183rd ride fulfills Code requirement

It is my belief that the End of Season Addendum to the Loony Bicyclist Code requires that every loony cyclist make a vain attempt to hold on to the season as it begins inexorably to slip away by riding at least one time in really sub-marginal conditions. Today I fulfilled the requirement.

After a morning filled with frequent checks of my favorite radar weather site and frequent trips to the front window to check whether or not the driveway and cul-de-sac seemed dry, I finally convinced myself that there was a window of a couple of hours when it wasn't going to rain and that the pavement was actually sort of mostly dry. Off I went.

It was cold. I rode through the Fairgrounds at one point and the always optimistic west end of the Grandstand reported 41. Both Mikey J and the weather bug on my blog report 38 which seems to me to be probably more accurate. It was also dark, the forecast for today is rain turning to snow. Anyone looking at the sky would agree with that assessment. Only an obsessed bicyclist studying the radar weather would reach any other conclusion.

So how was it? As I have said with some regularity, it isn't cold that keeps me from riding. I have the gear. What ends the season for me is when pavement conditions become unrideable. Today was only cold. I have the gear. Admittedly today I rolled out nearly every last item of gear, the only exception being I have winter shoes which I did not wear today. The winter shoes have Speedplay Frog cleats, the LOOK features Speedplay X-series pedals. To wear the winter shoes I need to either change the pedals or change to one of the bicycles with Frog pedals. So no winter shoes but every last other single item went on my body today. I was warm, I was dry, I was completely comfortable.

Hamline Avenue is the sturdy backbone of most of my riding. Both of my more or less regular rides, the north route and the south route, feature Hamline Avenue in an important role. It is how, in both directions, I get away from my house to interesting places to ride. Today I rode to both ends of the portion of Hamline Avenue that I ride. Hamline has another incarnation within the city of Saint Paul but the portion that runs through Roseville ends on the north at an intersection with Highway 51 in Shoreview. On the south leg Hamline leads me through Falcon Heights towards a dead end near MacMurray Field in Saint Paul. I got this picture from very near the south end. When I first became aware of this building it was a part of the Como shops and roundhouse complex of the Great Northern Railroad.It is called something else now but I am going to go ahead and let this beautiful old pile of bricks retain its dignity and just say it used to be the Como shops.

I also need to point out that this picture was taken at pretty much the nicest weather moment in the entire ride. I was about 20 miles in, congratulating myself on being out there, on being right about the weather. My riding costume in this weather features not a single square centimeter of bare flesh, I am totally covered. My usual first impression of rain is something hitting me, either in the hand or face. With no bare skin available for that water skin collision, I was able to convince myself shortly after taking the photo that even though the pavement kind of looked like it had started to rain, it really wasn't raining. Finally the round wet spots on my jacket sleeve convinced me that I should sprint for home.

But I rode and completed the full mileage. In so doing I achieved the for me huge riding milestone that I really, really didn't want to let get away. Today I rode for the 183rd time this year. When the final leaf falls off this year's calendar I will have ridden on more than one-half of the days of this year. I am cyclist, hear me roar. I admit there is one more milestone out there that I really want but today's milestone is the one I wanted the most.

It is raining now, acting quite a bit like sleet.