Construction zone tour

We can't ride north and we can't ride south.  But never give up, I tried to lead a new route down into the big city today.  At first it was going OK.  We couldn't use the Dead Man's Curve portal because of the Fair and the massive number of newly oil and graveled streets over in that direction.  Getting across the railroad is always a huge issue but we snuck through fairly well on the new pedestrian/bicycle crossing on Lexington.  I note that we rode up the overpass on our side to confront another citizen walking his bike up from the other side.  I am not fast but I am still strong, at least, strong enough.  The bicycle is NOT walked, the bicycle is ridden.

The GRider reports that our previous house is for sale.  We rode past to get a look and discovered that if it is for sale it has not advanced to that portion of the process when real estate people put up signs in front of the house.

We did notice that squirrels have moved into the Emily tree.

What do you suppose that blurry thing in the upper left hand corner is?

We went past the place where GRider's office/old house stood on the Hamline campus.  About all I can say about that is that there is absolutely zero evidence that any houses ever stood anywhere along that block and that the landscaping is coming along nicely.

I don't believe they should have torn down the former President's house.  Honest to god, once in a while at least try to have some sense of history and tradition.

None of my business.

So next I was looking for a way across University and the train line and then across 94.  I had a pretty good idea where I could get across University but to get there I had to get at least half a mile farther east.  Naturally enough I took the Charles Avenue bike boulevard, or blvd if you so please.

The blvd has those signs painted on the pavement virtually every block, it also has a couple of new roundabouts but no particular advantage at the busy cross street intersections.  I dunno, fairly thin gruel so far.

We found a controlled intersection (a light) to get across the train tracks and then had to navigate around a paving project and a completely brain dead van driver to reach the freeway but I had successfully navigated us to the place where a pedestrian only bridge makes it way across the interstate.  Once across the freeway we plunged into what seemed to be an endless progression of chip and seal and/or actual construction.  For a couple of miles it seemed as though there was not anything we could do to escape the construction hell.  The absolute worst moment occurred on Marshall.  We were riding down a chip and seal street when barriers announced street closed at the intersection.  I thought there might be a path between the barriers but with only half a block to go I opted for the sidewalk, thinking that was a more sure path through.

Wrong.  Sidewalk closed.  And then when we finally circled onto the boulevard grass around that sign to reach the intersection we discovered that the sign people were really serious this time, the entire corner curbing and part of the street was torn out.

But we made it finally down to the edge of the street.  Actual street construction was going on in the middle of that street.  Our alternatives were gradually narrowing done to no alternative at all.

And then one of the nicest things that has ever happened to us as bicyclists happened.

There was a repaving project going on on Marshall.  All of the new pavement except for a 10 or so foot wide strip had already been done.  The final preparation for that last strip was occurring just as we sat there contemplating what we could do.  Literally right in front of us an oil truck was heading down that strip putting down oil to prepare the compacted road bed to accept the final layers of asphalt.  Chip and seal behind us, oil on the road in front of us, sidewalk out, maybe you get the idea.

Then the oil truck came to a stop and the driver leaned out the window and asked us if we were planning on going across.  And then waited for us to ride through the bump down from pavement into the groove bump back up onto the pavement on the other side in front of his truck meaning we did not have to ride through the oil.

It was a really, really thoughtful and downright nice action from one of the sorts of people we have usually expected to be not sympathetic to what we are doing.

It was SO nice that it made the rest of the ride easy.

The highlight of the ride is that although we almost always get to the Cathedral from the downhill Capitol side and have to navigate a difficult uphill (no walking) this time we got to the Cathedral from the uphill side.  This means a 25mph coast down the hill followed by about 8 miles home with a strong tailwind, we had fun.