Tour of Flanders

Apparently the pro cycle tour rode the Tour of Flanders yesterday virtually.  They set up their bicycles on rollers with a computer attached and showed everyone a video of the course and went ahead and rode.

I won.

It was too chilly yesterday but today was low to mid-50s with a very nice sun, a fine day for a spring ride.

The wind was a bit more southerly so I tried something a bit different.  It isn't exactly a destination but I did get to Lake Como today.

There were a fair number of people in the park and at the lake, not all of whom were practicing social distancing.  But I stayed away from them all and rode home.

There is no way to accumulate any miles if you don't ride at least once in a while.

Today I rode a bit.

Nice bike

Second ride of the year today, first public affirmation of my ride.

I was outside the garage doing last minute details (cleat covers in pocket, garage door closed, hands in gloves).  A father and his young son passed by in the street on their way to the tennis courts.  The son said something to his father that I did not catch but the father replied, "Yes, it is a nice bike."

It was a grey day, always seeming just a little bit away from rain.  But the length of ride I am trying to get in right now requires a smaller window than when I was riding out to Lake Vadnais all the time.  So I only needed an hour and I was confident of that when I headed out.  Plus, if you only intend to ride ten or so miles it is quite unlikely that rain will arrive and catch you more than five miles from home.

I note that Wimbledon has been cancelled for this year.  Another cornerstone in the new reality I guess.  I have begun hearing rumblings that the Minnesota State Fair is quite likely to called off for this year as well.

See, the kid was not wrong.

In a shameless attempt to boost traffic I dip into the archives for July 4, 2017.

Already a determined stride.

Special addendum especially for those who love Paris:  I have been checking Google Earth every few days since the Cathedral burned.  The satellite photo has been unchanged until now.  The view of Notre Dame showed the church intact.  Today I checked it again and the photo has now been updated.  The spire is gone, canvas covers the area where the wooden attic was located.  The new image is sobering.

Apparently you never forget

How to ride a bicycle.  At least that's what I've heard and today I proved it.

Not very far, alas, and certainly not very fast, but today I rode my bicycle.

This is a very early start for me, I seldom have ever gotten a ride in March.  But late last week we had a day long hard rain.  Out in our front yard the last little bit of winter melted away.

That motivated me to do this.  It isn't actual bicycle repair but it is repair related to riding my bicycle.

The cleat on my bike shoes had slithered all the way up to the toe of my left shoe. This left my foot not in the proper position and may have contributed to knee pain.  The cleat is held on by screws not by the force of god so every once in a while the screws need tightening and the cleat needs to be repositioned.  This would not be necessary if the whole attachment thing was under deity supervision.

That part on the right is how the shoes connect to the pedal.  Those four screws have to be removed to get at the mounting bracket (still on the shoe).  The top screw there was very, very loose and the one lower left was completely unscrewed and being held still on the shoe only by the rest of the bracket.

This isn't the first time.

So I got the mounting bracket reattached in the proper position on the shoe and then screwed the rest of the cleat back on.  Ready to go.

And yet another day in the 50s sent me out on the road.

When you ride only very occasionally or not at all you forget about wind.

It was not a punitive wind today but it was certainly present and a firm reminder that this is the sort of thing that one needs to keep track of when contemplating a bicycle ride.

But any way I got quite a bit farther from my house than I have been under my own power in quite a while.

The trees demonstrate how very far we still are from spring.

Boxing Day

We now almost always have bananas, blueberries and raspberries on hand.  None of these keep extremely well so the most common item on our grocery list is "bananas, b's, and r's."

For raspberries I have come to prefer Driscoll's, they seem to keep the best.

There are several brands of blueberries that seem OK but perhaps because of the raspberry preference we often end up with Driscoll's for them too.

So here is the current batch of blueberries.

As you can see they are a product of Mexico and this particular box is of a limited edition, sweetest batch.

Well, I don't know much about blueberry farming in Mexico at this time of year but I do know that if I was in West Michigan in August that these would be "Blue Crop".

While searching my files for the above photo I came across this beach view 

Happy Boxing Day.

Gino's Christmas card

Merry Christmas to all.

At her Mama's company Christmas party.

Hockey weekend in Duluth

We missed last year but we don't miss very often and this weekend we got this year's trip to Duluth.

Friday afternoon Minnesota 2, UMD 2, UMD takes the extra point in the standings by scoring in a 3 on 3 overtime period.

Saturday afternoon Minnesota 4, UMD 3.

So a pretty successful weekend from a hockey perspective.

We enjoyed what definitely qualifies as very nice weather for November in Duluth.  Here is the view out the window of our motel room.

Duluth calls that part of town Canal Park.  We were down on the lakefront about a long block from the Aerial Lift Bridge which spans the ship canal into the inner harbor.

Visible on the horizon is a lake ship, lining up for the passage through the canal to a loading facility in the harbor.

Much like Lake Michigan, Lake Superior is at all time record high levels.

We traveled out onto Park Point where we found the lake is high enough that even small waves are high enough to bring water into the parking lots.

GRider for scale.

One of the things we like about Duluth is that it is a smallish place.  If you go out at all you have a fairly good chance of bumping into your hockey heroines.  In the past we have shared hotel elevators with both the Minnesota and Wisconsin coaches.

This time on Friday evening at OMC Smokehouse (which we enthusiastically endorse) we were at the table next to the Olympic gold medal winning goaltender (and her family) from the 2018 USA women's hockey team.  She currently plays for UMD.

And then this morning we were at a breakfast table in our hotel next to one of our favorite players (and her parents) from this year's Gopher squad.

We had fun.

Just because this is fun, a repost from last July, "Kid from Minneapolis in a red hat"

Lots of good stuff here, a tribute to the late George Harrison, an all star band playing "While My Guitar Gently Weeps".

Prominent in the first half of the video is the late Tom Petty.

The second half of the video is dominated by the not gently weeping guitar genius of a kid from Minneapolis, Prince Roger Nelson.

Andy wrestled him when they were both in junior high.

George Harrison's son plays guitar and is prominent in many of the camera shots.