500 squared?

Not really, but if divided by 10 . . .

I guess if your brother and sister both decide it is a bloggable event it must be a bloggable event.

So in honor of what is after only a number (a really big number though) and keeping to the theme established by my siblings, here's one taken somewhere between 2,000 and 2,500 from the beginning:

I don't believe this one is available anywhere else but that looks like about 17,700 or so days ago on the mall just outside the open side of Kirk Hall.  I think Opal took that picture.

She never was a fan of barefoot.  That's at Izaty's on Lake MilleLacs about 10,000 days ago.

Not much bicycle content today but I can report that I am averaging over two miles ridden per day up to this point.  At 25,000 days the cumulative total in my BikeLog is currently at 57,936.

Here's what we did today

It was a beautiful spring day when we left home for the hockey game.

After the game it started to snow.  Winter is making another appearance but we expect it to be brief.

In the meantime, we are perfectly pleased with hunkering down to celebrate Gopher Women's Hockey as the 2015 National Champions.

Another step

Having twice ridden in about 60 degrees the 42 or so of Tuesday and Wednesday didn't appeal to me.  Today was slightly above 50 I suppose but dreary on a couple of levels.

Do not despair, there is still bicycle content.

This first thing isn't really a very big job if you have the tools (I do) and any further delay was starting to look like a bad idea as actual rideable summer weather looms.  So I got started on the next step of winter maintenance.

That's what my 10 speed cog set looks like after it has been disassembled and degreased.  There's various tools on the left and degreasing simple green solution on the right.  Also there are two different 17-18 cog parts.  One is new and is just joining the team, one is on its way to either the trash or possible recycling as a Christmas tree ornament.

That was all so very yesterday and today I reassembled the whole wheel, to include pumping the tire, and disposed of the degreaser.

For those wondering what might be coming next I will say that it involves this package and this tool.

There is also a separate chain degreasing process but putting the new chain inside a bottle with a degreaser and shaking vigorously just isn't really interesting enough to merit a separate photo (as if this part was).

It isn't really a very big job if you have the tools.

Meanwhile this equinox thing is about to arrive.

Weather watching

There's another aspect of the experience that I lost contact with over the dark season.  Today I renewed my acquaintance with obsessive weather watching by tuning in the Weather Channel just before noon for Live on the 8s.  It was 59 at noon with high winds predicted for later on in the day and a shift in the weather pattern.  It wasn't totally the news about today that got me going though.  High temperature predicted for tomorrow is only 47.  I checked the newspaper and the average for today is 41 so that makes tomorrow still a pretty nice day when compared to the average.  But a crummy day when compared to today and when tomorrow's predicted north winds at 20 to 30 mph are also considered.

Plus, once having ridden, it seems like a good time to try to ride again.

The wind came up fairly early in the ride.

Who doesn't love the cows but what you got there in the background is a student flying a kite.  True the kite has temporarily crashed to the ground and stayed there long enough that I despaired of him getting the kite back in the air for the photo that I was imagining.  Demonstrative of the wind, however, is the fact that master kiteman didn't have to walk all the way over to the kite.  He just tugged on the string until the lift surfaces of the kite got reoriented to the desired into the wind configuration and up it went.  It takes a strong breeze to do that and today we had it.

I got down into the Fairgrounds.  I was intrigued when four identical white trucks passed by in front of me so I turned in the direction from whence they had come to investigate.

This is the second instance in the last few years of large fleets of identical trucks being stored in a Fairgrounds parking lot.

It isn't the same group this time though as the last time they were Fords and this bunch is Chevys.

I circled out of the grounds and headed back north into the by now punitive wind.  I thought I might try for a few more miles than yesterday but it was HARD.  I got as far as the Library and turned it around.

So that's south as far as the Fairgrounds and north as far as the Library.  Certainly nothing epic but a satisfying two miles more today than yesterday.

I opened up my BikeLog and did some poking around.  This is the first time for any miles whatsoever in March since 2012.  I got in a ride on the 11th that year when the notes column indicates an all time record high temperature for that date of 66.  Rain on the 12th and then 60s and 70s for the next three days followed by hockey.  So an early start but not anything particularly historic.  Today after I got home I went to the bakery and the grocery store and it was actually kind of fun walking around a bit rubber legged.  The ride was hard but hard is at least part of the point and today it feels just fine.

Beware the Ides of March

Another day in the 60s and this time I didn't have anything else on my agenda.  I have a bicycle, I have the gear, time to get this thing started.

For yet another time I discovered that riding a bicycle once mastered is not something that I have forgotten.  For yet another time I discovered that I HAD forgotten how hard it is sometimes.

I wasn't thinking miles at all, I was thinking time on the bicycle, time to start laying down a base bicycling fitness level.  I had a few miles early last month while in Flor-Ida but not really enough to achieve much fitness and also now so long ago that anything achieved on the bait and switch rental two wheeler is really now no longer relevant.

Today 45 minutes or so weaving mostly into the wind got me to the upwind end of Lake Como.  Despite the recent run of 60+ degree high temperatures it still just ain't quite spring yet.

On the other hand as I neared home I discovered another view indicating fairly clearly that even if spring isn't here winter is in a severe decline.  This is one of the two or three nearby front yard ice rinks.  The boards are down and the homeowner has been out there busting up the ice sheet to distribute the pieces.

Spreading the pieces facilitates melting and indicates quite clearly that the rink has seen its last flooding of the season.

This looks like a pretty good neighbor to me.

Most folks who have a tree taken down in their yard don't really bother with putting up a sign of explanation and apology.

I am knackered, I had to stretch the ride just a tiny tish more than I intended when I suddenly veered into the neighborhood of having the ride end with a total mileage of more than 12 but less than 14.  I stayed out and got to 14.

Officially off the schneid.

Republication

I note that this was originally published on this BICYCLING blog last August after we attended the local state fair.

I am going to use the Schedule feature on blogger to try to get this as close as I can.  Everyone will have to assume the final 53 seconds.

Because this is a BICYCLING blog

Below zero about a week ago but today was the fourth or fifth day in a row of spring-like temperatures.  Of course, we know full well from a life time of experience that spring is not very likely to actually arrive in early March but what the heck, it is DARN nice out.

So nice that I am close to riding my bicycle.

So nice that today I went around and gathered up my gear.

So nice that today I went out and made sure the relevant bicycle for early spring riding is in a good to go condition.

I pumped the tires and checked the brakes.  I did not do anything that qualifies as a ride but I did have to do a little shake down cruise of several times around the cul de sac to assure my self that I am good to go.

I am good to go.

So nice that today I did what I have been talking about all winter but previously only talking about.  I started on the process of preparing the other relevant bicycle for the riding that will come after spring actually arrives.  Down in the basement today I got the rear wheel off and started to work on last season's season ending flat tire.

I had previously declared that I was going to just discard the tire as it had flatted several times over the last month of last season and I had reached the point of despair over my inability to locate the problem.  I have a couple of spare used tires back there in the corner and I was just going to pitch this one and use one of those.  But it is still winter and I still have lots of time.  I took both the tire and the tube completely off, as is apparent in the photo, turned the tire inside out and started finger touchy searching my way around the tire.  About half way around I encountered something sharp and scratchy.

Well, I got the sharp and scratchy out of the tire and it most definitely was a tiny bit of wire.  If you find and remove the cause of the flats it no longer makes sense to pitch the tire.

So I have repaired the tube and remounted the whole business.  I then located my tools for working on my cassette.  The 17 cog is skipping occasionally.  I have a new spare 17 and a new chain.

But that's enough for today.

It is so nice out that I need to go back outside for a while.

Because this is a bicycling blog.

Hooray, hooray the first of . . .

Oops, two months early with that one.

I opened my bicycling log today to verify what I was already 99 percent certain was true.  My bicycle log is set up to record rides taken in March no matter how unlikely such a ride might prove to be.  Indeed I did not ride today but I did make an entry on the date when DST will begin (next Sunday) noting that event.

But what brings me here today (in addition to all of that above) is photo exaggerations.

Here is the one that most occurs to me, the very common log load exaggeration photo.

I found that one on the intertubes on a site celebrating white pine logging in Michigan in the 40s and 50s.  1840s and 1850s that is.  That two horse team was never ever going to be expected to haul that load.  The lumberjacks were just showing off for the photographer, making as large a pile of logs on the skidder as they possibly could.

Up came a schoolmarm with a big blue butt etc. etc. etc.

I insert that to preface this photo of what I put on my plate for dinner tonight.

No one eats a pound of steak.  You would bust out two of your slats and the bull of the woods would have to send you to get patched up.

It is now officially March, bicycling swings into the range of maybe, just maybe possible.  The weather prediction says otherwise, snow is expected this week.

This is all mostly okay with us, we have leftover steak and three more weeks of hockey.

Nonetheless who doesn't eagerly anticipate the first of May?