Today's post includes two small world stories

SWS#1: Today I had one of those nice bicycle moments that can only come to those who ride a lot. A person who lives about 5 miles from me has seen me riding so many times that he assumed I must live in his neighborhood. This is not the first time this has happened to me.

I was turning off Como west of the Fairgrounds to take the route through the neighborhood that I take to avoid the left turn lane at Como and Raymond. A guy on a pretty nice bike coming up the hill in the opposite direction veered off his intended route and came down the street after me. We exchanged greetings and the information that he sees me riding a lot. He invited me to the Saint Anthony Park group ride leaving every Saturday and Sunday morning from the Library at 7am. We had a nice cordial chat and I thanked him kindly for the invitation and said I would certainly consider joining their ride.

Today was about 10 degrees warmer than yesterday and the wind was about 10 mph less. But the wind was from that same WSW and even with a 10 mph reduction it was still pretty strong. I rode over to the Stone Arch Bridge again, deviating from yesterday's ride by riding all the way across this time, turning around in Minneapolis, and by venturing into a University parking lot to get a look at this:Stockpiled top soil? Nope, snow. Lots of snow. I know a mining engineer who is skilled at what he refers to as "scaling the pile" and I am sure he could tell me how much snow there is there. I am just going to go with "lots". Winter isn't completely over until ALL of the snow is gone. It isn't all gone yet.

SWS#2: Speaking of mining engineers, I had another DNR moment as I neared home. Actually two I guess. About two miles from home I ride regularly past the house of a Forestry Division employee so that counts as one. But today very near to my house I rode past a guy walking a dog who recognized me and said hello. I took a closer look as I returned the greeting and indeed, Office of Management and Budget sixth floor.

I spent the morning first trying to find and then following internet coverage of the Tour of Flanders. There is text commentary available at both of the two largest bicycling sites but I was kinda hoping for video. Eventually I found a stream of EuroSport. Unfortunately for me, the link advertised the stream as having commentary in Flemish. So I watched the stream anyway. The text commentary on cyclingnews and VeloNews always followed the live action by a couple of minutes. After a while I got the hang of it and the coverage was actually pretty interesting. I couldn't get a word of the Flemish but I could understand some words, words like Cancellara, Boonen, Millar, Hincapie and Armstrong.

And when a big Italian looking guy in the Swiss national champions jersey attacked out of the lead group on the cobbled Molenberg climb, the 10th of the day’s 15 rated hills, I didn't need the text commentary to know that Cancellara was on the hunt. I also easily recognized the wearer of the Belgian national champions jersey as Tom Boonen and that he was the only one of the elite group to respond well enough to get back onto Cancellara's wheel before the top of climb. When Cancellara and Boonen went over the top with a good gap it seemed pretty obvious that the only matter remaining to be settled among the rest of the field was who would get third.

That elite breakaway group easily stayed clear, building on their lead. Finally however, on the penultimate climb of the day, the cobbled climb known simply as The Muur, or “The Wall,” Cancellara punched it again and this time Boonen could not stay with Fabian.

The last 60 kilometers are about to come on Versus, I am going to go watch.