Auckland Rule

Today was much too windy for bicycling but I managed to eke out a ride anyway.

And it turned out to be a day of glorious scenery, starting with the quite nearby tulip yard.

Not even three weeks removed from 16 inches of snow.

I also circled by the tree that I mentioned last week.  The leaves are a bright and pretty shade of green.

Last week they were even more fresh looking but I think the shrub is still looking good today.

And sure enough the first sighting of some slightly pinkish flowers on someone's yard shrubbery.

It is a late spring but having finally arrived the season is definitely now moving rapidly.

I also realized that I did not report yesterday's largest piece of bicycle content.

It is now May and as I have made a few rides since the blizzard I have been monitoring the street sweeping.  Most of Roseville has been swept including my street and the nearby streets that make up my usual egress and ingress from my neighborhood.  Lauderdale has not been swept yet but most of Falcon Heights has.

We had day care pick up on Wednesday, I did not ride.  But on Tuesday I had noticed that the nearby streets in Saint Paul that I ride a lot, the streets between here and the Fairgrounds, were posted for no parking on Wednesday, strongly suggesting that those streets were going to be swept.

I went all in, figuring that the sweeping of the streets meant that the season had arrived and I could ride my summer bicycle.

I was determined but, and here comes the bicycle content, I almost didn't get to ride at all.  The tires on FirstLOOK needed to be pumped before I could ride that bicycle and my pump didn't seem up to the task.

It took a while and a bit of fiddling with three different pumps but I eventually got the tires up to a pressure sufficient for riding.

Last evening I embarked on a project involving my main pump.

What the heck was the problem and was it something I could fix?

The metal parts comprising the pump head needed to be tightened and indeed that was something I could fix.

A tiny bit disappointing.  When you set out to do something expecting that it will be a project and it ends up being way too easy you don't get the big satisfaction reward of having conquered something difficult.

*sigh*

But I did get to ride today.