Cleared off and turned hot

At about the time Nibali completed his routinely astonishing time trial I had pretty much resigned myself to no ride today.  It was darkish out, the radar showed reds, yellows and greens massed in the southwestern part of the state moving generally kinda northeast, towards us.

Nibali?  Come on.  First, Vinokourov's team.  That whole thing smells bad already.

Next up, 7 minute lead coming into the time trial.  This morning the intro crew of Bob, CVdV and that new guy actually mentioned the actual last time such a thing happened.  2005.  The leader that year?  Lance Armstrong.  They actually said his name on the air.

Next up, OK, maybe really, really good in the mountains, some guys can climb.  But then come out in the strong man's show, a long time trial and smoke everyone except the World Champion again?

The morning crew agreed with Bob that cycling is cleaner now than most any other major sport.  That's a bit amusing right there, calling themselves a major sport.  Then the crew went on to describe exactly how cycling is cleaner.  Vandevelde cited himself as an example, admitting that at the start of his career he doped but that it was his team (Garmin) that was the first to institute a no needle policy and to routinely make the blood values of the riders available to the press.  He said that by the time he retired (last year) the team was clean as so was most of the peloton.

That's not a very convincing narrative Christian, leading with yourself as a former doper gone straight.

Tyler Hamilton, Floyd Landis, George Hincapie etc. etc. etc. without even Lancing.

Same with Nibali.  Perhaps the peloton is the cleanest it has been since EPO arrived on the scene.  Perhaps.  But there are still some who just don't look right.

Nevertheless, the TV coverage is compelling and dramatic.  Good stuff.

So, after all that . . .

The GRider wanted another outing and even came down and asked when I was thinking of heading out.  Well, actually, I wasn't.

But I checked the radar again and that whole red, green and yellow blob seemed to be moving mostly east instead of northeast and finally maybe even a bit of the old southeast.

And that is what ended up happening.  It stayed south, the skies cleared from north to south and eventually it was sunny and hot.

The wind led us over towards the really big city off to our west and onto what is now being called by the people over there the Dinkytown Greenway.  This is the new trail revealed to me late last year by TCWUTH, ridden by me a couple of times this year but absolutely totally brand new pavement for the GRider.

She exclaimed with positive delight about the views from the river crossing at the end of the DG.

There are four different river crossing bridges visible from the deck of this pedestrian and bicycle only crossing, five in all within about a mile or so of river.

Again, looking upstream there is the 10th Avenue, 35W and the Stone Arch.

I have ridden a bicycle across both the 10th Avenue and the Stone Arch but not, obviously across the freeway bridge.

We investigated a bit further on the downtown side of the river.  The tunnel under 35W is now officially open.  Here the GRider is in full ride mode about to exit the tunnel as we headed back.

So we headed uphill and onto the West Bank campus.  This part of the ride involved some completely new pavement for me.  I guessed wrong and we ended up on a less than optimum route.  We had to ride down a steep hill past a recently graveled PARKING LOT complete with the obligatory loose gravel sign  (and gravel extending out into the street) and then up another hill.  And then carry our bicycles up a staircase.

I can do better than that and will next time.

But once at the top of the stairs we found ourselves on the Washington Avenue bridge.  It is a double deck bridge with cars below, an enclosed pedestrian crossing and an outdoor bicycle lane above.

From this angle you can see the next bridge upriver, the one where we crossed going the other direction, and the 10th Avenue behind it, etc. etc.

As long as we were over there we made our annual summer visit to Ridder Arena, the home of the 5-Time National Champions Minnesota Women's Hockey team.

We get to the outside of the building about once a year in the summer on our bicycles and inside the building 20 or so times a year in the fall and winter as season ticket holders.

There is a very strong possibility that at the end of this next season they will be compelled to change that sign.  They were 38-2-1 last season, losing in an upset in the national championship game but with reason to believe that they just might be even better this year.