Poorly lit shrubbery

I got started just a tiny bit later today and rode a little bit farther. Can you tell?Yup, a flash photo. At 7pm. It was pretty marginal lighting the last couple of miles but I was riding at that time mostly on the Fairgrounds (no traffic) and close to home (wide paved shoulder).

I ended the month with the fewest miles ever in September and actually by quite a large amount. I was nearly 100 miles behind the fewest ever ridden previously. But I did end up with miles ridden in September equal to one-half of the miles I needed as of September 1 to reach my annual goal. I rode 374 miles in September and need 374 miles more for 4,000. Didn't I warn you all that the rest of the season would feature lots of numbers?

My neighbor Marcia reports that she is a grandmother. I am pretty sure this makes her the first grandmother on the block. Congratulations to the family and to baby Rachel.

90 percent

An obsessive compulsive slavish devotion to accumulating miles comes inevitably to moments like this. Today I passed 3,600 for the year, achieving 90 percent of the goal that I set for myself at the beginning of the season.

Be forewarned, as the season winds down there are plenty more milestones coming. A month ago achieving the annual goal was a foregone conclusion. My back condition now makes it less certain than that but I somehow feel that the remaining miles are few enough that somehow or other I can do the necessary rides.

The craziness in Nantes grows. Nantes players and staff arrived at the club's training complex on Sunday morning to find buildings, floors and even an employee's car covered in graffiti in the wake of their 3-0 loss to Caen the night before.
The caption in French is: "Image forte hier matin à la Jonelière. Un gendarme de la section d'identification criminelle examine les dégradations commises à l'intérieur du centre sportif à la recherche d'empreintes. Le club déposera ce matin une plainte pour dégradation et violation de domicile."

A policeman from criminal identification examines the evidence within the training center.

There is a precedent for this, of course. The Nantes fans rioted and invaded the field on the occasion of the final home game of 2007 when Nantes was relegated. This seems a little bit more sinister. For the benefit of the French speaker who reads this blog, here is an account in French from Ouest-France. There is a bit in there that I take to mean that the current players have not earned the right to wear the jersey, that their play dishonors the team's reputation and legacy ("mouillez le maillot, trop payés, ça suffit").

Contrast

The hockey was fun if a bit disorienting. It was over 80 yesterday, TOPWLH insists on 88 although the official high was somewhat shy of that. But what the heck is "official" anyway? With summertime temperatures prevailing outdoors we ventured indoors to a building with a coat of ice on the floor. I wore my heavy fleece and took mittens along in case I might need them. It was a very disappointingly small crowd but if you think about it for even a second or two, who wants to got inside a building with a coat of ice on the floor when it is 84 outside? We do.

But if yesterday was summer, today was once again definitely fall. I invite comparison of BB's costume today with her costume from last weekend. I think she has the same sleeveless white top on under there somewhere and probably the same shorts under the tights. It didn't reach the predicted 70, the thermometer on our deck said 59 when we got home.

It was a very grey day at Lake Owasso with not a single person at the beach.

FC Nantes is in severe disarray. The team played a Coupe de Ligue match on Wednesday and lost 1-0 to a ligue 3 side. The new coach responded by firing 7 players, saying they are not good enough to be playing in Ligue 1. The team responded by losing today to Caen 3-0 to cememt their spot in 19th place. I am starting to smell a return to Ligue 2, a shame.

September song

Recovery is tricky. It is trickier this time than it was the last time I hurt something. I should stop complaining but obviously I am finding that everything is trickier than it was the last time I tried it. *sigh*

I overdid on the weekend and have had to lay off for a few days. But today I gave it a try. It was sorta OK, but very, very slow.

Plus which, lighting conditions are deteriorating very rapidly. I left work about as early as I can get away, delayed not an instant in getting on the bike, and rode a number of miles less than what I have usually ridden all season. Here is what the sky looked like as I finished.Twilight? Dusk? Evening? How about a little too dark for riding a bicycle while sharing space with people in cars who are hurrying home from work?

It was warm enough, today's high was mid-70s, above the average for the day. But I had my jacket with me and although I didn't actually stop to put it on, if I had ridden much further I would have. 70 or so on a late September evening is a completely different deal than 70 or so in mid-morning in July. In September 70 holds the possibility of suddenly too cold.

But my back seems OK. There is hockey tomorrow but I will try to ride again on Saturday.

Things we used to own

Equinox. Average high temperature for the day: 70. This morning at 11am: already 72. A morning ride is an unexpected pleasure in late September but today we left the house while it was still morning.

My back is still iffy enough that I ride in circles for at least a couple of miles before leaving the neighborhood. The up side of this is that while riding the square of Fairview, Larpenteur, Cleveland, Roselawn, a full half mile in each of the cardinal directions, I get sbsolutely clear information about wind direction. I absolutely, totally know the wind direction before ever leaving the intersection of Fairview and Roselawn, less than a half mile from home.

With my back in mind we didn't set off for a destination, we set off for a ride of a duration of time. We ended up visiting some places we used to own.

This is BB in front of Old Main. Ah, September on campus, is there anything else like that?And this is BB with the Emily tree. We planted that tree in the yard of the house we used to own when Emily was born while we lived there. Emily is all grown up and so is her tree.The current residents are not being the slightest bit reticent about their political choices in the upcoming election.

And this house is owned by Hamline. It is used for auxiliary faculty office space. This is where BB currently reports for work.Emily yesterday proclaimed the day to be one of the nicest days in the history of days. Today was just as nice.

Ped X-ing

Friday was another beautiful day here. But as I drove home from work a raindrop hit my windshield. Yup, one raindrop.

I stood in the driveway and scanned the horizon. There were clouds visible in the direction from which the weather was coming which seemed clearly to be leaking precipitation. It was threatening where I was standing. I decided not to ride.

Officially, which is to say, in my bike log (as opposed to bike blog), I am taking this is a rain day. And it probably was, even though conditions during most of the time when I might have ridden remained only "threatening". It is also true that it rained enough at my house to make the driveway wet. Therefore, rain day.

The alternative version of this story is that yesterday was the first day that I tried to get through the whole day without any ibu. And I made it. But the complete truth is that I was in fairly significant discomfort for nearly every waking moment. I was in pain and not significantly motivated to ride.

Today was another day along the way towards healing. I hurt a little when I got up and never really improved through the morning TV. Even so I was determined to ride at noon. As soon as I had ridden far enough to get loose I started to feel better. Post ride I feel the best I have felt since before hurting myself.

I rode out towards the hills of Shoreview leading to the lakes tour. I didn't ride the tour but I did ride all the way up the hill to Lexington today, further than I have previously attempted on that route and that incline since the injury. I discovered that I could do the climb and I also discovered a mass of pedestrians on the "bike" trail along Lexington.The pictured walkers, only a paltry fraction of the hundreds filling the sidewalk, are participants in the Breast Cancer 3-day. Particpants walk 60 miles in three days and help raise millions of dollars for breast cancer research and patient support programs. Lots of the participants are clad in pink, the semi-official color of breast cancer fund raising.

And in important news from Ligue 1, former basement dwellers FC Nantes took the important first step towards respectability with a 2-0 home victory against Valenciennes, the first victory of the season for Nantes. Mamadou Bagayoko scored twice as Nantes escaped from the cellar to now stand 18th. Nantes is tied with Le Havre on points but still holds the position in the relegation zone because of inferior goal differential. Les Canaris return to action next Saturday as they travel to Normandy to face SM Caen.

Bridge

Probably every blogger from the Twin Cities area has as today's entry either a picture of the new bridge or musings on the fall of the old bridge and the construction of the replacement.

To anyone who hasn't heard, the new bridge opened today, 35W is back in service. I thought about riding over there. The wind was fairly strong from the southwest, the right wind conditions for a ride to the bridge. But I thought the whole bridge scene might maybe be a bit crowded, even the bicycle/pedestrian part. My decision finally came down to that I wasn't there when the bridge fell down, I am going to have to be okay with not being first on the scene when the new bridge opens.

But I did ride south, across the freeway. This is a spot which experienced greatly increased traffic when the bridge went down. It is the intersection of I94 and 280. Hwy 280 was the route that picked up the 35W bypass traffic. This route dumped the traffic onto 94 as the alternative river crossing.One snapshot probably doesn't tell much but it does appear that traffic is moving fairly well, at least for this day and for this moment. We shall all see in the days to come what the new bridge means to traffic in this city.

Meanwhile, this is a bicycle blog. It was 80+ again today, still in the mid 70s for most of my ride. There was a little too much wind but it was a spectacular day for the last half of September, I had a pretty nice ride. I ibu-ed this morning and not again any time today, so another substantial reduction in drug use. My hip still hurts a little. The little shimmy that you have to do to get into the car is still a chore I haven't quite figured out, but I now think I am pretty much over the whole tweaked my back thing.

I felt good, I rode fairly hard.

We want . . . a shrubbery

As part of the extensive home renovation project being overseen by TOPWLH we had the house painted. According to Rob the old shrubbery made painting not possible. So we had all the old stuff ripped out. This means that we had to plant all new shrubs.

Roger the Shrubber was not available (see link above). We had to complete the whole shrubbery process without any assistance from any itinerate shrubber. This unassisted shrubbing necessitated trips to the shrubbery center by us, reading of shrubbery labels, deciding which shrubbery would grow in the conditions in front of our house and all manner of incidental shrubbery boola boola. One of the key issues was whether or not and to what degree the various shrubs would receive full sunlight and whether they could thrive in the amount of sunlight they received. It is the north side of the house, there is a mature spruce tree, there seemed to be areas which were in permanent shade.

But, as first noticed by TOPWLH, and here photodocumented, the entire front of the house is sometimes in full sun.Please also note the new windows, she really likes the "picture" window in front (there used to be four single windows, now there is one large, read picture, flanked by the two small).

I have another version of this picture in which I do not appear. However, I think this one is slightly more interesting. It may just be perspective, or maybe it is really close to sunset, but the shadow stretches all the way into Bob's yard.

Or, perhaps, just perhaps, it is the return of BIG MAN.

I made it through the day of work with minimal ibu. After work it was a nice day for a ride. I actually occasionally even rode fairly hard. I did have to re-ibu after the ride but overall I continue to improve. I may soon even attempt a ride which includes hills.

Whining pays off

Summer is back, at least for a day.

Even after work it was still 80, yup, 80, when I headed out for a ride. It was so nice that even the tall bike guy was out. I lifted a hand and pointed at him as he rang his bell at me from several feet above the pavement. I actually saw him twice, coming and going, both times on Como Avenue.

It was so nice that people were playing at the playground.The tennis players and the basketball players are still visible. If you peer through the fence you can see a young woman about to ride away on a bicycle. When I arrived she was swinging on the swings. It was so nice that people were playing at the playground.

Bicycling seems to be really good for my back. The muscle that I originally strained is now giving me virtually no problems. I am instead mostly troubled by my hip muscle on the same side, which I assume is the muscle picking up the slack as I baby my back. Today my hip hurt most of the day but once I got onto the bicycle and started to ride everything seemed to resolve itself and I felt pretty good, all things considered.

It was a beautiful day.

*sigh* Where has summer gone?

I suppose that we are all aware that maple trees under stress are the first to go. Here are two maple trees under stress in Shoreview.These two have officially announced, "That's it. I give up. I may be back next year to try again but I am done for this year." These are the first I have seen make this announcement. There is no longer any sense in denying what is increasingly obvious. The equinox looms at the end of the week, Labor Day is now long (two weeks!!) past. Summer has gone.

I have not given up for this year. My back feels better if I get some bicycling in so on a day when it was still unseasonably cool, albeit sunny, I got some bicycling in. It may have been cool but I now ride fully costumed for cold weather anyway. *sigh* WHSG?

Anyone else find Contador's results so far in the Vuelta to be just a little too good to be true?

Post injury ride

I have been taking it easy, babying my back. Now I don't want to get off on a rant here but I can remember when muscle soreness resolved itself after a day or two. Now I am resting, stretching, generally acting like an invalid, and . . . I am basically an invalid.

But I exaggerate. Actually the weather has been pretty wet on two of the days when I didn't ride so it isn't completely that I am slacking. On the other hand I haven't been riding.

Again today the forecast was for afternoon showers. I was pretty determined to get in a few miles to test my back so I headed out at about 11am. It was only 60 or so, overcast with light winds. The costume for today included long sleeve base layer, long sleeve jersey and lightweight jacket with tights, helmet liner and full finger gloves. *sigh* Where has summer gone?

The combination of bad weather and questionable back means that I have had a lot of time off in the early part of this month. I guess I can say that 600 miles in September is clearly out the window. But I rode today and I didn't make anything worse. It was a short ride, mostly just in circles and always soft pedaling but I pronounce the ride a success and proclaim the season to be reopened.

Lots has happened while I have been away. The corn field looks a little different.The harvester missed two corn plants. The geese are obviously busy cleaning up the spills. *sigh* Where has summer gone?

And this from the FC Nantes website describing today's game in Paris: "C'est fini. Nantes reste lanterne rouge." According to the website the referee's decision to give a 7th minute penalty kick to PSG was "soft". PSG converted the PK and played out the winning hand from there to a final of 1-0. Last place FC Nantes is one of only two teams remaining in Ligue 1 without a victory. New manager Elie Baup gets his first chance at home next Saturday against mid-table Valenciennes FC. Righting the ship and beginning to accumulate points is critical if Nantes hopes to solidify its position in Ligue 1 and avoid another trip to the embarrassment of Ligue 2.

I should have this much energy

Primary election day and I voted for the person I promised to vote for. I think most observers would be surprised if she achieves even 15% of the vote. I still think she was the best candidate.

It was almost 70 today and a gorgeous evening for a ride. Here is a planting of annuals on the boulevard of Roselawn Avenue less than half a mile from my house.I know those are annuals, nothing perennial would grow on that patch of roadside. Further, I have watched these plants emerge. There are a couple there that show corn like growth. I should have as much energy as the energy that was stored inside these plants when the season was new.

I tweaked my back today. I have never hurt my back before. I have had backaches but always it was wake up with a sore back. I have never before had the experience that I had today of pulling something and feeling it as it happened. I could still ride and did, thinking it wasn't serious. But when I got home I found myself hobbling around trying to prepare some food for myself, waiting for the ibu to kick in.

Getting old is not for sissies.

Well, of course

I am trainable but my retention of training is not good. After a short break from routine I almost always require re-training.

So, of course, when the weather suddenly went cold I had absolutely no idea what to do. I was so completely flummoxed that the only thing I could think of was stay in the house where it is warm. I contemplated what extra clothes to carry along in my jersey pockets while riding to deal with the problems of possibly getting cold but couldn't ever get comfortable with any of the various plans. The solution I settled on was that I stayed in the house where it was warm.

But a comment on yesterday's entry from someone calling herself "gfr" reminded me that when the weather turns cold you overdress. Make sure you are warm, you can always take something off. Well, of course.

Today it rained, rained hard just shortly before noon. I was pretty sure at the time that riding was not going to be possible today. But it stopped raining fairly quickly and the sun promptly appeared. By about 2:30 it seemed dry enough and out I went.

I overdressed.

It was fine.

The only thing about overdressed is that with less efficient diffusion of body heat I find that I have to work harder. When the weather gets cold I become slow.

But it was nice out there, about 62, and usually, although not always, sunny. Towards the end of the ride I got back to the spot in the Fairgrounds pictured twice last week.The Fair is over. But today nearly a week into the non-Fair season there is lots and lots of Fair flotsam and jetsam still cluttering up the street.

One route home from the Fairgrounds leads through the Farm Campus. We all know that I have friends there.Fall has arrived. The miles are suddenly harder to accumulate. The evening lighting conditions are questionable and the weekend temperatures do not always cooperate. I am happy to have been sufficiently retrained so that once again I can ride. I love my bicycle.

Let's see if we can return to normal

I rode on Wednesday when it was cool, very cool. I felt uncomfortable on the way home with the sun going down. Thursday was at least as cool and it scared me away. Friday was no better and I again passed.

It isn't that cold, obviously. It is still at least 15 degrees above the highest point at which I have suspended rides for the year. But the cold has come up so rapidly that it has discouraged me.

But today the Bianchi Babe demanded her weekly ride and I was forced out the door. We didn't expect anything historic but it just isn't every day that you can see the Titanic sinking.It just isn't every day that you can see the Titanic sinking into the yard of a church in Roseville.

We rode out to Vadnais, it was a beautiful ride on a beautiful, if cool, day.Thanks BB, I might not have done it without you.

The football news is bad, very bad. FC Nantes has recorded just one point in their opening four matches and sit 20th and last in the table. As with sports teams anywhere, you cannot fire all of the players, so you fire the coach. Michel Der Zakarian, coach for the past two season, the man who oversaw both the relegation to Ligue 2 and the triumphant return, was sacked after the Canaries took just one point from their opening three matches. Nantes have appointed Elie Baup as their new coach on a two-year contract.

Baup is a former manager at Saint Etienne whose reputation is as a builder of strong defenses. This is necessary as Nantes have conceded 9 goals in the four matches thus far. Baup started his coaching career at AS Saint Etienne in 1995 and has also coached at Bordeaux where he won the Coupe de la Ligue in 2002 and at Toulouse.

Baup has ten days to prepare for the Canaries next outing, a daunting trip to Paris Saint Germain on September 14.

One thing it wasn't

Yesterday was too wet to ride. Today it was dry enough. It was windy but not too windy. It was lots of things but one thing it clearly wasn't was summer. Today was fall. It was cool, cool enough for undershirt and arm warmers. And even with that as the evening deepened and I still wasn't home I found myself wishing I had donned a jacket.

Fall.

The Saint Odilia fall festival is set for this weekend.The fall festival features a giant sale inside these tents. I ride through their parking lot about 70 times a year but have never patronized the sale. This year I might actually stop and buy something.

Closed circuit to Wireless: There is likely to be a large number of used couches for sale at bargain prices. If you had transportation . . .

Perot and Carville

Phil and I took our afternoon break down at street level to see what it was that those people we could see out the window were actually doing. It turned out they were doing guerrilla street theater.

These people came up the street from a marshalling area in front of a local TV news truck. I doubt that this event would have occurred without the willing participation of a camera crew. It looks like the intention is Keystone Kops arrest Bush and Cheney for crimes against America. The cops had the big heads chained with big plastic chains and they attempted to deliver them to Checkpoint Charlie were they were to be taken into custody.Two problems. The big heads looked way more like Ross Perot and James Carville then like Bush and Cheney.

And the real police didn't display much interest in participating in street theater. This is the deployment at Checkpoint Charlie for the theater event. These police were not present before the actors showed up. They stood down shortly after the actors left. This is the police reaction to today's street theater performance.For authenticity verification, here is a picture with both groups visible, separated only by a city street and a vast chasm in world view.It was feeling very East Germany today.

Same ride, this time with TOPWLH

Labor Day.

Lots of pictures today.

I was up early. Here is something which by her own testimony has never been witnessed by TOPWLH. I refer to it as our House Stonehenge. Near the equinoxes the rising sun comes above Bob's house and lines up with our above the tub bathroom window to cast direct sunlight into an area of the house where BB claims no sun ever shines.The weather today was much like yesterday, same wind direction, same temperatures, although quite a bit more wind velocity. I took pretty much the same ride as yesterday but this time TOPWLH rode with me.

We got downtown to Rice Park at about 10am which was in plenty of time to see about one-third of the policemen in the modern world with their police toys and riot gear getting set up for the parade which was set to begin at 11am. They were even a bit more strict than yesterday about enforcing the no vehicle including no bicycle ban around Rice Park. I saw a Sheriff's Deputy from Will County. There is no Will County in Minnesota. I saw US Capital Police. I saw guys wearing Secret Service vests. It was an impressive turnout by the boys in blue.We decided to get out of town ahead of the planned festivities on the off chance that something untoward would happen. The only reasonable way out of town was back up past the Capital. It was still only about 10:15 but it looks to me like if they were going to have 100,000 it was going to be a very late arriving 100,000. Plus protests just are not what they were in the good old days. That tent in front of the Capital is a concession tent selling Coke products. Buy your Diet Coke here, you can't tell your anarchists from your revolutionary Maoists without a Diet Coke in your hand.We were just getting ready to leave when the Saint Paul Bicycle Police arrived in force. BB counted them and reports that there were 12 officers on mountain bikes.Mind you, I am not advocating this but I think this is one of the few times in my life where outrunning the police might have been a reasonable option for me had it become a necessary course of action. Certainly I had the equipment. Furthermore, I looked at those guys and although a few of them had decent legs mostly they looked like occasional bicycle riders, the kind I can drop if I really want to.

Not content with a 26 miles bicycle ride, we walked to the State Fair this afternoon. I had not been to the Fair for several years, perhaps as many as 8 years. But I had prepared for this year's Fair. On a ride through the Fairgrounds a couple of months ago I took a picture which I have been saving, waiting for just this moment to post. There were a couple of fairly distinctive gouges in the pavement next to my bike when I took the picture and I was pretty sure I could find the same spot again for another picture.

Fairgrounds in early summer.Fairgrounds on Labor Day, the last day of the Minnesota State Fair.And finally, what for me was a real highlight. We came across a political booth where Priscilla Lord Faris was making her pitch for votes for Democratic nomination for US Senate in the upcoming primary. She is the candidate against the endorsed candidate, the much more celebrated satirist Al Franken. She had her 88 year old father out campaigning. Her father is a personal hero of mine and of many Minnesotans. He is former federal judge Miles Lord. I was very pleased to meet him and he was kind enough to consent to a photograph.I greeted him appropriately I am glad to say, addressing him as "Your Honor". His response indicated to me that he didn't expect anyone to address him as such. But we touched briefly on why he is famous and some of the continuing ramifications of one of his most famous cases. He did request that we vote for his daughter and after a brief discussion with her both TOPWLH and myself are very pleased to count ourselves among her supporters. She says the right things, she promised that she would be the right kind of US Senator and she responded appropriately and correctly when TOPWLH asked her if she is smart.