Most people stayed inside

Yesterday's rain moved out overnight allowing today to dawn . . . overcast and cold. But the temperature promised to approach the daily average and although there were a couple of puddles in the cul de sac, the streets looked mostly dry. These are conditions in which I ride, I rode.

Well now, today really FELT like November even though the temperature was much the same as yesterday. It is my impression that the main difference was that today there was more moisture in the air than there was yesterday. The prevailing wisdom is that a wet cold is colder than a dry cold and based on two and half hours out in a dry cold yesterday and two and half hours out in a wet cold today I am going to agree. Today felt a lot colder.

I wasn't uncomfortable, I have appropriate gear. Even so I didn't want to get an excessive distance from home. I took the Shoreview water tower loop to the north and finished up with a Fairgrounds loop to the south. Here is the Shoreview water tower viewed through the playground equipment at Saint Odilia School.That's a cottonwood tree on the left. It has retained its leaves better than the cottonwood in our yard. The one in our yard is nearly as big a quitter as our ash trees.

It was pretty lonely out there today. I saw one other bicyclist, a commuter. I am sure he was commuting, commuters are easily identified by their backpacks. I saw three people raking and one guy mowing his lawn (OK, he wasn't actually cutting any grass, he was using his lawnmower to bag his leaves, a common, and it seems to me, not very green practice). Even walkers were in short supply, I saw less than a dozen. At one point in the ride I was anticipating entitling this post, "Too cold for dogs?" because during the first hour and a half of the ride none of the five walkers I had seen to that point had the obligatory canine towing them along. However, at the 18 mile mark of my ride I rode up behind a woman walking a dog and about half a mile later saw another. Both dogs were wearing their standard issue fur coat, the first woman was wearing fleece, the second was wearing leather.

This is what most of the yards in Roseville look like right now.The sun made only a couple of token attempts to break through the overcast. The first was when I was riding past Brice's house in Shoreview. The sun was out but Bill was not.

I rode down towards the Fairgrounds and on the way rode down Sheldon Street again. Those trees are oak but I am not sure the variety. If I recall correctly, Larrie said they were pin oaks, which I believe are categorized as a red oak. I don't know what Larrie's silviculture bona fides are but I do know that his mother lives on that street. I conclude that he has a pretty good chance of being correct.

The second appearance of the sun was while I was riding through the Fairgrounds. I conducted additional research on the time and temperature displays located there. The one on the east end of the Grandstand said 44. The cattle barn again came in at 41. There is also a display on the west end of the Grandstand. Today I checked that one and it said 48? I now wonder if perhaps part of the Grandstand is heated (they have running water in there during the Fair) and that perhaps the interior heat is skewing the results on the outdoor displays. It wouldn't matter during the Fair when the largest number of Fairgrounds users are present (usually the heat is not turned on during late August) but a temperature difference of 4 degrees between the two ends of the Grandstand is a bit disconcerting to a November visitor.

I have the gear, it was a good ride. With my third ride of this November I surpassed both the number of rides and the total miles ridden last November. It is nice to be getting some November miles but a glance at the historical record reminds me that the season ends precipitously and it ends soon.