North gate

I got a late start today.  The time to ride came and I could not quite convince myself that it was going to be OK out there.

This went on for a while as I kept checking the radar and kept contemplating a nap.  Finally a point came where I either had to risk the 50 percent chance or hide my face in shame if I was on the wrong side of the 50-50.

And mostly it went OK.  At least it didn't rain.

A south wind started me off in that direction but my intention was to ride to the Fairgrounds (five miles on the usual ride route), take a full tour of the grounds and then maybe try something off to the east.

So I rode the Tour de Fairgrounds.

Two things.

One, there is a concrete slab on Underwood a couple of building sites north of Randall.  I consulted the cookie maker's website and they have now corrected the map there of locations and are now showing an under construction site on Underwood just north of Randall.

So that pretty surely is where it is going to be.  It is out of the main traffic flow as that flow has existed in the past but I expect that the cookie place will create a new traffic flow.  Lots of people parked in the main north side parking areas will now not be purchasing their bucket of cookies early on and carrying them around for the duration of their Fair excursion.  They will now be passing by the new northern location on their way out and getting their cookies then.

From my perspective I think this is the best possible outcome.  I already don't spend much time over there on that street so this won't be a problem for me.

Item two, there will be lots and lots of times during the Fair when there will be far fewer people in front of the DNR Building than the throng over there today playing that new video game.

Very dangerous area for a bicyclist, lots and lots of distracted pedestrians and also a large serving of distracted motorists.

I passed a mini-van (note to non-cyclists: except in le Tour de France, bicyclists do not pass motor vehicles on a regular basis) with four individuals inside all pretty much glued to their phones.  With due deference to the driver, she seemed somewhat less distracted by her phone than the others.  She was at least occasionally glancing at the road.  She seemed surprised to see me going by but on the other hand at least she saw me going by.

After riding the Fair a break in the foreboding clouds encouraged me to head farther south.  Eventually I actually got quite a ways, making my final turnback point at Summit and Macalester Street (right in front of Wallace Hall for anyone who might recognize that reference).  That's about 10 miles from home by any reasonable riding route, a bit too far from home on a day when the clouds never really gave up on being threatening.

But in the end it wasn't the clouds that provided a sour note on the ride.  It was the north gate.

I was on my way home doing the numbers in my head.  I wanted to get in the standard ride and I didn't want to have to do it by riding up and down the street in front of my house.  I detoured through Saint Anthony Park and crossed over onto the Farm Campus.

Cows.

So very, very many people playing Pokemon about a mile away as the crow flies and so very, very few people enjoying the leafy glade and the big bovines.

What finally happened was that I was heading out the north gate needing a little over two miles for the standard ride only to discover that the north gate was NOT open.  I have an opinion about why it was not open and if I am correct the reason for it not being open is just another brick in the wall of the horrible event of early this month which brought the City of Falcon Heights, previously most known as the site of the Minnesota State Fair, into the national consciousness for another reason.

But it wasn't open.  I had to circle back out through the northeast gate on Hoyt.  A bridge too far, I wasn't able to get home within the mileage of the standard ride.

I'm not really trained for anything longer.

But it was OK, I made it without great discomfort.

And then there is the fact that I needed a couple of extra miles somewhere along the line to set up something big for next week, two rides from now.

Stay tuned.

Everything worked today

Including the weather, about 72 when we headed out and a moderate NE wind.  NE wind works perfect for a ride to Vadnais as the return is tailwind in both directions.

If you are strong enough to get there there shouldn't be any problem at all in getting home.

We took the traditional path out there, GRider's first time on that route.  That means she got to ride down the steep hill from Victoria to Snail Lake for the first time.  We watched a lot of le Tour de France this month and there were numerous stages when speeds of 30, even 40 miles per hour were reported.

On that steep downhill she admits that she applied the brakes, feeling that the speeds we were attaining were just not safe.

I stayed off the brakes and attained a reported by my cyclocomputer top speed of 29.9 mph.  Not even fast by the standards of the greatest bicycle race in the world.

We paused for a photo opp on the road into the Sucker Lake portion of the park out there.  Again, middle of the city, no sign whatsoever of civilization.

With the notable exception of a paved road.

We got home without any tire drama this time.  We paused for an end of July corn report.

Very nice day, very nice ride.

Not quite flat on the bottom

The weather has taken a nasty turn here.  Three straight days of heat advisory plus a fourth day with pretty much all day rain, pretty hard all day rain at that.

These sorts of things severely limit bicycling opportunities.

But today we got back out there.

The wind was pretty strong but mostly straight from the west.  That is a condition that favors a straight out to the north route with a similar return.  One doesn't want to get too far east and have to ride back into that wind towards the end of the ride when you are tired.

The answer to that question is yes, I get tired on every ride.  As far as I am concerned that is the only reason to ride.  If I am just out there pedaling around I am really not benefiting myself.

We rode out to Lake Vadnais today.  It was the first appearance of the season at that iconic northern destination for the GRider.

Everyone gets to make their own evaluation but based on the photographic evidence I believe that she was quite pleased with herself.

Another view of our rest stop, this time looking north up the lake.  We love this view of Lake Vadnais, from the middle of the northern suburbs with no city in view in any direction.

FirstLOOK for perspective.

We topped the hill coming away from the lake and had just completed our favorite swoop under the railroad overpass on Rice Street when the GRider started chirping from behind about a tire problem.

I directed her off into a bit of shade and rode back to assess the situation.

It wasn't quite flat on the bottom but it was quite severely under desirable tire pressure.

I considered that we were about 3 miles from the bike shop and maybe 6 or so miles from home.

The tire wasn't completely flat so I did a full inspection of the exterior.  I found one sharp piece of glass imbedded about half way around from the valve stem.  We couldn't be sure that that bit was the problem but we decided to try to get to the bike shop.  I used my CO2 inflator to get the tire back up to firm enough to ride on and we set out.  After a couple of miles we came to a cross roads and a decision point.  We were about a mile from the bike shop, 4 miles from home.

We checked her tire, it was not very noticeably lower in pressure than when the CO2 was applied.

We tried for home.

And made it.  Still not quite flat on the bottom.

I didn't have time to work on the tire today as we were scheduled for baby sitting but I did check on the tire before we left to see Norah about an hour and a half after GRider finished riding.

Completely, totally, 100 percent flat.

The babysitting today was fabulous.  The baby was amazing.  When both we and her parents are present Norah seems quite severely overstaffed.  We stayed and her parents went out to dinner.  I can't speak for everyone but I think all 5 of us had quite a good time.  I can say that the baby was sweet and wonderful and that TOPWLH and I had a wonderful time.

Tomorrow there is no Tour de France so I think I will have time for tire repair.

Hottest day of the year

Today at 4:47am the power went out in our neighborhood.  I heard a beep as our smoke detectors switched over to battery mode.  GRider says she heard a pop from somewhere outside.

This did not prove to be a significant problem for us for a couple of reasons even as the hottest day of the year began to ramp up to truly unbearable conditions.

First, today was my day this week with Norah.  I have to be there so her Mama can leave for work by 6:30.  I want to stop at Byerly's and get newspapers and something for lunch so I have to leave the house by 5:45.  I was planning to get up at 5am anyway.  Thirteen minutes early wasn't much of a problem.

The second reason was this thing.

Power in our house was out for maybe three seconds, probably more like two, long enough for the digital clock radio in the bedroom and the digital clock on the microwave to reset to flashing (but not long enough for the digital clock on the range to reset).  The smoke detectors beeped again as Generac turned on and power returned.  Generac requires no activity whatsoever by the user, it is automatic.  Electricity interruption trips a switch and this natural gas powered generator automatically begins producing 14KW of power, plenty enough to power the house including the AC (and the furnace during that other season of the year).

My wife got up to congratulate me on money well spent as I began microwaving my oatmeal for breakfast, microwaving being something not possible anywhere else on our side of the street.

Life proceeded without interruption.  I had breakfast, the garage door opener functioned and off I went to spend the hottest day of the year with Norah.

GRider reports that the power came back on after 4 and a half hours or so (she noticed because the generator shut down) only to immediately go back off (beep from the smoke detectors, pop from somewhere outside) causing the generator to go back on.

In all power in our neighborhood was off for slightly over 6 hours.  During that time power was off in our house for perhaps 4 seconds.

Money well spent.

Heat advisory arrives tomorrow

It was plenty warm enough today but the accompanying humidity which will turn outside into an environment unsafe for the likes of me does not arrive until tomorrow.  Today was only hot and a bit windy, good evaporative cooling conditions.  On a day like today as long as I stay hydrated and keep moving I am OK.

On the way home I stopped to discuss just this matter with a neighbor.  He said it was too hot.  As soon as I stopped I agreed with him.

But it was OK while I was moving.

The State Capitol was my destination today to check on the restoration project down there.  The old building actually looks pretty good when it gets cleaned up.

I have lived here a long time and never once noticed until today that the Capitol is clearly constructed of two different stones.  I know that the upper part including the dome is constructed of marble from Georgia.  The base is a darker stone, I believe it to be local granite.  Remarkably I tried to find some information about the darker stone and gave up after checking a few links.

Looks like granite.

Until cleaned the marble just blended in with the darker stone.

The construction site on the Fairgrounds earlier identified as possibly the new cookie stand has proven to be no such thing.  With no other construction going on anywhere on the north end the GRider and I were starting to doubt if the expansion to three sites was actually going to happen this year.

Today there is another construction site out there on the north end.

So, I'll keep an eye on that one now.  It is on the same block as the Home Depot, at the other of the block.

Air conditioning test tomorrow.

Still flooded

I had taken the picture and we were just taking a short break looking at the light at the end of the tunnel.  A young person on a skateboard came down the paved trail from our right.  Yes, skateboard.  It IS a multi-use trail.

"Still flooded", is what he said.

If you examine the photo you can identify that another cyclist was having the same problem on the other end of the tunnel that we were having on ours.

Except she had a plan.  Shortly she also came down the paved trail from our right.  She stopped and described for us how there was a dirt path on the other side that was easily navigable.

Well, that wasn't really our plan as we had pretty much reached the outer edge of the GRider's range.  I knew that the tunnel was flooded, I have been there a couple of times earlier this year.  This spot was always planned as the turn around point and that is what we did.

We turned around and rode on home.

494 miles in the last 31 days, at long last fairly respectable.

Froome, nous avons trouvé votre vélo.

That's my favorite moment from today's stage, a nice French lady standing by the side of the road with a sign proclaiming what should be good news for the maillot jaune.

Of course, currently strongly contending for my favorite TdF moment ever is Froomey running up the hill after losing son vélo. Someone with better knowledge of the language than my severely limited French should check on my use of possessive pronouns.

Here is a link to the French coverage (my favorite) for anyone who hasn't seen it.

We had a really swell time last night but you can't live forever in the past so we set out today in search of new experiences.

We rode down to the Stone Arch Bridge where we encountered a surprisingly small crowd considering that today is Saturday and it was a beautiful day in July.

Saint Anthony Falls.  The rivers of Minnesota are running at or near flood stage after the most recent heavy storms.

The water is very brown, carrying a lot of sediment towards the delta.  Or at least down to the Ford dam.

GRider (and FirstLOOK) for scale.

We circled around through the main campus and got this view of the Washington Avenue Bridge and the infamous Weisman Art Museum (infamous because of its non-traditional exterior).

On the way home we experienced something fairly significant for FirstLOOK.

And yes indeed, that is a lot of miles.

You can't live in the past but who knows what the future holds in store for us.  Maybe, just maybe, I can accumulate enough miles to have done a simulated bicycle ride around the world.

THAT would be a lot of miles.

A new distraction

Well, actually just a variation on an old one.

Pictured is the DNR building at the Fairgrounds.  I ride through there a couple of times a week, so frequently that I have a nod and wave relationship with the State Fair Police day shift patrolman.  We see each other so often that apparently we have become pals.  I ride there all of the time and there is never anyone parked there.

Right before the Fair starts there might be one or two cars there as DNR folks start to prepare the building exhibits for the big show.  But never this many.  Close examination of the photo should reveal three groups of people, about 7 individuals in all.  Before I left the scene two more cars arrived and three more individuals came wandering down the street (also one car left).

What's going on?

New video game that you can play on your smart phone.

So the cars that arrive were all driven, slowly at least, but still clearly in motion by game players who were staring at their phones while maneuvering to park.  I rode away, safe for the moment.  But clearly you are not going to be able to avoid these people completely.

Storm damage.  This one is not from the storm last week, it is from the one at the end of June.  This one was damaged then, the big tree down last week which resulted in blue tarp instead of roof is only 4 or 5 houses down the street.

It looks like the combination of events convinced the home owners to remove a giant from the neighborhood.

That guy in the foreground was a foreman or something.  He walked past me and told me there was a $5 admission charge.  I said I would gladly pay it because it looked to me like the show was going to be worth at least that much.

And it was.

Hot days coming

Well, I guess it is July.

We were out today and it seemed hot to me.  Not unbearable or anything but certainly July.  Predictions are for quite a bit hotter by next week.

By next week I may be riding earlier in the day.

We made it all the way to the Greenway today.  We didn't actually ride on it, we just crossed it.

There was a very large number of cyclists using the trail today.  It was pretty much the busiest street we crossed.

We were headed for the Franklin Avenue bridge.  If truth be known I had not been over that way yet this year so I was as surprised as anyone to discover that the bridge is closed for deck reconstruction.

That meant that the GRider ended up riding a little farther than was planned as we had to double back to a functional bridge.  She didn't complain though and a good time was had by all.

Vadnais

I took a couple of photos of a swan out at Sucker Lake today.

I was foiled by auto focus on the cheap pocket camera.

I did get a picture of the first local sign of the end.

That tree, however, is the only local sign.  Except for that today was a spectacularly beautiful day in July..

Stage 2 of the tour

The GRider was interested in several of the scenes pictured in yesterday's post.  She also wanted to ride today if possible so that she can go to Costco tomorrow.  Ask her.

The photo of the house with the blue tarp from yesterday doesn't really do justice to the size of the tree that landed on that house.  Here we have GRider for scale.

Really, really big tree.

Right on top of the house.  There was an angle where we could see into the back yard.  That tree was a multiple trunk tree about 10 feet from the house.  The one trunk that fell separated from the rest at a juncture about 3 or 4 feet off the ground.  Just to GRider's right is the lowest most portion of that massive piece of wood.  Just to her left is piece number two.

Here's one I didn't notice yesterday.  Anyone used to sitting in the shade next to the Agriculture/Horticulture Building should arrive a bit earlier as one of the big trees next to that building has gone away.

Mostly it was OK to be out there although it was WAY too windy.  The sun appeared sporadically early on but was mostly present towards the end of the ride.

There will come a day in November when I will wish I could get just one more ride.  Today was not ideal but it is a ride I am glad we were able to take.

Tour de storm damage

Tuesday evening here featured an elemental display of wind and rain.  The rain was so intense that visibility was reduced to such an extent that I could see the street but clearly not across to the other side.  We got several inches of water backed up into the storm water back up basin which is now adjacent to our house.  The basin worked.

The wind howled, we lost a couple of medium branches but no big branches or trees.

Lots of our neighbors were not as lucky.

I did not get a ride in yesterday but I went out today to see what vestiges of the storm were still present.

It was about 40 hours after the storm when I hit the street.  For context our next door neighbors had a branch down onto their power line during the storm taking their power out.  When I set out on my ride today they were still running their refrigerator from our extension cord plugged into our outdoor outlet on the deck.

40 hours later.

So when I set out for Norah's house yesterday I glanced down the next street over.  There was a tree down blocking the street.

I wasn't surprised to find that the obstruction had been removed but I documented the stump.

It should be obvious from the diameter of what remains that that tree was plenty large enough to span the width of that suburban street.  That one is within as the crow flies about a hundred yards from our house.

This one made the local news.  That tree blocked Roselawn just west of Lexington.

I was looking at that when our neighbor who jogs came up.  We had a nice chat, she said she was hot and sweaty, asked about our situation etc. etc.  A nice chat.  I ride a bicycle, I was a bit hot but the miracle of evaporative cooling was keeping me mostly plenty cool and definitely not very sweaty.

Here's the first one I came too that hadn't been cleaned up yet.

My intention was to ride mostly in Roseville but I also wanted to see Lake Como and the Fairgrounds.  It is hard to ride in only in Roseville and also ride at those two Saint Paul locations.

The above is Saint Paul which some would be able to determine by the debris in the left foreground.  That tree took down a light post when it went down, one of decorative City of Saint Paul light posts.

This one was still about 90 percent blocking the street.

There was just barely room for a bicycle to get past.  I don't think a car could.

This one is mostly cleaned up but that giant patch of ground ripped up with the stump struck my eye.

That was a big tree and here is what it did to the much smaller tree directly across the street.

I was getting closer to home and back into Roseville when I came across this spruce on the back side of the HarMar parking lot near Cub.

There was another one a little bit farther along that was on the power line, dragging what may well have been a live wire down to about the 4 foot above the ground level and a spot where a sidewalk passed directly under the wire.

Here's the last one.

That, now THAT was a big tree.  There isn't any evidence of a stump in the front yard but those blue tarps on top of the house tell me that there is a stump in the back yard.

Those people have a serious problem.

I got home and the neighbor has power.

We, of course, never lost power.  We have a generator, the power never goes out here.

Today in France, another bunch spring, Cav wins the stage for his third victory of this year's Tour.  I admit to being one of the many who proclaimed before the race began that the Age of Cavendish was over.  Chapeau to Cav for proving me and all of his other doubters to be completely wrong.

And in Marseille, semi-finals of Euro 2016, France 2, Deutschland nil.

France in the final on Sunday at Stade de France in Paris suburb Saint Denis against Portugal.

Independence Day

The family tradition over the years was 4th of July at Canterbury.  There are always free hot dogs and when the girls were younger there were pony rides.

The babies are too young for such an outing but both sets of parents declare that as soon as they are old enough the tradition will be restored.

In the meantime it was OOTNDITHOD and we have a deck and and a Weber.  I grilled some chicken and some bratwurst and some TwinsDogs.  We had an outstanding turnout and I am pretty sure that until the babies are old enough to go to Canterbury that we should be doing this.

Mother and daughter both in red tops with white stars.  They both also were wearing blue shorts.

Here is most of the crowd watching as Mom prepares baby's bib.

LATE EDIT:  A slightly different angle of all of the same people but a better look at some of them.

I am a little disappointed but this is the best of the shots I got of the cousins and the second cousins.

Babies need to go home early.  It is very hard being a baby and they need to get some rest because tomorrow is another hard day of being a baby.

Mostly they were both very sweet.

No firecrackers

But we did get in a bicycle ride.  Even though it most definitely is Sunday, we discovered that places that we expect to be overwhelmed with our fellow citizens on weekends were not really that crowded.

We briefly considered continuing on to see if perhaps Norah could come out to play.  It would have been another mile and a half or so and we were already pretty much at the limit of GRider's range.  So instead we headed home along a route that took us past this lady's residence.

I'm not sure they get a lot of bicycles in that lobby but they definitely get lots and lots of those four wheeled vehicles like the one Norah's great grandma is palping.

We had to cut through the Fairgrounds on the way home to avoid some uphill unpleasantness.  From half a Fairground away the GRider pronounced that the construction project that I had ruled out as the new chocolate chip cookie stand was actually the REAL new Sweet Martha's.  She based this on the gable at the end of the building being yellow, the main color used on the two other locations.

I didn't think so but after dropping her off (18 miles this time) I headed back over there for a more complete investigation.

That thing is a new set of bathrooms.

There are some unexplained doors on the other side of the building but this end and the south side of the building and the characteristic brick work pattern clearly identify this as rest rooms.

This new one is near the Snelling Avenue entrance, near the Home Improvements building and the AFL-CIO building.

Guest appears

My miles have been way down this season but even so I was quite a bit up on the GRider.  That is until today when she made her inaugural outing of the season.

Better late than never.

She hadn't seen anything and her range was not going to be great so we stayed fairly close to home.  There are a bunch more things blooming in our favorite local rain garden.

Still no cardinal flowers.

There was no parking on one side of the street over near Como Park due to a giant festival there this weekend.  With no cars parked in front of it we got a good look at the exotic flora boulevard.

Como is the only lake near enough for a first ride of the season.

Corn report, about eye high by the Fourth of the July.

She done good actually, 14 miles on her first time out.

I dropped her off and rode some more and came across another instance of storm damage.

Hooray, hooray, the first of July.
Outdoor bicycling started today (for one of us).