1,000 miles this bike, this year

I think I warned you all a week or so ago that another milestone was coming.  Today NewLOOK rolled through 1,000 miles this bicycle, this year.

More on that later.

Wind direction almost always determines my route.  Today I was headed off down Como when I came upon this.

That's bike speak for route alteration.

It was kinda fun in a way because turning around to head back to the alternate route gave me a really strong tail wind.  That's always fun.

It was only about half a mile and it was a long train.  When I came to alternate route it looks to me like it might even be the same set of grain cars.

Changing the route didn't change the desired destination though, I still wanted to get another look at the Happy Warrior Memorial Parking Area on what used to be the State Capitol Mall.

Also of some interest is that the Governor of our state has relocated his office from where he usually sits in the undergoing rehabilitation Capitol building to somewhere in that building down there on the other end of the mall, the Veterans' Service Memorial Building.  I used to work there myself.

I was lining the Happy Warrior photo up when a fairly unkempt fellow about my age rode up on his not a complete POS comfort bike and demanded to know what benefit I was expecting from wearing a helmet.  He was not wearing one.

He was about my age so I was not at all nonplussed.  I have an entire life time worth of experience dealing with all sorts of guys about my age.  I just went ahead and gave him my standard response about how learning the alphabet a second time is supposed to be really hard.  He launched into his 64 days in a coma after being run over by a giant SUV while riding his bicycle through an intersection story.  He said he has already done that whole relearn the alphabet thing and it wasn't that big a deal.

So I told him my knocked off my bike by another bicyclist at the Ironman and sitting with the EMT slowly recognizing that although I seemed OK that my helmet was broken story, with the conclusion being my realization that it could just as well have been my skull that was broken.

Pretty soon we were pals.

Talk went on and on and on if you know what I mean.  I didn't change any of his opinions and he didn't change any of mine.  Eventually I begged off further conversation saying I wanted to get home to watch the end of the futbol.  Even he knew that I meant soccer.

I took a turn through the parking lot and came back out to get the photo of the Capitol I was thinking about when my new friend originally arrived.

Nice parking lot.

Most of the work on this side of the building is apparently over.

I rode on.

Some readers will remember that my last ride of last season resulted in a very round number appearing on my bicycle odometer.  Today's ride added 1,000 miles to that total and moved me to a really, really round number for NewLOOK.

And so I enter the exclusive club of those people who own three different bicycles on which they have ridden at least 10,000 miles.  10,012 on this one by the time I got home.

I am sitting here thinking about it and riding 10,000 miles on even one bicycle is an achievement almost no other bicyclist ever reaches.  I have done it three times.  And I know someone else who has also done it.

Note the reflection on the bicycle computer of my red sleeveless jersey.

This is not what my street looked like when I headed out but by the time I got home official actions have been taken in response to our street sink hole.

TOPWLH correctly identified that that isn't necessarily all totally good.  In the last 0.10 mile of a huge milestone ride I got little tar covered pieces of gravel stuck to my tires.  I got home and after opening the garage door I had to take a minute or two to clean my tires.

It's always something.