by noon the roads looked dry. The sky had improved greatly to only very dark and ominous. I set out, into the wind, hoping to get in a few miles by circling near home to avoid getting drenched.

But it hasn't rained any more. As I rode I gave it some thought and decided that the probability was actually fulfilled. The actuality of rain today is 100 percent, that bit this morning. So not getting any additional doesn't really make the forecaster incorrect.

I never rode in any light conditions conducive to photography. But I did get this shot at the corner of Gordon and Ludlow. That's an oak in the foreground and some maples further down the street along Langford Park.Ludlow has appeared previously. It is a one block long street and the house at the end is 1 Ludlow. I hope everyone who is interested has heard the story by now. For those who have not, as noted previously, try to get us both in the same room together as there are certainly details known or remembered by only one of us. It is a good story.

Another number in the 70s

September returned with a vengeance today. The temperature outside as I compose this is listed by most of the internet sources as 73. We went for a ride.

We were dressed a bit for yesterday and a bit for the predicted high of 67 so we ended up slightly overheated on the outward leg. The Babe had to remove a layer and I had to unzip. But it was only a tiny bit overdressed, I didn't sweat. I am unable to speak for BB.

This is one of the scenic overlooks along River Road, this one just up from Ford Parkway, about 11 miles from home.This view is looking upstream, Minneapolis on the left, the Marshall Avenue bridge in the background.

There were lots and lots of other bicyclists out today. In fact, there was another couple occupying the park bench at this overlook when we stopped for the photo opportunity. It was a beautiful day and a reminder of how nice it is to be out riding our bikes.

74 percent chance

Regular readers may wonder where I have been. Sunday: rain. Monday: rain. Tuesday: rain. Wednesday: rain. Thursday: rain.

Today there was only a 74 percent chance of rain. In fact, it sprinkled as I walked out to the parking lot after work. But I got home and the streets were dry. It was not actually raining. I gave it a try.

The ride was punctuated not by rain but by an emphatic period at the end: dark, dark, completely dark. It was totally completely dark at 6:45. But I was in the house. It was not a long ride but it was ride.

Uh, it was too dark to get a photo.

Ms. Wireless was over on Wednesday and we watched France v. Lithuania in a Euro 2008 qualifier. With the big doings in Paris for the rugby World Cup the usual venue, Stade de France, was not available for this game so they played it in Nantes. It was a chance for me to get a look at what Ms. Wireless has called "a really nice stadium." And it looked really nice, a full oval with about half of the seats under cover. The pitch looked fantastic. It is clearly a big league stadium, obviously not appropriate for Ligue 2. France won 2-0 as Thierry Henry scored both goals to surpass current Fédération Française de Football President Michel Platini as the all time leading goal scorer for the French national team. In an interesting coincidence, and as noted on a sign waved by a fan in the crowd during the celebration, and as translated for me by my guide, M. Henry also scored his very first professional goal in Nantes.

Today FC Nantes took the same field as Ligue 2 action resumed. Nantes hosted Troyes. Troyes is interesting as it is a team which was also in Ligue 1 last season, finishing 18th to Nantes' 20th. Troyes, Sedan and Nantes were the relegated teams. Troyes was in 4th place coming into today's game, obviously needing a win to get back into the promotion zone of the general classification.

Nicolas Goussé opened the scoring for Nantes in the 21st minute. The game seemed to turn against Nantes in the 45th minute when Harlington Shereni was given a straight red card for elbowing the Troyes captain, Gael Sanz. However, the Nantes website characterized the foul as "une grossière simulation" which I think means that Nantes supporters believe that a more astute referee might have noticed that the Troyes player was acting and that no contact had occurred. Entering the second half a player short but leading 1-0, defense was obviously the priority. In the 69th minute a foul on the same Gael Sanz produced a yellow card and a free kick opportunity for Nantes just 22 meters away from goal. Troyes marked poorly and defender Jean-Jacques Pierre, forward on the free kick, notched the second goal for the Canaries. Justice was eventually served when Sanz received another yellow in the 89th minute resulting in the second expulsion of the match. The final whistle saw the teams playing 10 a side.

Nantes improves its hold on first place in the table with second place Le Havre off until Monday night.

October fest

It was cold this morning but the sun came out and the day warmed pretty nicely. It was a nice fall day, a good day for a ride if one is properly layered.

We took the 8 Lakes Tour. The whole Vadnais chain of lakes park is posted for a special archery deer hunt but only on week days, not the weekend. So we visited the lake.The lake did a nice job. The water did a nice job. The trees did a nice job. The sun did a nice job. It was nice.

Babe and flat land rider for scale.

A lesser milestone

Today is the day on which I have often in the past attempted to ride my age in miles. The great flatlands rider points out, correctly I concede, that this is a quest which should be abandoned as the birth certificate has won.

But the intellect can still devise ways of tricking oneself. I set out today thinking long ride, something milestonish. The weather has been so uncertain lately that I have not ridden a whole lot this month. I have ridden enough that my fitness level is still good but I have ridden so little that today I felt very well rested. As I rode along feeling strong, even into the wind, I started doing math in my head.

I rode my age in kilometers.

It is only 62/100ths of the distance of my age in miles but it still ends up being my longest ride in a long time and perhaps the second or third longest of the year. So it still feels like a milestone.

I rode past the Town and Country Club. It is the oldest country club in Minnesota and reputed to be the second oldest still in the original location in the USA.It looks like it has been there a long time. Mature trees, well manicured fairways, the usual golf course stuff. You can tell it is a private club by the warning that if any riff raff think they can steal something the rich people will know about it.

It's starting to get dark

I had an interesting bicycle maintenance moment today. I, for the first time this year for sure, probably quite a bit longer, forgot my water bottles when I started out on my ride. I only got a couple of miles before I noticed. I turned around and came home and picked up the water.

On the way back I was hearing a vague, very faint, high frequency, intermittent squeak. This noise was completely new so my first thought was of what I had changed recently. Of course, I just had the back wheel off to repair the flat so I decided to check the quick release to make sure it was solid and also to look at the brake to make sure it wasn't rubbing.

I got off the bike at the garage door and before I had a chance to do anything else I noticed that a leaf was stuck in the rear brake. Squeak cured.

I decided to try to photograph a barn but they are fairly rare in a large city. I got a picture of this one on the fair grounds.It doesn't look much like a barn, it definitely doesn't have the classic shape. But it does have a sign that says "Barn" so I think it is a barn. And that stuff on the sidewalk in the foreground of the photo had the definite odor of a substance commonly found in a barn. Yup, barn.

I found this thing that has the correct shape. And if you can read the sign above the door, it says "Cattle barn". But I am not sure it is a barn. If you read the sign next to the building you will discover that it seems to be identified as the "Dairy cattle teaching center."Actually, I am fairly certain that it is a barn.

As is probably fairly obvious, it is starting to be dark pretty early.

Nantes tied Dijon 0-0. They return to even on points with LeHavre, first place on goal differential.

Twin Cities Marathon

I did manage to get in a short ride yesteday after the overnight rains. I had to keep it short as hockey was once again on the schedule. It was an exciting game, Minnesota 4, Boston University 2.

Today I wanted to get out early to visit the Twin Cities Marathon. The foot race infringes on part of my regular southern route and I like to visit it the day that it does.

The wind cooperated, being out of the south. It wasn't a good day for running 26 miles. We have ridden over to the marathon a couple of times when it was crisp, once when it was frosty but today it was hot and humid.

Here is the Babe at the 20 mile mark. The organizers inflate that arch over the course, provide a running time clock, and also provide entertainment for the spectators. As you can see we were there shortly before the 3 hour mark. Those runners going past at about this time can look forward to nearly another hour of running. Many of the runners already looked quite distressed. The Babe looked good.We dodged around the course a bit, eventually crossing it twice and riding along getting an occasional glimpse. We had detoured over to Saint Clair to get across Snelling and were on our way back to Summit, the race course, about 14 miles into the ride when it suddenly became apparent that we were too far from home. The sky darkened and a freshening breeze felt completely like rain.

So we made a break for it, cutting through some neighborhoods where the Babe has never ridden before. As for me, there are no such neighborhoods anywhere within 15 miles of where I live so I knew exactly where I was going. The direct route got us home in 6 miles instead of the 14 more the Babe was anticipating.

The rain hasn't come yet so perhaps the panic was not called for. Perhaps, but being closer to home when the clouds roll in is still a good thing.

Anyway, in the rush for home it occurred to me that it was a bicycle brand jersey day and although we had a Babe picture at the marathon, my presence at the race would have to be assumed.We did get a picture of me standing in my driveway, however. Leaf piles for effect.

Ashes going bare

This might not qualify as a bicycling post but I think it does. It rained last night and the streets are quite wet. The sun is out and while it is possible that I will get in a few miles later, for right now the bicycling activity to be blogged is bicycle maintenance.

I didn't ride yesterday, we went to a hockey game (Minnesota 5, Northeastern 3). So I have not ridden since discovering the flat tire on the LOOK. My plan was to pop up early today and get the tire fixed in time for a possible morning ride. However, see above comment about wetness.

Still, about 11:30 I got out into the garage and started wrestling with the rim and tire. Usually when I have a flat I have some recollection of not seeing the broken glass in time and having ridden through the shards. I didn't have that this time but still assumed that glass was the culprit. I got the tire off and the tube out and started to follow the usual procedure of pumping a little air into the tube to find the hole and therefore find the debris in the tire. Well the tube would not hold any air at all. Okay, I could still check the tire itself, it would just be harder to find the debris. I started running my finger around inside the tire and found the problems in relatively short order. I had three, yes three, small pieces of wire sticking through the tire. None of them were in the contact zone, tire to road, all were somewhat up the sidewall, including one almost all the way up to where the sidewall would be contacting with the rim. Well, I have absolutely no recollection of riding through anything that could have caused that. No construction zone, no industrial waste site, nothing of the kind. But at least they all came out without great difficulty and the tire went back on much more easily than it did when it was new and stiffer. On the road again.

The photo is of the ash tree in our front yard. Fall is falling here, the ash tree has dropped a majority of its leaves. Those trees visible in the back yard are ash behind the front ash, yellow colored ash in the neighbors yard off to the left and neighbors cottonwood still pretty green in the middle. We also have a large cottonwood and those things go after the ashes but not by a heck of a lot, they will be turning soon. In a short time the trees will be bare.

Le Havre won their game on Friday night, once again at least temporarily assuming first place in Ligue 2. Nantes without playing a game continues to lead the 4th placed team by 5, still comfortably in the promotion zone.

Axis appearance

Here is a little reminder, taken last fall, of what is coming:I got home today and wanted to ride my bicycle. I got dressed and even got on my bike and rolled down the driveway. But something was clearly wrong.

Oops, flat tire. Sundown comes way too early now to allow time for fixing a flat and still getting in a ride. I considered my options. I could swap out the rear wheel for the rear wheel on the Crown Jewel. But as I recently told the flat land rider, you do not need a spare wheel when you have a spare bike.

I changed shoes and got the Axis down from the garage rafters. I pumped the tires (all the way up to 75 pounds!). And had a nice ride.

Nantes 0-0 Gueugnon. It is possible that the Canaries will eventually regret letting two important home points escape but for now it doesn't seem like too big a tragedy. Le Havre played on Tuesday and also played a scoreless tie. The two are equal on games played and Nantes holds first place by 2. Perhaps even more importantly, Nantes now leads the 4th place team by 6. Everyone wants to win the championship, of course, but the more significant long term goal is returning to Ligue 1. The top 3 will be promoted so margin over the 4th place team is the margin by which promotion is protected.

The season is now 10 games old, just over one-fourth of the 38 game season. Nantes has 23 points. Last year the third place team, the last promoted, finished with 70. Nantes looks to be in good shape for promotion.

Next up, Monday, at Dijon.

Really old tomb

It rained most of the day today, no bicycling.

I just don't know what I was thinking yesterday. I like those Paris cemetery pictures so much that I completely blanked on the really, really old tomb that I have pictures of.

The Dolmen de la Madeleine at Gennes in the Loire Valley:Dolmens are megaliths generally considered to have been tombs, constructed with several large stones supporting a "capstone". They were erected by pre-Celtic people in Brittany and also in Britain before recorded history, making them quite literally pre-historic. This construction stands without pretension, without fences, without tour guides, without interpretive assistance, in an open field at the edge of a small town near the Loire. Dolmens of this sort are dated to between 4000 and 4800 B.C., nearly 7,000 years ago. These are way older than the Pyramids (constructed about 2600 B.C.), slightly older than Stonehenge (standing stones erected about 2200 B.C. but other parts of the site are older, perhaps 4000 B.C.), older than the Great Wall (500 B.C.), older than just about anything man made still in existence on the face of the planet.

Babe for scale.

What Alice said

Alice said: Un peu sombre pour démarrer le mois et la semaine, n'est-il pas? Alice also provided this translation: A little somber start for this month and this week, isn't it?

But here you go, this is one of my traveling companions at Cimetière du Montparnasse in 2006. Simone de Beauvoir and Jean Paul Sartre are buried next to each other beneath this single marker just inside the gate.I missed two more days to rain in September, the last two. It was also a weekend and it was very disappointing to lose an entire weekend but there really just wasn't any way. It rained a couple of times on Saturday and the wind blew hard. Sunday it rained all pretty much all day. Today the forecast was for the rain to go away and I suppose we should be happy that it did. However, the promised clearing never occurred, it was still overcast and felt like rain when I got in a ride after work today.

FC Nantes burst out to a 0-2 lead by the half at Grenoble tonight and coasted in to a 0-3 victory. Mamadou Bagayoko scored first in the 29th minute and then completed the scoring early in the second half. Nicolas Gousse got the other goal in the 39th minute. FC Nantes returns to first in the table. Next up is Thursday at home against last place Gueugnon. As we all know, my French is rudimentary but I think the game gets an early start, 6:15, and a special reduced admission, 3 euros. By the way, in the big game at Nantes on Friday night, Fiji 38, Wales 34, Fiji advances to the quarterfinals against South Africa, a team I believe is usually referred to as the Springboks. New Zealand (the All Blacks), Australia, England, France, Argentina and Scotland also remain alive as the knockout round begins.

And to close, here is a scene from 2004 and Le Cimetière du Père-Lachaise.That is a dedicated fan at the grave of Jim Morrison. This spot even gets a scene in the movie we saw last weekend (2 Days in Paris). Americans of a certain age are fascinated by this spot. Elsewhere in the same cemetery the grave of Edith Piaf seems to have a very similar attraction for the French.