Passed 17,000 on the odometer

On my car, on my car.

My bicycle is lagging at 16,334. However, I am about to enter another period of more bicycling than driving. The first couple weeks of this period will be on a different bicycle but I will be back to the LOOK with plenty of good weather remaining. 17,000 on the LOOK is definitely going to occur this year, it will be interesting to see how close I get to having the bicycle catch up to the car.

I went to work today. There were some light moments, for example this morning I made a point of parading around the entire Division wishing each and every employee that I encountered a "Happy Third Payday of the Month", which today was. But mostly I was "on" all day as lots of folks are desperately trying to extract some additional piece of the institutional memory that I am about to take into retirement. I did the best I could.

But it was hard, it used up a lot of energy. I got home and I wanted to ride my bike. I am astounded that all of this time I was able to go to work every day and still get in a two hour bicycle ride most days of the week. How did I do that? I got on my bicycle and somehow forced myself back into what was for so long my regular daily routine.

And? And I don't any more like riding when all of those cars are out there trying to get home. There are so many of them that are very, very angry. Cars deliberately take the pavement away from a bicycle, not because it speeds their journey, but only because they have a car and you in the spandex can just wait behind me.

OK, I wait. But what's the point?

In the face of the unexpected aggression I deviated from my more or less standard over to the river route and rode back past the cows.The cows seem, as always, pretty calm. I like the lighting on this one, I wish I had had the time to wait for optimum lighting but Ansel Adams I am not.

I've been back with the work force, with people I have known for a long time. Back with people I respect, whose opinions I have come to value, people who know lots of things about lots of things that I know only a little about, people who have always made the travel on this road interesting. Two more days and I will be gone for good. There are lots of things there that I will miss, mostly those people. But I know emphatically that I am ready now to begin finding out just exactly what it is that comes next.

All time Major League record

I have lived in a city with major league sports since 1964. To be completely objective, I have been an infrequent attendee of performances by these sports teams. But I have always to at least some extent followed these teams. I do not recall ever that an all time record has been set here by any of the teams or by any opponents of the local teams in games played locally.

Last night I attended a game at the Metrodome featuring the Minnesota Twins and the Chicago White Sox in which Sox pitcher Mark Buehrle set an all time major league record. Perhaps pretty obviously, this is the first time that I have ever been present for such an event.From the Minneapolis Star Tribune: "White Sox pitcher Mark Buehrle made a bid Tuesday night to become the first pitcher in major league history to toss back-to-back perfect games.

Along the way, the lefthander set a new major league record for consecutive batters retired at 45, including the first 17 he faced against the Twins."

In unfinished business, today I went to work and spoke to Steve the new surveyor, the guy who replaced Judy. Somewhat surprisingly to me, Steve stated that he has always believed that it is Larpenteur that is laid out along the 45th parallel. But he proved to be completely at ease with the research tools available to him to check. He knew something about Google Earth that I didn't, that you can get it to display latitude and longitude as an overlay on the earth scene.

He confirmed for both of us that the 45th is much closer to Roselawn than to Larpenteur. According to Google Earth, in fact, the 45th is just slightly north of Roselawn, in fact, almost exactly at the location of that monument in stone featured yesterday. The explanation given by Steve is that modern measurement instruments and techniques may have established that the current accepted location of the 45th is slightly north of where it was believed to be at the time the cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul were laid out. I believe that a reasonable explanation would be that the monument in the stone is within "an acceptable margin of survey error" of the actual location of the 45th.

Another item of unfinished business is the legal description of the quarter-quarter section that is the location of my personal residence. I have liberated that previously described post it from service to the man and in the shorthand notation that we commonly use in the public land business I live in the SENW 16-29-23. More formally that would be the southeast quarter of the northwest quarter, section 16, township 29 north, range 23 west of the 4th principal meridian, Ramsey County, Minnesota.

The final bit of unfinished business is the location of my personal residence in relationship to the 45th and whether or not I live in the "True North". At one point during my history of employment I used resources available, primarily USGS quad maps (insiders will know what that means) to calculate the approximate longitude and latitude of my personal residence. I choose not to post these in this public forum. There is already a little too much personal information creeping in. But I have those coordinates estimated to degree, minute and second. Anyone wishing to check my figures may respond in the comment section with an e-mail address and I will provide my estimates to people I trust. The short answer is that according to the USGS quads my latitude is several seconds north of 45.

As may be obvious I worked today. It was a burden, not an intolerable burden, but an undeniable burden. They had lots of stuff they wanted me to do. As a result, even though it was nice enough to ride during the middle of the day by the time I got home it was looking pretty dicey and I was feeling a bit worn out. No ride today.

Acceptable margin of survey error

So today I read in full the 45th parallel Wikipedia article that I linked yesterday in my discussion of Roselawn Avenue and the True North. I must admit that what I read in the article seriously shook my confidence. Reproduced here is what the article says about the 45th parallel in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul metropolitan area:

"Farther west, the line roughly bisects the metropolitan area of Minneapolis-St. Paul. In St. Paul, Larpenteur (from French l'arpenteur, "the surveyor") Avenue runs along the 45th parallel from the city's eastern to western edge. The center line of east-west Broadway Avenue in Northeast Minneapolis was deliberately laid out by city planners to be coterminous to the 45th parallel (i.e., if you are standing in the middle of the street, you are literally standing on the parallel line)."

So Larpenteur, not Roselawn? I don't think so, I think this is one of those instances that they keep warning us about when the information on that website is just plain Wiki-wrong.

I posted this photo in April 2007 of a bronze marker in a boulder near the corner of Roselawn and Cleveland. At the time I asked Judy, the surveyor at work, about the monument (it is worth noting that monument is surveyor talk). Judy told me that as a member of the Capitol Area Land Surveyors Association she participated in the placement of that plaque. It was she who told me that ROSELAWN is laid out on the 45th parallel. When I asked about the fact that the plaque (non-surveyor talk) is located a least a couple of dozen yards north of the intersection of Roselawn and Cleveland, she replied that the location was, if I recall correctly, "within an acceptable margin of survey error of being correct."So what exactly is an acceptable margin of survey error? Larpenteur Avenue is over a half mile distant. I am not a surveyor but I doubt that a half mile is ever an acceptable margin of survey error.

As I rode my bicycle today I, as is usual while riding my bicycle, had plenty of time to ponder this issue (and most anything else my mind might wander to, I love my bicycle). It gradually occurred to me that I once drove my car back to Roseville from Robbinsdale traveling most of the distance on Broadway. I remembered finding of interest that Broadway, although it is not continuous, lined up, pretty much, with a street in Roseville, which I remember thinking was Roselawn. The more I thought about it, Larpenteur becomes East Hennepin when it crosses the city limits to Minneapolis and I was pretty sure Hennepin doesn't line up with Broadway.

When I got home I checked the map. Hennepin lines up with Plymouth. A half mile north Broadway lines up with ROSELAWN.

Clearly this wiki-article was written by someone from Hennepin County who is captivated by the idea that Larpenteur, which does, according to BabelFish, translate from the French as land surveyor, was given that name in recognition of some sort of survey point. The problem with this is that this street name is NOT related to any bit or arcane survey trivia. Larpenteur Avenue is named after August Larpenteur, one of the first settlers of Minnesota. Given his name, it seems quite likely that Larpenteur WAS of French origin and his family name may well have been derived from the profession of one of his ancestors, as is common. Larpenteur himself, however, was a merchant.

I rode this morning at about 10:30. It was a little cooler than I like, and quite a bit more windy. But morning is really nice, weekday mornings there just aren't very many other people out there. It was nice.

Four corners

The Other Person Who Lives HERE (TOPWLH) has joined me a couple of times for my evening walks. I have had to explain to her that the route we are walking on is what I refer to in discussions with myself (I know, kinda early in retirement to be talking to myself) as the four corners route. My life's work has made me perhaps a bit more aware than many of the original government public land survey and I am aware that I live within a quarter section of land (PLS 40 anyone?) which, by the way, I CAN identify, I have the legal description noted on a post it on a map on the wall at work. I still work, technically, as noted recently by GFR, so when I next appear there (YIKES, day after tomorrow) I will liberate the post it note from its service to the man and bring it home and pass along the quarter-quarter, and the section, township and range. I digress. A quarter section is a half mile on a side so by walking the perimeter of a quarter section I can get in what I can comfortably assume is a two mile walk without the need for any further calculation or measurement. Civilization as we know it has cooperated in making this possible by, for the most part, laying out cities with the streets mostly on the section, half-section, and quarter-section lines. My personal quarter-section is bounded by Fairview, Roselawn, Cleveland and County Road B. A side bit of information that I really enjoy is that Roselawn is laid out along the 45th parallel of north latitude. Anyone living, as I do, north of Roselawn lives in the northern half of the northern hemisphere, or as I sometimes say, the True North. I digress again.

The reality based problem with my "four corners" route is that I don't actually live on the perimeter of the quarter section. I start from a point in the middle. A reasonable sounding solution, the shorthand for which is my description of the route, would be to walk to each of the four corners and then home. This would, however, be over two miles by the distance from my house to the nearest point on the perimeter times 2. I live one block, an eighth of a mile, from the perimeter, so that two miles walk would be two and a quarter miles. Messy. Unsatisfactory.

The solution that works is to walk to each of the four sides of the quadrilateral while maintaining a route that is always parallel to one of the sides. That sounds pretty mucky mucky but actually the blocks are all laid out in a grid, I don't cut across. I walk to all four sides, and then back home, voila, two miles. I admit that I am being inexact when I call it the four corners when it is actually the four sides, but until now this was only a discussion I was having with myself and I could call it whatever I wanted.

Anyway I thought about doing something similar on my bicycle, riding to the four corners of Roseville. A review of the map disclosed that at least one of the corners (the northeast one) appears to be not on the grid but in a park or something. I thought that I could just do with the bicycle ride what I do with the walk, just ride to the four perimeters and still call it "four corners".

Well, another look at the map revealed that I already pretty much do that every time I get on my bike. I can't get across Snelling without dipping into Falcon Heights to the south, any ride to the north crosses over into Shoreview, anything around Owasso probably gets out to Rice Street and Maplewood, the only side I don't do all of the time is the western boundary, Lauderdale. Today I did Lauderdale. The appropriate commemoration of this endeavor is pictured here:LOOK at the Roseville City Hall.

Today was my 100th ride of the year. My first ride was March 15 with pretty much regular riding not being possible until the weather improved, about April 7. But even using March 15, that's 100 rides in 134 days. When the weather permits, I ride just about every day.

I am a little hesitant to pursue the idea of face on a stick for perspective in the corn field. Every time I think about face on a stick what comes to my mind is this. Demonstrators pushing wheelchairs and wearing masks of Arthur Bremer appeared at a rally for presidential candidate George Wallace in Madison, Wisconsin. They chanted, "Free Arthur Bremer, give him another chance. He should have shot him in the head, he shot him in the pants."

Free speech is a wonderful thing. No one promised that it would always be in good taste.

I now need a new morning routine

Until this year my daily routine during le Tour de France was to set the timer to tape the morning TV coverage and go to work. Then upon arriving home I rode my bicycle and then watched the tape. This month I must admit that it took me a bit to adjust to watching the race live. I dashed from the TV room to the computer monitor, preferring the larger TV image when it was available, but obviously preferring the live on line coverage when Versus went to commercial.

Now what? Is the America's Cup on or something? Actually, I know that in about 3 weeks Versus will have coverage of the World Track and Field Championships.

We hustled out the door almost immediately after George's flamme rouge surge and Renshaw's exemplary lead out produced what may have been Cavendish's most resounding stage win yet. We rode out to Vadnais into a bit of a head wind, enough of a head wind that on the way back with a tailwind we rode the uphill from the Rice Street underpass (don't forget, brand new pavement) at 23 mph. Yup, unhill at 23 mph. Fast? Strong?

The corn is still stretching for the sky. I don't think it will get very much taller as it has begun to tassel out and I believe that from that point forward the plant begins to pour all of its primal energy into producing the cobs.She is only one row back into the corn field and even with that quite small invasion she is nearly invisible, but TOPWLH is most assuredly there, performing one of her most important bicycle related functions, holding her hand up for scale.

Rest in Peace Harry Patch.

Notes on walking and riding

I am discovering that middle of the day bicycle rides leave me a little bit restless as sundown approaches. I have begun taking an occasional walk around the neighborhood as the day winds down. I like this, this is what I meant when I said I needed more time for myself than working allowed me to have. I don't want to have all of my eggs in that one bicycling basket, I am glad to be out walking around. Last night I walked up to a yard that I have photographed a couple of times while bicycling and took a walking picture.The yard has been photographed a couple of times before, but as with the yard's second appearance, the flowers are in a different state of bloom and provide a new view.

We had overnight rain again. Wireless had planned to bring her bicycle (Bianchi Eros) over and ride with us. However, during the times when she and we were available either rain was still falling or/and the streets were still wet. But it cleared nicely and I can report, just having spoken to her on the land line, that we both ended up having nice even if totally separate rides.

Mine went north to a perhaps predictable location. I love the ride to Lake Vadnais, the distance is right, I know the hills well, I know the streets well, I can easily gauge my effort. But I love the ride because it is a little bit different every time and each and every time it is a scenic delight.

Today when I rode through Vadnais I spotted an egret.I rode on and shortly thereafter had a nice moment with a young person on a, believe it or not, blue Bianchi. He was on a long ride and initially rode up next to me to ask directions but stayed to discuss bicycles. He was impressed by the LOOK, saying that his personal favorite bicycle ever is a LOOK 585, a successor frame to the 381i that I ride. It was nice, he was a racer, not racer boy, he was polite, not abrupt, it was nice. Eventually I gave him the directions he needed and he powered away, much stronger, much faster than I.

Anybody have any idea what this is?There is a pretty large plot of this growing in the agricultural experiment station. I know that I grew up in a small town and worked on a farm as a teenager and that I masquerade as a farm expert, but, (blush) I have no idea. It isn't planted in rows, it looks to me like it might be a forage plant intended to be harvested and baled a la alfalfa, clover or timothy for winter cattle feed. All I can say with certainty is that it isn't alfalfa, clover or timothy.

Anybody have any idea what this is?I have ridden past this many times as it is parked in a driveway within a mile of my house. Today for the first time I noticed that it is a Wellcraft. It appears to be a 230 Suncruiser and it also has a decal advertising Vuarnet France, which I believe are sunglasses?

I am pretty sure it isn't the Scarob Sport with the twin Yamaha 300s that I have been instructed by Wireless to describe when anyone asks me about the Wellcraft hat she gave me and that I wear. Ask her.

This year's TdF draws to a close. The race for the yellow never had any drama and even worse, the winner looks to me to be unworthy. Even so, it has been a great race, a great spectacle. The race for the green jersey has been a classic, the race for the spotty has been a worthy display by a worthy champion. France has, as usual, been spectacular. Tomorrow's stage features the Giant of Provence, the extremely difficult climb of Mont Ventoux. Forget not that on one occasion a rider in le Tour died while attempting to climb this monster. Tomorrow promises to be another great spectacle, a good morning of television.

Interruption of service?

The morning newspaper confirmed that it has been a coolish summer with the information that the temperature has reached the average high only three times in July. Today seems likely to be the fourth, although it still needs a couple of ticks to make it. I rode at mid-day, it was sunny and warm with light breezes.

I rode over to the big city on the west bank of the river. I rode north to the end of the river road and then veered over to North Second Street to explore a bit further. There is a bike lane on North Second as it passes through an area devoted mostly to manufacturing plants and metal salvage yards. I rode all the way to 36th Avenue before starting back.

That bike path doesn't get very much bicycle traffic as I have ridden on gravel roads with less sand, gravel and trash on them than what I rode over trying to stay mostly in that lane. It was necessary to stay in the lane as there were lots of pretty industrial trucks zinging by in the traffic lane and they seemed pretty resistant to the idea of sharing the road, even that part of the road clearly marked as "bike lane". Even with the trucks though, it was pretty interesting, very different from the Eight Lakes Tour, and a nice ride.

I came across this within half a mile of home and immediately assumed that I was in for an unannounced, and as usual, an uncompensated interruption of service. I had a rant all made up before I even got all the way home.But alas, service is still on, I am on the internet with cable TV and the third or fourth daily replay of le Tour de France droning on in the background.

I said this when he won the Tour in 2007 and I am going to say it again, the current Tour leader doesn't look clean to me. For me, Contador too closely fits the Michael Rasmussen mold, a skinny climber who unexpectedly? also discovers the ability to time trial at a such a high level that he is able to defeat the likes of Cancellara, the Olympic time trial champion. By the way, I am also firmly on record with suspicions about both of the Schleck brothers. None of those guys pass my personal duck test, they don't look or ride like they are clean. Quack, quack, quack: Dirty.

Turf envy

*sigh*

Today was another one of those days where it was very pleasant all day long until . . .

At about 4:15, just before I got off work, thunder made its appearance. By 4:20 or so it was pouring rain. Rain photographs a little bit better when it is raining really hard.I could have ridden at nearly any time during the time I was at work and instead my ride got wiped . . .

Ooops. I don't actually work any more.

It WAS a nice day with temperatures only slightly below normal, about enough below normal for late July to make for a really nice day. It was so nice that someone organized a children's bicycle outing to Sucker Lake.That's actually pretty cool because that spot is at least a half mile from anyplace that you can get to in a motor vehicle. So someone who rides her bicycle (and I am willing to bet it was a her) enough to be aware of this spot organized an event where lots of kids rode out there for what it looked like to me was a fun time for all.

Our school district about 10 years ago spent, IIRC, $1.5 million or so on extensive work on the football stadium at the high school. That was the project that produced the blue thing.

Shortly thereafter other suburban high schools started installing artificial turf on their fields. It started, again IIRC, mostly in the tony western suburbs but recently spread over to our side of town with an installation at our neighbor and arch rival, Mounds View. Our high school developed a powerful case of turf envy which is in the process of being scratched.Anyone who lives in an affluent suburban school district can expect that this will soon be happening at the high school nearest to where they live. I include in this forecast, oh say for example, South Ottawa County in Michigan, plus in Minnesota Lakeville, all of the schools in the Anoka-Hennepin district (Anoka, Blaine, Coon Rapids and Andover), the other school in the Mounds View district (Irondale) but I think maybe not Stillwater. They really, really love their grass field in Stillwater.

Today's ride moved me past 2,000 miles this bike this year. I am on pace for perhaps the most miles in July in a year in which I did not ride TRAM. The other interesting thing is that my bicycle and my car are currently in the same thousand in mileage, 16,xxx. The car will soon turn 17 and it's going to take some doing to get the bicycle there but it is still fun for now.

Rain doesn't seem to photograph very well

It rained a bit over night and then with pretty impressive intensity at about dawn this morning. I was up and about for this as I had set the alarm and was up and watching when Versus went live at 5:30am local time with the roll out and kilometer zero of today's stage of the Tour de France. I spent the morning watching another episode of the Contador show. The streets were still quite wet even after the stage ended. TOPWLH and I considered the Farmers Market but apparently rain discourages them too, as when we investigated we found no damn farmers, no damn market.

The skies continued to look threatening for most of the afternoon but the truth is that there was a longish period in there when I could have ridden and if I were more manic about the need to ride, as I always was when I worked at the DNR, I probably would have given it a shot. Instead I completed some other tasks that needed completion. OK, I took a nap. I needed a nap, see above about my rising time.

But eventually I did get out. I discovered again the interesting phenomena that sometimes no rain here does not necessarily mean no rain there. It was pretty dry on my street but across Snelling it was very wet. In further contrast when I crossed into Saint Paul it seemed completely dry.

I was exploring and trying to stay relatively close to home and at about the 10 mile mark the northwestern sky changed from a possibility, passed through a probability, and had emerged into certainty, it was going to rain again. I made it home, settling today for a one hour and fifteen minute bicycle ride.

Rain doesn't seem to photograph very well but here is a shot from inside my garage out into the yard shortly after the rain begain.But indubitably all things must pass and by 8pm I had completed an in lieu of two mile walk and was coming back across the field for this:We also do not seem to get spectacular sunsets here. I am hopeful of seeing some better ones soon.

Ahhhh, Monday morning

Monday might be my new favorite day. Monday is the day that all the people who were hanging around on Sunday disappear back into employment. Monday morning is quiet and serene.

I rode a frequent route but one that I haven't ridden much lately, the River Road down to a turn around up Prior from the river just before the River Road crosses Highway 5. I also deviated a bit and rode down to the Fort Snelling overlook.Those buildings at the right edge are remnants of WWII Fort Snelling. The historical fort is next with the Round Tower on the right end, Colonel Snelling's residence on the left end.

It was a beautiful morning for a ride and unlike usual rides on the River Road, on Monday morning you just don't find much in the way of racer boy. I met a couple but was never once buzzed by one flying past me.

Starting to realize that we will be in Michigan soon

After a couple of days when the standards of acceptability for July were seriously violated today returned to the normal parameters. It was still cool at dawn but the clouds had parted and the sun started to shine. I commented to TOPWLH that it is July, if the sun is out it just isn't going to remain in the 60s for long. It took until nearly noon but 70s returned and a spectacularly nice July afternoon eventually occurred.

We watched the Contador show on Versus and then rooted for the old guy in the glof. Yes, I do mean glof, that's the way I say it. When the old guy chunked his second on the 3rd playoff hole, not getting the ball out of the rough, we headed for the road.

It was still a tiny bit cool but quickly enough it was just fine and 2:30 or so at Vadnais looked like this:For some reason she took her helmet off.

There is new pavement on Rice Street on an underpass where we have both discovered that we can accelerate down into the bottom and hold the speed all the way to the top coming back out, resulting in excellent uphill speeds which today were 18 mph. We like that on the uphill. It makes us feel strong, it makes us feel fast.

We also had an extended period on Hamline after the four way stop at County B where the pavement is good and a slight downhill is followed by a false flat that we both can hammer, 18 mph again. Mind you, 18 mph without particular strain, just a good solid effort producing good solid results.

We stopped at the corn field for the obligatory photo. The corn continues to grow and because it is so tall, today GRider stood closer to the edge of the field.For comparison, here is the same corn field photographed on Memorial Day. What a difference six weeks makes.The next step is for the corn to tassel out and start to form cobs. There is no sign of that today in the farm field but for the second week in a row we had sweet corn from the girl who sells vegetables on Sundays at the hardware store parking lot. Last fall when asked she reported that she will be there on summer Sundays "as long as Grandpa wants" to keep growing the vegetables that she sells. The corn was very, very good.

We have a chokecherry tree/bush in our back yard. Usually the birds get the berries/cherries way before I even notice but today I noticed. Here is a picture to prove that we have fruit growing in our back yard.This is perhaps important because some may know that we have an apple tree which has never produced apples.

Fruit is an appropriate subject at this point. I recently saw a Yahoo news article on "How to Open a Banana Like a Monkey". The guy in the video comments that his whole adult life he never knew the right way to open a banana. But in the video he shows how and now I do too. I exposed TOPWLH to the technique earlier today.

She tried it. Later on she came by where I was sitting on the deck. With the appropriate fruit in her hands she asked me if I knew how monkeys open an apricot.

Long sleeves, long pants day

A fairly nice crowd which included at least three ducks and GRider and moi attended a band concert last evening in Saint Anthony. As is routinely true for this group, the band was good.Today appears to have established a new record for lowest high temperature for this date in the history of recorded observations. There was also an occasional light mist. I did not ride. Who doesn't like a day off from time to time?

Closed circuit to BLQuest: 40mph on Marshall exceeds the posted speed limit. It also exceeds reason for a compact crank.

Way too windy to ride

But of course I did anyway. There was one direction where I felt really strong, more about that in a bit.

The major accomplishment of the day is that I got my birthday present, a new phone. I posed it here with a couple of its new friends on the theory that it can start right away getting used to the sorts that it will be hanging out with from now on.I can now text and I sent one to Wireless earlier this afternoon to prove it.

I just thought that my old phone was obsolete and that a retired guy has a slightly enhanced need for communication. I mean I just am not going to be available at that desk phone at the DNR very much any more. I upgraded.

The ride took me north with a loop through the Fairgrounds on the return trip. They are having another car show of some kind there this weekend. There is probably some overlap with the crowd that was present for the street rod show but there definitely weren't any of these around for that.This one would have fit right in, however, a really pretty 57 Chevrolet. This car's entry to this week's show was visible on the rear fender where it says "Fuel injected".Short break in the action there, I just received a text message and replied!

Only serious bicycle geeks need read past this point as the content is about to veer precipitously in that direction. Be forewarned, gear ratios are going to be discussed.

It has been very windy both of the last two days. Yesterday I was riding up the hill from Lake Vadnais and my bicycle began making an unfamiliar noise. It took a bit to diagnose but I had been riding in the small ring (here goes, you've been warned), the 39x19 actually. My usual approach of late for that hill has been to go down three cogs. But usually I am in the 39x17, three cogs from there puts me in the 39x21. However, starting in the 19 meant that I had shifted all the way to my 39x26, the lowest gear on the bicycle. I had been in that gear only one other time, three or four years ago when I climbed the Myrtle Street hill in Stillwater. The chain rubs slightly on either the derailer or the big chain ring in that gear and that was the noise I heard. I remember thinking the last time that it happened that I could try to adjust the chain line to fix the noise but it isn't much and I don't use that gear very much. I let it go and yesterday heard the noise again. But twice in 16,000 miles doesn't seem like a problem that requires a solution.

Today I was out at the turn around point and was heading east, the direction where I felt the strongest. I was heading slightly downhill, to be sure, but only a little bit. I was coasting along without having to pedal but for some reason I decided to try a higher gear, I mean I was feeling really strong. The directions in the racer boy handbook for this situation call for maintaining cadence while shifting to a harder gear and this time that is what I did. I was riding in my usual 53x17 so I hit the thumb lever for the 16. It was still going pretty well so I shifted again, now to the 15. See where this is headed? Since I have owned this bicycle I have been to the 14 a time or two and today with one more click I was there again. But I still felt strong so I gave the final click and for the very first time on this bicycle shifted it into the highest gear available, the 53x13. And pedaled easily along at 32 miles per hour.

Over the course of the past two days I rode in the lowest gear for the second time ever and in the highest gear for the first time ever. Today I felt strong, I felt fast.

What can I say? I like orange.

I am going to say that the racing was quite pedestrian but even so, I thought today's stage of le Tour was one of the best. The chateaux of the upper Loire were spectacular and Paul seemed to have a bit of history for each and every one of them. The race wasn't so good but France was outstanding.

It was pretty dreary all morning and I thought I might be getting another rest day. The wind whipped up and the temperature kept falling even after 9am instead of heading up. But at noon the sun broke through and the day that then ensued was spectacular.

I rode at what is a quite late hour for the new me, hitting the road at about 3pm. The wind was strong but was only an obstacle in that one direction, and only a bit of a bother in one other. Having had a day off yesterday I felt fine and enjoyed the ride.

I found 10 swans a swimming at Lake Vadnais. I like this particular angle because of the fishing bobber in the tree.The news reports last week about the low water at Snail Lake said that there is some sort of connecting pipe between Sucker and Snail so I was kind of looking around to see if that might be interesting at all from the Sucker Lake end. I found nothing and have nothing to report. But I did find a vantage point that shows the lake in a slightly different light.Here is yesterday's bicycle maintenance project at the half way point.What can I say? I like orange.

Rainy Bastille Day

Bastille Day is the French national holiday, celebrated on 14 July each year. In France, it is called Fête Nationale in official parlance, or as Paul Sherwen pointed out in Tour de France coverage today, more commonly le quatorze juillet.

It rained early here, then again mid-morning and just now is getting ready to do it again. I didn't ride but in honor of the French holiday I did do a bicycle project. Many will know that LOOK is a French manufactured frame, so I have a French bicycle, working on my French bicycle on quatorze juillet seems way appropriate.Any guesses what the project was? Anyone? Bueller? Anyone?

Hint: Another French company is involved.

Later on in the day I discovered a website that was offering live coverage of the national fireworks (or as the website put it, le feu d'artifice) at la Tour Eiffel. I shared the website address with my French interpreter so I am guessing she saw them too. It went pretty well until the counter indicated 20,000 viewers were watching on-line and after that coverage was intermittent.

I went to the gas station today. I last was there on June 16 and had driven 307 miles since then. In the same period of time I have ridden my bicycle 630 miles. I feel strong, sometimes I even feel fast.

Application

Warm enough? 72, check.

Sunny? mostly sunny, check.

Windy? light breezes, check.

Humidity? Not an issue, check.

Have enough time? Guffaw, guffaw, check.

Today was cooler than the average for July but I would say it was a just about perfect day in June. I ducked out in mid-morning and visited the retirement people and started the application process. It didn't take very long and I was home by 11am, in plenty of time to ride. It was a very nice day, a very nice ride.

Here is the newest image from the previously highlighted not very secure parking area at the south end of the Sucker Lake portion of the Snail Lake Regional Park.This citizen parked a vehicle with tinted side glass in the area of the lot where all of the break ins occur, the area too far away from the street to be monitored by passing traffic. Actually it has been a relatively glass free season down at that end of the parking lot. The lot is either getting an occasional police patrol or else most of the users of the lot have gotten the message that parking down at that end isn't wise.

Cool day in July

Versus offered an early start for today's TV coverage so we got up early. Sadly, the professional bicycle racers declined to produce very much drama.

The TV coverage today quoted Cadel Evans as saying that the course for this year's race is designed in such a way that the race was settled in the team time trial. Certainly Evans lost his chance to win in that stage and he may be right about the rest of the contenders as well. I looked at the rest of the mountain stages and there just aren't going to be many opportunities for the field to gain on the Astana riders. The mountain stages in the Alps include only one mountaintop finish. The other stages look like today's, a climb or two over some pretty severely difficult mountains but always 50 or 60 kilometers to the finish after the final mountain summit. Presumably Astana will do on those stages what they did today, ride tempo, controlling attacks on the climbs and then using the strength of the team (if necessary) to bring the group back together on the run in to the finish.

We shall see. Of course, there IS that one mountain top finish (Stage 15, next Sunday), a time trial (Stage 18, the final Thursday) and the mountaintop finish on Mont Ventoux on the last Saturday of the race, the day before the parade to Paris. There will be SOME opportunities, but it looks to me like there will be lots of stages that resemble what we saw today.

We left the house for a ride about 30 minutes after the first finishers in France. Had we been a little more anxious we could have been riding the streets of Minnesota before the God of Thunder finished riding the roads of France. Hushovd and Cavendish finished together in a group timed 24:57 after the stage winner.

It was cool and cloudy and the grey skies over the eight lake tour didn't really provide much in the way of photo opportunities. But we were diligent in our attention to our required tasks and stopped at the edge of the corn field.The guest rider is in there somewhere although she isn't providing much in the way of perspective. Maybe it's comic relief again.

Off road

It was pretty cool this morning at the moment that Versus coverage of today's Tour de France stage ended. A fairly brisk breeze was blowing out of the WNW. The weather channels I trust reported a temperature of 68 but promised 76 by 1pm so I gave it a shot. The wind was quite cool and I ended up deviating from my more or less standard routes. I rode all the way out to Highway 96, nothing new there, but the temperatures didn't rise as promised. It was still a bit uncomfortable into the wind at this point so I didn't want to ride too far east as I didn't relish riding back into the cold breeze. I decided on a more direct route even though the route took me through Grass Lake and onto a dirt trail. I decided that if the boys from Bouyges can ride time trial bikes off road that I could do the same with my road bike.

French translation requested. I got a little of it, I know they are talking about BBox Bougues Telecomm but, really, what else would they be discussing as Voeckler's team deviates from the prescribed route.

Grass Lake is part of the same chain of lakes that includes Snail Lake so I suspected that the water level of Grass Lake would be low. It was quite a bit lower than I expected though, rendering Grass Lake almost into Grass Field.There was only one dicey moment on the trail as the north end had a bit too much loose gravel, forcing me off the path onto the grass. But mostly it was fine, more hard packed dirt than gravel, and plenty dry and firm.My favorite moment from today's stage was that moment when Cavendish, clad head to mid-thigh, including sunglasses, totally in green, rode across the finish line just after the new green jersey for the new leader of that competition was awarded to the God of Thunder. Paul and Phil commented that perhaps Cavendish could see the presentation ceremony from the seat of his bicycle. Hushovd may now lead but that competition, like the yellow jersey competition is far from over.

The most interesting moment in the GC race came when Andy Schleck attacked the peleton on the final climb of the day. Christian Vande Velde in a post race interview provided the perspective on that move that the TV commentators failed to give. Vande Velde said that Schleck's team, Saxo Bank, wanted to move the yellow onto the shoulders of Astana in an attempt to put pressure on that team with a view to cracking them in the last week of the race. Schleck attacked with the intention of dropping the yellow jersey and succeeded. However, Astana covered Schleck's attack, and once back in control of the peloton they slowed the pace back down to a pace at which the race leader was able to return to the group.

In his post race column, Liggett reported that Andy Schleck says he's not overly impressed by Alberto Contador so far. Schleck says his climbing style is more suited to the Alps and that he can't wait for the Alps as he intends to try to crush the race. In order to do that he (and everyone else) needs to try and weaken Astana.

It seems apparent based on yesterday's post stage comments from both Armstrong and Bruyneel and also based on the tactics ridden today by Astana that Astana will be riding for Armstrong if he is strong enough, that the talk of riding for the strongest rider is conditional. They will ride for Contador if Armstrong is not strong enough but it looks to me to be pretty clear that Armstrong is first among equals.

Schleck thinks he can better Contador. Apparently Armstrong thinks the same.

I loved the comment made by Sherwen, "There are still three Sundays to go." The race is far from over.

July spectacular

The wind shifted around to the prevailing direction (West), temperatures rose, humidity middled and a spectacular example of a really nice day in July occurred. I got a late start because of le Tour and some other stuff I had to do but I got out on the road during the early afternoon, probably the nicest part of today's celebration of July.

The wind diminished somewhat and I am pleased to report that I had pretty good legs. The two hour ride still took two hours to complete but my average was in the upper range of the range of times for this distance. I felt pretty strong most of the time.

Lots of other people were out celebrating summer. The parking lot at the Lake Owasso beach was full and there were lots of folks in the lake. Here is a bicycle oriented beach photo taken from near the parking lot.A little earlier I passed through the Sucker Lake portion of the Snail Lake Regional Park and got this shot illustrating the lake, the day, the cumulus clouds, the glory of July in the northern suburbs of the Twin Cities.Today's stage was the first time that the peloton ventured into the high mountains. The results may have previewed the final end of race podium but I am not quite ready to concede the top spot to today's breakout star, Alberto Contador. It seems clear enough that Contador and Armstrong will be among the top three but the third could still be any of the group including Vande Velde, Schleck (Andy), defending champion Sastre, Pellizotti, and yes, I think he might still make the podium Evans.

Today Contador may have returned the snub given to him by Armstrong earlier in the week by this time being the Astana rider who attacked out of the bunch even though the bunch included a teammate who was ahead of him in the general classification. As with Armstrong's attack on the day of echelons, today's move by Contador seems totally justified. It was the first day in the mountains. The mountains are Contador's strength. If he is going to win le Tour it is necessary that he gain time on the mountain stages. Today he took the opportunity to do just that.

Armstrong acted the dutiful domestique. Once Contador made the jump out of the pack Armstrong made no corresponding effort on his own behalf, from that point forward riding only defensively. The only time Lance surged was when Evans attacked the bunch to try to get back to Contador. At that moment Lance surged and easily drew Evans back into the group. In reeling in that surge and in being able to ride easily among the leaders of that main group Armstrong still looks way strong to me. It is a three week race, Contador looks the best at this point but there are more than two weeks to go and I am not ready to write Armstrong off the top spot of the podium. I think I will join in the conventional wisdom conceding victory to SOME member of Astana. But I still think I will tune in tomorrow and see what happens next.

I thought it would be Leipheimer who would fall from the top five and instead it was Klöden. I expected the stage to set up in such a way that Levi would be working for Armstrong. Instead a crash meant that Leipheimer was not riding at the front of the lead group until after Contador had already bolted away. Levi was not called on to sacrifice himself for Lance and did not concede time. Instead it was Klöden who was just not quite able to hang with the heads of state and lost 13 seconds, moving him out of the top five.

It is a great sporting event and an even greater travelogue. I forgot to post this anecdote yesterday when the stage finished in Barcelona passing by that fountain at the bottom of the final climb. The Other Person Who Lives Here (TOPWLH) has recently visited Barcelona and kept exclaiming over the various sights. That fountain and that climb are apparently an important tourist attraction in Barcelona. For example, here is the what the official Tour de France guide of Barcelona says about that climb and that finish:

"Rising from the city's heart is Montjuich, the magic mountain where from its crest, one can see why this Spanish coastal city is favoured by so many, open to the sea and embracing its rich inheritance and identity."

Today the stage began from in front of that same fountain at the bottom of the hill but I did notice that the Catalons apparently only operate the fountain for stage finishes as there was no water shooting into the air for today's stage beginning. I digress.

Yesterday when the riders passed by the fountain near the end of the stage TOPWLH exclaimed, "That's the place where they stole my money!" Ask her, it's a good story.

The great equalizer

Wind.

Today with a brisk SSE wind I returned to completely mediocre regular strength. *sigh* So much for the hot dog theory.

I rode over into Saint Paul where a tipster had promised that I could find a yard with "spectacular native plantings". Here is is:I am not able to comment on the relative nativity of the plantings but given that the tipster was completely correct about the yard being spectacular I believe I will accept that they are all native. In addition, that small sign near the top of the steps up into the yard identifies the location as a Monarch Waystation. I am impressed, it is indeed spectacular.

Here is another yard that I have pictured before. This one is quite near home. I took another picture today as the state of the various blooms is considerably changed from the last time I posted this yard.Again, exactly how native those plantings are, I do not know. I am willing to say that I like it a lot though, as I find the yard considerably more attractive than monoculture grass.

The Tour de France was fun today as the I got a chance to exclaim, "The God of Thunder" at the end. Tomorrow is the first day in the mountains, the first opportunity to sort out the GC contenders. I think Contador and Armstrong both look very strong. I predict that Leipheimer will fall out of the top 5 as will Cancellara. Beyond that? I guess I will tune in tomorrow to find out. A tip to others watching, something you may not know, as I didn't. Versus.com is streaming the coverage on the net. It is the same coverage you get on TV except there are no commercials so you get uninterrupted coverage.

Retired again

Having successfully completed one of my two weeks of employment limbo I have returned to the ranks of the retired. As with the first time through with this not going to work thing, I proclaim the new status to be good. However, I have one more go round of this minor harassment to go at the end of which I will get my two watches and leave the building for good. Yes, two watches. I am entitled to a retirement watch and I also am in line for a 30 year watch (again, yes, these are separate deals) for having completed 30 years of service in April. August 4 is in all respects now official, I will receive my watches and start whatever it is that comes next.

As a retired person I did not have to tape le Tour de France today but instead had the opportunity to watch live. I hailed TOPWLH to watch the final 5 kilometers with me as Thomas Voeckler assured himself of never having to work a day in his life. Here he is at the end of today's Stage 5 with the peloton looming in the background but looming just a tiny bit too late. The have misjudged the sprint and will not catch the last survivor of the breakaway.Thomas crossed the line 7 seconds ahead of the bunch sprint, securing a stage victory and a permanent place in the pantheon of minor French sports heroes. It may be a minor place but it is most certainly a place nonetheless. Voeckler cements his credentials as a French national hero and assures that like a previous only partly successful French bicyclist, Richard Virenque, after his bicycling career is over Voeckler will be able to ride this minor celebrity into a career which does not involve showing up anywhere for work.

Thomas is already famous in France for having led the 2004 Tour for 10 stages and perhaps most famously rallying late in Stage 14 that year to limit his losses just enough to remain in the maillot jaune for another day even after eventual race winner Lance Armstrong had left him reeling far behind on a mountaintop finish stage. Thomas exhibited courage and pluck in retaining the jersey even though it had become obvious that he had no chance whatsoever of actually winning the race overall. He added to his reputation by sneaking out on a breakaway in Stage 1 of the 2008 Tour to capture the lead in the mountains classification. He successfully retained the spotty jersey awarded to the mountains leader for 5 stages or until le Tour arrived at some actual mountains. Today he completed some sort of triple crown for French bicyclists. He has held the yellow jersey, he has held the spotty jersey, and now he has won a stage.

The French have not won their own national race since 1986 (Bernard Hinault). Voeckler has had the most prominent successes in the last several years and is widely celebrated in France for those successes. Today's result only adds to his legend. If you click on the link above with his name you can find that his Wikipedia page has already been updated and the Stage victory occurred less that 7 hours ago.

Bravo, Thomas!

I rode almost immediately after the race was over. The wind was out of the east today, an extremely rare occurrence which I believe is related to the rotation of the planet. I headed for Lake Phalen on Saint Paul's East Side. At first I became a little discouraged as the skies clouded up and temperatures remained a bit on the cool side. I considered riding just to Lake Gervais and returning home. But the sun came out as I arrived at Lake Gervais so I continued on. I completed a Five Lake Tour. This is only half of the more usual Ten Lake Tour but I did not have the Guest Rider with me. Today's rule is that half as many people out bike touring only have to visit half as many lakes.

This is Lake Gervais from the east shore. The sun had ducked back behind the clouds at this point but fishing was going on in that boat out on the lake.I continued on to the east and discovered that there is something over there called Spoon Lake. I have ridden past this spot before but either the sign is new or I never looked at it before.It doesn't really look like a lake to me, it looks more like a wide spot in the creek connecting Gervais and the next lake in the chain. But the sign says Spoon Lake so Spoon Lake it is. My take is that the whole wide spot in the creek thing is vaguely spoon shaped.

This is south shore of Keller lake from the picnic grounds on the west side of Highway 61.I had to do a little cyclocross riding at this point, mounting and dismounting a curb and riding across the grass of the picnic area but I persevered. Here is the south shore of Lake Phalen.Those native plantings along the shoreline were a project worked on by one of GRider's somewhat shirt tail in-laws, someone with the same last name but only by marriage.

The wind was mostly from the east but by the time I was approaching home it had also assumed a slightly southerly component and I felt pretty good as I passed Lake Como which you may know is located southeast of where I live.My legs were still pretty good today although not as good as they have been. My two hour ride today took two hours to ride. Even so I was still on the upper edge of what my normal average speed is so I still think I was doing pretty well. I trace the slight decline in the leg quality to increasing distance from the hot dog extravaganza which is now another full day further into the past.

Even having suggested that my strength comes from hot dogs, I concur in principle with the comment that if it were solely hot dogs that Gus would win the Tour de France. Except that Gus would actually only be a contender. The winner would be one of these guys.That's Joey Chestnut, current world record holder and now three time defending champion of the Nathan's hot dog eating contest on Coney Island, New York, taking the lead over former world record holder and former six time champion Takeru Kobayashi. The signs behind the eaters indicate how many hot dogs they have consumed to this point in the contest and at this point near the end of the contest Chestnut leads 65-62 on his way to a new world record of 68 hot dogs, including buns, in 10 minutes. Gus may be a local legend but I don't think there is any possible way that Gus would be able to compete with these world renowned eating legends.

Really good legs AGAIN!

I got a tiny bit of a late start today. I didn't really have time to check the latest weather channel information on wind direction and instead decided to rely on a loop in the neighborhood to figure out where the head wind was. I was still a little confused even after completing the legs in each of the cardinal directions. I finally decided that there wasn't much wind and just went ahead and headed north, often the path of least resistance. I surprised myself by having really good legs for the second day in a row. In fact, today was the highest average speed for any ride this year. I have carefully reviewed the training log and I conclude that the reason why I am experiencing this spate of really good legs must be traceable to the only recent major deviation from the regular routine, the four hot dogs at the track on the 4th of July.

I was riding down Hamline minding my own business when a bicycle bell attracted my attention. It was Joe, one of the mechanics/assistant managers from County Cycles. Anyone who believes that bicycle bells are not macho enough should keep in mind that Joe doesn't own a car, he commutes to work every single day of the year on a bicycle. Joe says, "Everyone who rides is in my family." I gave Joe a wave and a "Hey", nice to see you, Joe.

As I neared the end of my ride I thought the light started to assume a really interesting quality. I was close enough that I decided to photograph my friends, the cows, in the late afternoon, mostly cloudy sky, July in Minnesota daylight.I missed the live broadcast of the Tour again today but followed it on VeloNews. I am watching the taped coverage now and I must say, the entertainment value of all those guys falling off their bicycles is pretty high. Montpellier looks pretty interesting and that aqueduct is simply spectacular.

Another sub two hour ride

I reinforced my status as a bike geek today. I was reading the VeloNews report on today's Tour de France stage and came across this:

"The wind changes — and so does the race.

Suddenly, as a corner transformed the breeze into a crosswind, Columbia went to echelon, gave it the gas and split the bunch."

And I knew instantaneously, without having to refer to context or to any other source material, just exactly what was being described. I have already formed a mental image of what it looked like, an image that I will be confirming shortly when I see that moment of the stage on the taped coverage of the race. Yes, I taped it, doesn't everyone?

Armstrong is up to third overall but more importantly, he is up to first overall among those considered to be legitimate GC contenders. He means to win.

It may be necessary to get GRider to confirm this, but before the race started she asked me how I thought Lance would do this year and I said I thought he would win. I cannot claim any particular brilliance in this prediction, however, as no less an authority than Phil Liggett predicted before the race that Lance would be on the podium, finishing in the top three.

I rode after work today and had a nice ride. I felt pretty strong, once again finishing my two hour ride in just under two hours. Quite near the end of the ride I ventured onto the Fairgrounds. I am not sure what event was held there this past weekend but it seems obvious that some of the food vendors opened for business. This one is going to be disappointed when they discover that when they closed up and left the grounds they forgot to turn off the neon sign.That's going to cut into the profit margin.

Gambling report

Yesterday featured the annual excursion to the race track. Admission was free, hot dogs were free, and for a change I almost broke even on the gambling. All in all a successful outing.

I had four hot dogs, matching what has become my usual consumption on this national holiday. Four hot dogs may seem like a lot for one day and perhaps it is but the total is tempered somewhat by the fact that four hot dogs is also my total for the last year. And in fact, I was not even the hot dog champion of the group. The P.S.-ter also consumed four and she easily wins the first tie breaker in competitions of this sort, body weight. I checked at the snack bar and hot dogs were being sold for $3 each. This makes me $12 ahead on the hot dogs to go with $5 ahead on the free admission. The $2.80 that I lost gambling seems pretty insignificant.

We stayed for eight races and I successfully picked two winners. They paid $16.60 and $12.60 on winning tickets and that was enough to offset losses on pretty conservative betting.

Today we rode in a direction seldom taken. The ride took us into New Brighton, a route which requires a mostly west wind with a slight north component. Today was just that, a wind described by the weather channel as WNW. The Guest Rider kept proclaiming the route as an entirely new experience which it is not. I am pretty sure even GRider has been there before, certainly I ride there at least several times a year. We took our break at Valentine Lake on the campus of Bethel University.We eventually ended up on more familiar roads and passed up West Owasso Boulevard between Lakes Owasso and Emily. Just a couple of days ago I featured a photo of GRider in front of the house for sale on Lake Emily. Here's a picture of the front of the house, the side facing the lake, a photo taken from across the lake.We are facing west to take this picture. This angle is not a good photo opportunity at the time of day when until recently I did most of my riding as a photo taken facing west into the setting sun will most often have exposure issues. Today the sun was pretty much straight up overhead as we were there before noon.

2,014

Today was my 80th ride of the year. As noted recently I have recently raised my average miles per ride above 25 on my way to fulfilling my intention of achieving my mileage goal by having 160 rides averaging 25 miles per ride. Anyone who can do the math will know where today's ride left me in the total miles category.

A perusal of the archives informs me that last year I passed the 2,000 mile mark on the day after July 4. I remember thinking at the time that I was comfortably ahead of schedule to achieve 4,000 miles. Having passed 2,000 miles two days earlier this year I have without any problem convinced myself that I am on, and in fact, ahead of schedule.

There was an article in yesterday's Pioneer Press newspaper (remember newspapers?) about low water in Snail Lake. Every ride to Lake Vadnais takes me past Snail Lake and I had not really noticed the problem so today with the Guest Rider in tow I set out to form my own impressions about the water level of Snail Lake.

The newspaper reported that the lake's water level is down 5 feet from normal, a problem in a lake where large areas of the lake are only 6 feet deep to begin with. Here is a photo from near the public water access boat ramp at the south end of the lake, in Snail Lake Park.It looks to me like you could still launch your boat into that little puddle at the end of the ramp but admittedly you would then have problems getting over the earth dam between the little puddle and the actual lake. Also, according to that sign there is no fishing from that dock. That seems obvious given that you would have to be a fairly proficient long caster to get a line from the end of the dock into the lake. Unless, of course, you want to fish in that little puddle.

I have also read in the newspaper lately stories about low water in the Great Lakes. I think Snail Lake is down a fair amount more than Huron-Michigan.

We rode in the late morning as rain seems possible this afternoon. Based on lawns it seems dry here but apparently we have had enough rain for the crops as evidenced by the slightly more than knee high for the 4th of July corn.Guest Rider for comic effect.