New Brighton

Yesterday I rode a mile or so on one of the Shoreview portal streets.  I had a dozen or so tiny oil covered pebbles on my tires before I finally got back to safety on the Roseville side of city limits.  Out in the car lane riding in the tracks made by the car tires the streets were pretty much OK but towards the curb or when making any turn across the entire width of the street I encountered conditions which each time produced another set of click-click-click.

So what happens when a north wind means a north ride but Shoreview is still completely off limits?

New Brighton.

I have, of course, been there plenty of times before, in fact today's Guest Rider has been there plenty of times before.  On the way over to that spot there is an exhilarating downhill with a 40mph speed limit (which we did NOT threaten) followed immediately by, obviously, a slightly obnoxious uphill.  The uphill isn't really that hard though and I think we both enjoyed that part of the ride.

In New Brighton we ride through not the suburb of New Brighton but the old part of town, the part that was a town before the expansion of the metro area completely swallowed that area.  It is always interesting to see that part of town in what is now most assuredly an expanse of mostly 80s constructed suburbia.

We passed several bodies of water along the way including Valentine Lake but the GRider must have been feeling lake deprived because she exclaimed excitedly when we turned down the hill on the approach to Lake Johanna.

We both agreed without comment that it is a nice little lake but it is clearly NOT a great lake and that the beach is a bit below the quality of what we have recently been accustomed to.  There is no one there even remotely resembling any Gatsby although there may perhaps be a candidate or two for Daisy Buchanan.

We haven't had many corn reports this year.  The GRider says you cannot do the exact same thing every year.  I think that actually you CAN do the exact same thing every year and sometimes in fact, that is my goal.  Usually I want to do the exact same thing in the current year as I was able to do in years past.  However, considering that last year was my worst bicycle year in I think 12 years or something I am plenty OK this time with not doing what I did last year.  In any case, corn.

GRider for scale.

Pretty healthy corn.  She isn't even standing in the really tall stuff.

This house is across the street from where Rob lives.  That house had a new roof put on last year.

The back story is that Rob came out of his house and watched and eventually ended up providing some advice to the lady who lives in that house.  He suggested that she probably didn't want to put on what is the current most popular look in shingles, the sort of checkered look.  The front of the house is brick and when the crew was finishing up I happened to be riding by on a day when Rob was trimming his tree in front.  He and I agreed that the house looked like two different kinds of plaid.

So today there was a crew of men up on the roof.  I don't know, it may just be the edges that are getting worked on but I thought that was something that would have been done during last year's reroofing.

If anyone (I'm looking at you person who is hosting Rob's biggest job of the summer) happens to see Rob perhaps this could be a topic of conversation.

Just sayin'.

It was a very nice day, a very nice ride and my legs felt a whole lot better than yesterday.