Football Monday

FC Nantes used a player under suspension in its Week 1 victory over SC Bastia.  The result is still under ligue review with a strong possibility that the victory and the points will be overturned.  With this in the background FC Nantes has been facing a requirement of some further good results . . .

Or a quick return to Ligue 2.

The 65th Bretagne derby meeting between FC Nantes and the located approximately 100 km away Stade Rennais FC (Rennes) ended with Nantes securing an important 3 points to stand (provisionally) sixth in the table.

This comes on the heels of an exciting home victory mid-week over OGC Nice, another Ligue 1 stalwart.

Perhaps.

The loss of the 3 points from week 1 still looms over the team but for now the results are good.

I haven't been as inactive as it may seem

Hockey has begun (Gophers 6, National Team of Japan 0, Gophers 7, University of British Columbia 0).  And other stuff.

I missed a couple of days yesterday and the day before due to rain and wet streets but most of those other days I actually rode but did not blog.

On most of the rides I took a picture or two.

Here they are (but they are going to be out of chronological order).

This one is today.

Raymond Avenue between where I live and the big city to the south is under construction.  The car traffic has been diverted to as happenstance sometimes decrees the street where I usually ride anyway.  I get off Raymond and seek the alternate University crossing.

The bicycle detour is the same as the car detour.  I found that a bit amusing.

And as I said, that's the route I usually ride anyway.

It is NOT the prettiest part of my usual ride to the south.

Earlier this week I stayed on the Saint Paul side and rode down to see what if anything is up at the Ford plant deconstruction site.

The fence is up all the way around, no peaking.

No one will be allowed to, as I was earlier in the summer, ride right up to the front of the building for that up close perspective

Everyone stay across the street from now on.

I did find this, though, something I don't think I ever noticed before.

That's some sort of maintenance stairway down from the bluff level to the spillway of the dam.

Lots of steps that the step master has never been able to add to her total.

And notable because down there on the spillway we can see that there is NO water going over the dam.

That means that the Mississippi is not running at a particularly high level.  Which makes the fact that Minnehaha Creek IS still running at a particularly high level, well, peculiar.

I have been over there several times recently, it seems like once school starts that ends up being a pretty nice fall destination.

Note the citizen crouched under the edge of the ledge, I am guessing going for that really unique angle on the flow of the creek.

A really unique angle captured by about 10,000 or so photographers each and every season.

I myself, don't happen to have any from under there.

Chalk that off to concerns about personal safety.  Perhaps excessive concerns about personal safety.

Never mind.

A couple of days ago the wind was so strongly south that I instead rode east and west instead of north and south.  I ended up at Lake Phalen.

I have been there at least one other time this year but I doubt that it was as pretty that other time as it was this week.

I had a pinch flat while riding up to the Lake Street Bridge a couple of days ago.

High speed, major pothole, I felt it happen, expected it, but still very disappointing to reach the top of the ramp, turn onto the bridge and have the tire be suddenly, totally, completely, without the slightest amount of doubt, FLAT.

So here are some places where I rode when my tire was NOT FLAT.

This is a solar/w powered street light at the Fairgrounds.

I didn't notice it during the Fair but I have ridden past it a couple of times since and finally stopped to take a look.

Wind device specifically designed for an urban street environment and solar cells.  With battery back up good for up to sixteen hours.

*yawn*

I stopped for this one because I have never, ever, previously seen a boat at anchor in the main channel of the river near the Lake Street Bridge.

At first I was concerned about the navigational channel (as opposed to the river channel) but examination of the photograph will show that the sailboat is anchored outside the navigational channel markers.

That's just off shore from the University rowing boathouse so I assume that that boat is related to activities of the rowing club.

I did spend some time thinking about whether that boat can achieve a significant speed upgrade by getting up on the foils, and whether or not it can foil tack and any of that other stuff that Oracle can do.

I thought that sailboat racing thing ended up being a pretty major spectacle and lots and lots of good TV.  Who would have thought it?  Coming back from 8-1?

I thought at the end Oracle had a faster boat but they also had a better sailor.  That Ainslie guy kept winning the starts and even when he didn't win the start he always had something somewhere along the line to put his boat in front, impressive.

Interesting that the USA defender also had Russell Coutts, probably New Zealand's greatest sailor of all time and a now, I believe, 5 time winner of the Cup.

New Zealand defeats New Zealand, USA keeps the Cup.

So today I was at the Falls again.  I commented earlier about how much more enjoyable it is for me when I only have to share the park with a dozen or so of my fellow citizens instead of many.

Today it was many.

It was a great day, in the 70s (above average for the day), sunny, medium winds.

And, in fact, some of those people are not fellow citizens.  That group closest to the camera was speaking German when they went past me.

Another September look at the Falls.

Another great day to be on this side of the sod.

Nice

It is pretty hard to find a nicer day ever than September sunny 70 Monday at the Falls.

The rate of flow seems to be diminishing pretty rapidly but for most late Septembers that is a robust amount of water going over the edge.

It was spectacularly nice out, a really, really nice fall day.  What made today and makes nice September Mondays at the Falls especially nice is that today I shared the park with, oh, maybe about a dozen and a half of my fellow citizens instead of the, oh, maybe about a thousand and half of my fellow citizens who were there three weeks ago.

School has started.

Which leads to . . .

I have no problem labeling today as a fall day even though the morning newspaper is still reporting 12 hours and 6 minutes between sunrise and sunset.  I am also not swayed by the high temperature reaching into the 70s on a day when that same newspaper reports average high for the date (although they do call it NORMAL?) of 69.

I am not a planet position in relation to the sun kool-aid drinker who insists that fall begins on the autumnal equinox.  I am more I have lived here my whole life I know what feels like fall, I know what feels like winter, and even without much in the way of reinforcement this particular calendar year I know what feels like spring, and yes, I even know what feels like summer.

Fall begins on Labor Day.

Come on, those days in the early part of the month when daylight is rapidly disappearing, those aren't summer any more.  Those are fall.

Winter begins usually on Thanksgiving weekend.  Many, many years the first significant snow, the one that doesn't go away occurs that weekend.  And if the snow doesn't do it for you, it is cold enough by the end of November that who wouldn't admit that it is winter?

Spring?  Tough one from here.  Spring can and often is more an illusion that a reality.  The beginning of daylight savings time WAS pretty good there for a while but moving DST earlier kinda skews the usefulness of that particular measuring date.  Easter kinda works, the first day where no matter how awful the weather has been we are all REALLY determined to start acting like it is spring.  Spring.

Summer obviously begins when school is out.  Come on, that's so obvious I just don't believe that it is even open for discussion.

If there is any confusion it is because the modern school calendar exhibits a tendency to go ahead and have a last day some time in the middle of June, somewhere near the solstice..  Summer really begins in Minnesota though about that first day when we are all REALLY determined to start acting like it is summer, Memorial Day.

So those are my dates, today was a beautiful fall day.

We rode yesterday but I didn't get an opportunity to blog.  I had a  Guest Rider and it was her first ride since an incident which shall remain unreported by me.  We got her all the way down to the big building designed by Cass Gilbert which is the seat of our state government.

GRider at the State Capitol.

Nice sky, eh?

Partly we went there because of the wind conditions (a strong, almost punitive wind from the southeast).  Partly we went there because I thought she would be interested in the "temporary" parking lot being constructed on the FRONT LAWN OF THE STATE so that the people who have been granted by the voters of the various legislative districts of the state the authority to decide such things have decided that it is more important that they be able to park near that building than that the FRONT LAWN OF THE STATE not be a parking lot.

Nice day today, I rode to the Falls.

Last place I looked

September 21 seems like it should be the autumnal equinox.  Some years it is.  The morning newspaper reports that today the span between official sunrise and official sunset was 12 hours and 12 minutes.

Still on the up side of the TOO DARK for TOO LONG season.

So no equinox yet, but the dark is coming.

Even though I did not discover the equinox I did find something that I had been looking for.  It was in the last place I looked.

That's a spectacularly good tool and one that I was positive could NOT have left the premises without me being aware of its leaving.

One reader may recognize it as the 100 foot tape that I purchased long, long ago for softball.  I purchased that tape in response to a problem that we faced every time that we would show up at an assigned field to play a game.  When we got there the people in charge at the field (usually a minimum wage teenager) had zero idea where exactly the bases were supposed to go.  There most definitely WAS a specified distance by league rules but most often the adult coaches would just throw the bases down somewhere and say, good enough, and the teenage umpire would agree.

Except me, for me I always thought it was NOT good enough.  In fact, within a very short time after becoming a part of this system I became extremely dissatisfied based on my observation that the distance from home to first could vary widely from week to week.  I felt then and probably still do that the game is hard enough if you are all playing the same game every time, the game is impossible if you show up not knowing from week to week the dimensions of the playing arena.

I felt it was pretty important that the bases be the designated distances apart.

I bought that tape measure and forever thereafter I measured the bases.

Now the last time it was necessary for me to measure bases was about fifteen years ago, the last couple of years that I coached games were at a field where the bases were permanently in place.  So fifteen years go by and in the passage of that time the exact location of this tape measure had become unknown to me.

Fifteen years without a problem but when it became a problem it became a problem that I found quite bothersome.  We needed recently to make some measurements for the BigNewTree.  The old tree was twelve feet from the house and we wanted the new one to be eighteen feet away.  I had to make the measurements for this project with just this.

Which anyone who knows anything about these things will recognize as a high quality tape measure.  The issue is, fairly obviously, that it is a mere 12 foot measure.  It is quite possible to measure 18 feet with a 12 foot measure.  It is just that it is a tiny bit inelegant, especially when you know, as I did, that I owned a tape measure totally suitable for the job.

But I hadn't used it for about 15 years and the first places where I looked for it produced no tape measure.

My last firm memory was that it was in the green equipment bag that I used to take bats and the catcher's equipment to games.

Looked there, not there.

I thought I might have loaned it out with some piece of other equipment at some time over the years.   I looked in all of the old softball bags, in the various buckets of balls, in the trunk of my car, not there.  Gradually I reached peace with myself over my inability to find the 100 footer.  And once the BigNewTree was in place the need for the longer tape measure diminished.

Today I was in a corner of the garage that I always thought was right.  I noticed my home plate (who doesn't have a home plate?).  On top of the home plate was a green bag, a lumpy green bag.  Inside the bag I discovered my good set of rubber bases (who doesn't have a good set of rubber bases?) and nestling beneath the bases my tape measure.

It was in the last place I looked.

It was a good spot because the main use of that wonderful tool has always been to determine the correct length between home plate and the bases.  I am satisfied that the best place for such a tool the last time I put that tool away was with the bases.

It is less so that I had lost contact with the tape measure and more so that I had lost contact with my good set of rubber bases (including a regulation home plate).

Going forward in time the tape is less likely to be needed for bases and if useful at all it will be for general measurement purposes.  The tape measure has now been stored in a new spot, a spot in which it will always be obvious and always ready in case I ever need to locate another tree at a distance from the house not measurable with my otherwise plenty adequate Stanley 12 footer.

Today's bicycle content:

It was, despite the non-arrival of the equinox, definitely fall today.

58.

But I have the gear and with the sun mostly out I had a nice ride out to Shoreview.  Another sign of fall for me was this boat storage plan along the side of the road near where I was riding, part way back into the woods.

That upside boat just struck me as a sign, a sign of what has passed, and a sign of what is surely coming.

It was a tiny bit chilly but it was an extremely pretty day out there, this is a tunnel entrance on the trail through Snail Lake Regional Park in Shoreview.

Today was that wonderful day that comes only on the first ride after installing new tires.  It takes about 100 miles to wear that rubber bead in the middle of the wear area off the new tires.  It is always an extra bit of fun to watch that rubber get worn away as the tire circles round and round right there in front of (and slightly below) your eyes.

As the proprietor of my favorite bike shop once noted, today I was just out there wearing some rubber off the tires.

It was a good day for it.

Avast

Not going to miss out this year.

Aye, matey, International Talk Like a Pirate Day.

Rainy early, heavy humidity.

Today's bicycle content is it was a good day to mount a set of new tires.  I got over 2,100 miles on the last set.  I had not yet had a wear flat but at that level of mileage it is a bit of the old roulette, today was a good day to make the change.

Other than that, arrrr, it's the pirate life for me.

Capitol loop

Today I finally made the ride down to the Capitol that I have been trying to do for quite a bit of time recently.  I continued on up past the Cathedral, down Summit and back to Roseville across the Raymond Avenue Dead Man's Curve.  I call this the Capitol loop, so named because I ride past the State Capitol building and, unlike probably most of my rides, this one isn't a mostly out and back, this one is at least triangular.  I call it the Capitol loop.

One of my main reasons (the southeast wind being the other) for riding down there was that I saw a news report of the Capitol Mall being bulldozed for a temporary parking lot.  Apparently some of the renovation planned for the big building requires loss of use of some parking spaces generally used by our elected officials.  Not even the big elected officials though, more on the order of the extremely self aggrandizing state senators and state representatives.

These are people holding jobs paying $31K per year but each and every one of them thinks he/she should and probably will be POTUS some day.

Clearly people that important aren't going to be inconvenienced enough to have to park a block away.  These people ARE going to park nearby even if it means bulldozing the Capitol mall for a temporary parking lot.

Here we see the bulldozer in action just behind the occasionally previously featured statue of Floyd B. Olson (all together now, a true hero to Minnesota labor).

And sure enough the mall is being bulldozed.

Turning back towards the Capitol itself from the same spot as the previous photograph, here are some of the parking spaces that will have to be sacrificed to, you know, tradesmen and construction materials, and that sort of thing while the building is renovated.

Once you have convinced yourself that you are important enough to park that close I suppose it is just too bitter a pill to swallow to expect them to do what, for example, is being done at Como Park.  Remote parking and a shuttle bus.

Nope, better to plow up the green space.

It was a terrible day for September bicycling.  It was only barely warm enough, the wind was fierce and the partly cloudy forecast failed to ever break through the heavy and quite persistent overcast.  The upside is that I have never been at the Humphrey statue before when I had decent sun position to be able to get a photo.  Today was better of Humphrey (Veteran's Service Memorial Building in the background) but not very complimentary of the sky.

Here's a NewLOOK at the other side of the memorial, State Office Building (yes, we really call it that, and yes, we use the acronym SOB) in the background for scale and completely zero perspective.

That's where those people without perspective whose parking spaces are being usurped have office space.  So generally, they park in front of the Capitol, but then WALK AWAY from the building to get to the place where they sit.  And then have to WALK THROUGH A TUNNEL to get to the legislative chambers.

Probably I am making more of this than is necessary.

I haven't ridden down into the big city much this year.  These are streets familiar to me but only occasionally ridden this year.  The route down Summit towards the river often (but not always) leads me past my favorite this would be a good place to practice for a trip to France intersection.

Home in time to catch the very end of the ManU Champions League on the new FS1 deal and then over to the new NBCSN for coverage of the completely postponed they spent a couple of hours showing replays of this sailboat racing thing.

Well, there have been some big changes there.

Suddenly the Americans, after being abjectly awful on the upwind leg for the first 6 or 8 races are, instead, absolutely dominant.

New Zealand probably has too big a lead by now though, I still suspect the Cup goes back to Auckland.

Here's a thought though.  The series is advertised as the best of 17.  OK.  But Team Oracle has been penalized two race victories for an apparently really egregious example of cheating.  So what happens if after 17 races NZ has won 8 and the USA has won 9.  With the penalty having been imposed the score would be NZ 8, USA 7.

Does someone need to win 9?  Which seems to me to be the correct interpretation of best of 17, you need to win 9.  So would they race on, race 18 and perhaps even 19, to get to a position of the first team to reach an unpenalized 9 points?  And what if there should be more penalties?  What if NZ should suddenly be docked, oh, I don't know, 4 points for having more sheep than people in their country?  And what if USA were to receive an additional penalty for, oh, I don't know, having the most expensive health care system in the industrialized world with the absolute worst results?  Could they be at this sailboat racing thing for, oh, I don't know, months?

Just askin'.

Because that's what I do.

Reversal of fortunes

One of those days when I rode last week it was 95 when I finished.

Today it was 59 when I started.

But 59 is actually pretty good because . . .

All together now:

I have the gear.

It was a nice sunny fall day.  I intended to ride into the relatively light SE winds down towards the Capitol.  To do so I generally ride over towards Lake Como and then catch a left turn off some north south street on the south side of the lake over there.  When I arrived at that intersection today there was one of those really well meaning SUV drivers who was totally committed to yielding to me the right of way that he/she clearly had.

They mean well, they really do.

But for me to do what he/she wanted I would have to ride in front of the giant SUV.

The death zone.

There are no reported instances that I am aware of of bicyclists being killed by being BACKED OVER.  It is always, always, something out on the front end of the motor vehicle.

They mean well, they really do but I really, really want you to GO so that I can ride into that space BEHIND you, the space where no bicyclist has ever died.  This seemed a pretty reasonable course of action to me because a) the SUV actually had the right of way and b) if we proceeded in the manner that I preferred there was virtually no chance that I would end up dead.

But the SUV was totally committed to yielding to me the right of way that he/she clearly had.  In order to avoid riding into the dead zone I chose to just skip the turn, instead continuing straight ahead along the south leading route.

Happenstance, happenstance changing the planned route.  This happens a lot actually.  Today because of the route change I ended up in that big cemetery over on Front Street.

I was riding by one of the gates on Front Street and just on a lark decided to see what the length of the route around the inside of the cemetery would be if I always rode as close as I could to the edge of the cemetery.

I rode in, turned on the first pavement to the right and always kept taking the turns that kept me on the pavement closest to the property boundary.  Eventually I rode pretty close to all four corners of the property and arrived back at my starting point with an accumulated distance of about a mile and a half.  Based on that distance I am going to estimate an 80 acre cemetery (half mile on the long axis, quarter mile on the short).

It is one of the oldest cemeteries in town and I almost always find something new of interest, something I hadn't noticed before.  This is a monument erected in memory of departed firemen.  That monument was erected in 1891.

And it is also interesting because it shows just a bit what a gorgeous day it was out there.

How does the sky get that blue?

I was riding through a park when I caught a flash of red out of the corner of my eye and briefly thought I might have spotted some more of those red flowers.  But no, I fear that part of the season is gone.  Instead what I had seen was evidence of the maturity of the season, bright red berries.

Not perfect, but one of my best photos ever on that pocket camera using the close up setting.

Usually all I get is a blur.

I got home and it is still here.

Ain't it pretty?

Neighbor's give up way too early maple there on the left in the process of giving up way too early for perspective (and a tiny bit for scale).

Big new tree

Busy day Friday.

So for review, here's what the old spruce tree looked like on its very last day, just before that day's crew of men arrived to remove its diseased and blown half way off its roots self from the front yard.

Here'a a view of the yard early yesterday morning.

Two things there, one the house looks pretty dang bare without its counterpoint tree out front.  Two is the utility markings, gas in yellow on the left and water in blue (only one flag) over there on the right.

And maybe a three, you might be able to spot the orange flag center.  That flag was given to us by the tree farm guy for placement to indicate where in the yard we wanted the new tree.

I stood in a specific spot out in the cul de sac to get this photo, this perspective may return later on in this post and many, many more times over the years.  I can find that spot.

The men and their machine make their FIRST appearance.

That thing is called a tree spade.  A tree much larger than the usual balled and burlapped root ball transplant requires a tree spade to move the entire root area and the soil around it.

You can't put that much material into the ground at the new location without preparation.  The tree spade which is going to do the transplant shows up at the new location and digs the hole where the new tree will be going.

Here we are backed up to the tree location with the tree spade moved to vertical and deployed for some, well, spade work.

It's a combination of hydraulics and belt/chain drive and those huge spades drive right down into the ground.

When the men pull the spade up out of the ground this time the dirt comes along leaving behind an opening in a shape that the spade is going to fit into exactly upon its return.

The men leave for the first time leaving behind the plywood on the lawn that they will be driving on upon their return and a carefully fenced opening in the yard.

The opening is 90 inches (7 and a half feet) in diameter and about 4 feet deep.

We decided that we want the new tree in the same general location in the yard as the spruce.  We want the new tree lined up to the extent possible with the highest point in the roof, about where the spruce was but we have moved 6 feet further away from the house.

Partly this is absolutely necessary as there is still a lot of wood in the ground where the old tree was, plenty of roots, some fairly large, planting right there would be harder than 6 feet further out.

Secondarily, the old spot almost certainly still contains traces of the canker that infected the spruce.  This isn't VERY worrisome as it is a canker specific to Colorado Blue Spruce, we won't be getting one of those again.

And thirdly, we think the old tree was too close to the house anyway.

A bit further from the house will be way better.

The men had to drive back to Cambridge, presumably have some lunch and then go out into the field where we had been last Saturday to redo the whole procedure that we had just watched in the front yard.  Out at the farm they arrayed the spade around a 21 foot white pine, the one we selected last week.  They dug it up then wrapped the whole tree in canvas and brought it back here.

The big new tree arrives.

The largest tree that they plant in the balled and burlapped method is 16 feet.  This 21 footer isn't even the biggest one we considered when we were out there last week.  At one point we had a 23 footer marked.  In the end this one definitely is the one we agreed that we like the most.

Here most of the canvas is off but some of the branches are still bound up.

The truck and spade are back into the same spot where they were this morning and the tree is standing upright, getting ready to be lowered into the hole.

Here we go, the spades are starting to come out.

The four spades are on a ring which at this point splits to allow the machine to move away from the tree.

 A view from next to the house as the tree emerges.

 And there it stands as the men finish up the planting part.

 And finally the ropes and ties are removed and the branches begin to seek their natural positions in the new location.

 Business completed, the tree spade leaves the premises, it is doubtful that we will be needing it again.

From pretty much the same spot as picture number 3, the house has been transformed.

We have a tree in our yard again.

A BIG new tree.  It has been there about half an hour and it is already taller than the house.

This one was taken this morning with some early morning sunshine.

It is also of note, we think, that we have a beautiful bush there at the corner of the house that we have only very rarely seen for most of the time we have lived here as it was always out of sight behind the big spruce.

The tree planting was a big success, we could have sold tickets.  Several neighbors came over and followed along with the whole process and since then lots of others have trooped on by to get a look.

WE, we LOVE it.

Raining at noon

I was plotting how to get in an hour or so of some sort of exercise as I peered out into the rain.  But it wasn't really hard rain, the street got completely wet but the driveway under the ash tree stayed dry.  I decided to watch a movie on cable that I have seen before and liked.

That kept me occupied until 2pm when the new generator came on for its weekly 12 minute run (I checked the clock).  I went out to watch the generator for a bit (not much to see) and noticed that it seemed actually mostly dry and 20 or so degrees cooler than yesterday.

I love my bicycle.

BUT, it had rained.

AND, it was still, like totally, overcast.

It seemed OK and it surely didn't seem like it was going to be yesterday's oven but even so, the never get THAT far from home route seemed called for.

So.

Day 20 at the Fair anyone?

The scale back from full Fair mode to winter time storage facility mode continues.  The benches have started to gather themselves into herds awaiting the bench trucks.

Also visible there is one of Pronto Pup stands up on the trailer.  There are about a dozen of those things during full Fair mode and as with many of the food vendors the locations are all temporary.  Many of the other food vendors are in trailers.  The Pups are in these self contained units that come and go on trailers, two to a trailer.

And it apparently doesn't take that large a forklift to load them onto the carrier.

But what's really interesting about the last photo, at least to me, is the University of Minnesota stage on the left.  That's the place where Gopher Athletics puts on their dog and pony shows, bringing, for example, several members of the two time defending national champion 49 games in a row winning streak women's hockey team to meet their fans.

During the Fair it doesn't look quite the way it looks now.  Well, it IS day 20.

No, the "M" is definitely askew.

It looks not the way they want it to look when the public is around.  It looks more like the way the Gopher football team looks after the annual drubbing by Michigan.

Which, by the way, even though they play for one of if not the oldest trophy in college football, the Little Brown Jug, is no longer deemed a significant enough event to actually be played every year.

Michigan always wins anyway, no need to play every year any longer.

The Gophers still do get to play for the pig every year.  After last year's game the M looked the same way it does after the Jug game.  Floyd currently resides in Iowa City.

On the big new tree front, the city came out today and marked the water line in the front yard.

2,000 miles this bicycle this year

I had a couple of milestones today, one of which was miles related.

2,006 so far this calendar year to be precise.  Historically that's not very many for this point in the season but given the weather we have had since winter declined to leave and spring never arrived, 2,000 is a lot.

Leaves the possibility (but not the probability) of 3,000 still out there.

The forecast for today said possible all time record high.  With that in mind I wasn't in any hurry to get out there.

But after lunch I went out into the driveway and, guess what?  It didn't seem half bad.  The temperature was 78, the wind was pretty brisk but it gave the day a bit of a cool feel.

I decided, what the heck?  If it actually does get to be too hot I can just stop.  With that as a plan I set out intending to stay relatively close to home and, as was the case yesterday, hoping for an hour.

I found the wind to be very strong from the south, too strong to make any sort of ride to the south seem attractive.  My recent pattern in conditions such as that is an east west ride, working a bit to the south when possible, but mostly trying to keep in mind that every block ridden with that powerful tail wind would lead to another block ridden in unpleasantly difficult conditions.

I have worked out an east west route which leads me over to Highway 280 on the west and then all the way along to the brink of the hill overlooking the glacial river valley to our east where Rice Street currently runs.

After swinging through Lauderdale and visiting the 280 noise walls I headed back towards the east.  A bit of south is possible along there when Cleveland heads back into the campus at a relatively sheltered location.  A swing over to Raymond and then some downhill into that heavy wind (always a good strategy) and then east again through campus.

We all know where that road leads, right?

I cyclocrossed out onto the mall for a different angle of the cows.  Most times I have photographed the big bronze bovines with the mall behind them, this time that building behind them is, ready for this?  The Dairy Building.

From there downhill towards the Fairgrounds.  On Day 19 of the Fair here is the last remaining still mostly in one piece carnival ride.

I rode around inside the grounds, the idea being that there are a couple of streets where I can gain considerable yardage toward the south while riding nicely downhill.

I think we have agreed that that is always a good strategy.

It wasn't going all that badly at this point.  I could sense that it was getting warmer but the deal with riding a bicycle is that you get the advantage of evaporative cooling.  Furthermore, once you are actually out there riding a change in temperature produces conditions which would probably seem pretty punitive if you just stepped out of your air conditioned door into them but which don't seem all that much worse than what you were experiencing 5 minutes ago.  I could sense that it was getting warmer but I felt OK.

Another photo from the Fairgrounds, this one of Fairchild, the official mascot of the State Fair.

I know, he looks a bit like Goldy.  But honest, no kidding around, that is Fairchild and completely and totally not Goldy.

Here's the eastern terminus of my east west route, Wheelock Parkway in the foreground, running down around the side of the hill to eventually join all of that visible valley.

By the end of the ride I could tell that it was hard.  I mean, I never felt any considerable distress, but I could feel dehydration and fatigue creeping up.

But no problems, I made it home just fine, feeling used up but not particularly over used.

I came inside and checked the weather channel.  I mean, I could feel that it had been hard.  The weather channel revealed my second milestone of today's ride.

The absolute highest temperature in which I have completed a ride this year, maybe ever.

Temperature:  95.

Dew point:  66.

Heat index:  98.

What can I say, it DID feel hard but while I was out there it was just another bicycle ride.  And 2,006 miles this bicycle, this year.