4,004

The marathon which began March 14 with 16 miles ridden on the Axis today reached its goal. With 26 miles ridden on FirstLOOK, I have now ridden 4,004 miles so far this calendar year.

A post focusing on a number is going to have to have some supporting numbers.

155th day with a ride.

9th straight year with at least 4,000 miles.

The date of achieving this goal this year is the median of the 9 years, 4 times earlier, 4 times later.

Of 4,004 miles, 2,002 ridden on NewLOOK, 1,462 on FirstLOOK, 306 on the Michigan bicycle, and 234 on the Axis.

One important goal is still out there and a couple of things that would be fun. The important goal is 160 rides.

Today I discovered the corn harvest going on over at the corner. This year is interesting in that every other year in at least the time I have been taking photographs over there the main harvest process has been to chop the corn. Chopping produces silage. This year the corn is being combined. This produces corn in kernel form.

Here is a quintessential corn combining photo, the grain being off loaded from the harvester into the grain hauler.I had to ride off road onto the gravel and grass roads over there to get a decent vantage point for the photograph. A caution, there have been an extremely large number of geese over there lately. However, a stick and 25 more miles of riding remedied the mess on my tires.

And here is the other quintessential corn combining photo. Almost always you will come to a point where the bin on board the harvester is full but the hauling truck has not returned to the field. The corn is dumped on the ground and other equipment is used to get it up and into the hauler.They better get that stuff up before night fall because it won't take those geese long to find it.

I rode down into Minneapolis and ended up following the trail from the Greenway bridge down along the light rail to downtown. I had never been there before so it was all new. There are a couple of interesting vistas never previously seen by me. The trail dropped me off near the Metrodome and I found my way over to the Stone Arch Bridge to start the trek back towards home.

I have photographed the Falls a couple of times this year but this is the first time in my memory that the door to the lock was open.That's the lock on the left.

It was southwest wind and that bridge is south and west of where I live. On the way home I felt plenty strong.

Another nice day, temperatures slightly above average, a little overcast at the start but clearing to become sunny by the end of the ride.