Gopher fans pay forward

The run of beautiful late summer days continues which means that today again featured southerly breezes. It was another spectacular opportunity for a ride in September.

I rode over to and through the Fairgrounds again, monitoring the clean up. Here is an impression which I gleaned on yesterday's ride and forgot to share, the heaviest grease on the sidewalk is at the entrances to the Food Building.

Here is another sight which I actually observed yesterday but yesterday I did not have favorable lighting conditions for a photograph. Today the lighting was better so here is "Really Efficient Use of Trailers".I have pictured the new UofM football stadium here a few times. Today is the day, the first game to be played in the new venue. As I rode through the Fairgrounds I was a little surprised to find lots and lots of people about. Obviously not State Fair type crowds, but WAY more than usual. Eventually I discovered the source of all of the people.

Here in this greenest of green places we have something called the Intercampus Transitway. This is a bus only route which connects the main campus of the University with the Saint Paul (aka "Farm") campus. The new stadium sits at the main campus end of the transitway. Unfortunately, the new stadium is built on what was formerly the main University parking lots at that end of campus meaning that parking is at a premium near the stadium. However, major parking lots (the Fairgrounds) sit at the farm campus end of the transitway. The plan is that for home football games there will be parking at the Fair and plentiful available buses. Today is the first test of the system and plenty of fans showed up early to take advantage of the shuttle buses and also of the wonderful weather that provided an opportunity for tailgating.By the way, it is my view that "tailgating" is a euphemism for "another excuse for public drunkenness".

I rode through this gathering and ended up being surprised by the reaction. I generally expect young, on their way to being drunken, male fans of this most main stream of American sports to react to a spandex clad bicyclist with explicitly homophobic hate speech. Is that too harsh?

Instead this group acknowledged my presence with, "GO GOPHERS!", thereby paying forward. TOPWLH and I are season ticket holders of another of the University sponsored intercollegiate athletic teams so I had no problem responding with a thumbs up and a "GO GOPHERS!" of my own.

So I rode on, taking the aforementioned Intercampus Transitway over the the stadium. I took a couple of pictures there but another instance of operator error (DOH!) rendered them not suitable for publication.

I discovered a couple of things over there. Riding through the campus and Dinkytown on a football Saturday is pretty dang dangerous, something I will think carefully about before trying again. Those familiar with the geography over there will understand how dodging the main campus and the football stadium while getting out of there meant that I ended up on the River Road. A positive outcome of the ride is that as I progressed out from the campus on River Road I ended up re-discovering something that I knew was there, a bicycle friendly work around for the distinctly automobile-centric intersection of River Road, Franklin and 27th Avenue SE.

So I was riding on River Road towards Saint Paul but I had reached the point in the ride where I wanted to start for home. I ended up having to attack the Saint Anthony Avenue climb up from River Road. This seemed a trifle unfair as this is one of the very few times when I have had to ride up that hill on a ride on which I have not previously ridden down it. I came back through South Saint Anthony and eventually approached the construction zone at Dead Man's Curve from the south side.

If you want to cue the music from the Blink 182 video from a couple of days ago, go ahead, I'll wait here.

Hmmm, hmmm, hmmm, hmmm; hmmn hmmm hmmm hmmm; get ready; goodbye . . .

OK?

Here we go again, a view of the construction from the viewpoint not previously photographed.Clearly they mean to do major reconstruction.

As I neared home I was nearly cut off by a couple of blondes attempting a U-turn in a sporty little car. The driver hailed me asking for directions. I did not know the name of the street she was looking for but the other blonde had a map which the two of them were consulting without the slightest bit of success. I looked at their map and determined that they were looking for the Gopher football tailgating. I offered to show them a picture of it and them directed them back towards the Fairgrounds with instructions which I felt confident would enable them to link up with the other tailgaters.

They were profuse in their "thank you's" and I returned the payment made earlier by the other tailgaters. As the blondes departed I gave them a thumbs up and a "GO GOPHERS!"

Score and game highlights available at 11.