Triple crown

In August I had the most miles ridden for any month this year to date. The annual goal looks out of reach but just very vaguely on the edge of if it doesn't snow until Thanksgiving maybe.

But it is still August and that means the Fair. Here is the triple crown of even though this piece of curb is only about two blocks from the main gate you cannot, absolutely cannot park here.I rode even a tiny bit closer and got a photo from a block away of that aforementioned main gate. That is the closest I have been so far this Fair season.The bicycling lesson so far for August is that you cannot expect to hang a bicycle, even a really nice bicycle, in the basement rafters for nearly seven years and then expect to just put it back on the street without the intervention of cash.

So, today Scott finished with installation of all new cables and housing (which along the way requires unwrapping the bar tape which means all new bar tape in the bargain). The shifting is way, like WAY better, but I still have an occasional chain skip under pedal pressure in the 39x17. The 39x17 is one of my two or three main riding gears so a skip there is just not acceptable. I have installed new chains lots of times and new cogs several times. It is axiomatic in the bicycle culture that when you install a new chain you may well have to install new cogs because you may get a chain skip if you do not. I have traipsed around the edges of this bicycle truth without ever getting burned before. Well, welcome to the mainstream for Gino. As I told Scott, I don't think I need a whole new cassette because some of those cogs just don't have very much wear on them. But I do need a new 17 cog. Scott says it should be here by Friday.

All things considered, the cost of putting this bicycle back on the road is still less than the cost of putting the Wireless junior high bicycle back on the road earlier this year. But then again, that Wireless bicycle was hanging from the rafters for a lot longer than the Crown Jewel.

I had a nice ride today considering that I had to use the 39x18 in many of the situations where I normally for the past 10 years or so have used the 39x17.

Independent Fabrication Crown Jewel Special Edition custom build

From one of the elite custom steel frame builders a custom build for Mavic. This bicycle was constructed for use on the Mavic neutral race support team serving professional bicycling in the United States in the year 2002. There were five bicycles built by IF for Mavic, one for each of the sizes 52, 54, 56, 58 and 60 cm top tube. These bicycles rode on the back of the Mavic yellow race support car at all of the events of that year's US races. Mavic sold the bicycles in various venues after the end of the season. I got the 56 on eBay. The last person to ride this bicycle before I became the owner was almost certainly a professional race rider.

This is an absolute one of a kind bicycle, a jewel of a Crown Jewel. It is light as a feather and a joy to ride and behold.I acquired the bicycle at the end of 2002 and rode it in 2003 and 2004. It has been hanging in my basement for the past seven years but today it came out to play. Here is what an absolutely clean drive train looks like after hanging in the basement for seven years.Record crank, Record front derailer, Chorus rear derailer and shifters, Mavic brakes, Mavic wheels. One really, really sweet ride.

But as I recently discovered when putting the Wireless junior high bicycle back on the road, you cannot really hang a bicycle up for several years and expect no issues. The issues with the Jewel are related to that absolutely pristine drive train.

When I stopped riding that bicycle I installed a new chain. Seven years later with no lubrication the chain has at least one stiff link which produces an only occasional but still quite disconcerting chain skip. I am working on it but I fear I may end up having to replace the chain. If I do it would be a lesson and not a cheap lesson but a lesson. For example, I won't be putting a new chain on newLOOK as it drops out of the daily rotation. That bicycle WILL be back and the new chain can wait until just before that return.

I rode over to a former co-worker's establishment and got a picture of my yellow bicycle with his yellow truck and yellow trailer.I went ahead and put the necessary new tires on newLOOK (that bicycle will be back). It occurs to me that this leaves at least one important maintenance item that NEEDS to be done and which I will probably deal with tomorrow.

It is time to get out the silver polishing cloth and shine up the sterling silver head badge on that really sweet steel bicycle out in my garage.

Pyrrhic milestone

We headed north hoping to do the eight lakes tour. A forbidding sky turned us back before we arrived at Vadnais but we still had a nice ride. GRider got the miles she wanted as did I. For me, the annual mileage goal still seems pretty unlikely but . . .

I ride a lot and milestones are going to come. So today is 2,016 miles this bicycle this year.That's going to do it for that bicycle for this season. For my next ride I will be rolling on one of my other bicycles. A final note for newLOOK for this year is that I have accumulated 2,200 miles on this set of tires. That in itself calls for change of at least the tires.

Wireless was here preparing for her residence change and took the picture. Visible in the picture is my old bicycle, my new car and TsameOPWLH.

FC Nantes lost today.

I love my thumb levers

No one has to research very hard or scratch very deep to discover that I ride Campagnolo. I am not necessarily of the opinion that Campy is superior to the other two component brands because it shifts better or is prettier or is more economical in the long run. To me Campagnolo is the one I like the most. One of the things I like the most is my thumb levers.It is always a little jolt of welcome back to make that first thumb lever shift after having been riding one or another of my Ultegra bicycles.

Here is a look at what my neighbor is looking at as a result of the July street and in his case yard flooding.I have good news on the drinking water front. Steps are being taken to combat the algae bloom on Lake Vadnais, the last reservoir of our water utility. When I rode out there today there was great huffing and puffing with releases of air and lots of exotic carrying ons.I have seen a boat on Lake Vadnais only once or twice in all of my rides out there. Today there were three boats.There were also hoses of some sort or perhaps only marking lines but there was yellow stuff stretching out into the lake dividing the lake into four segments. It was a very unusual day at Lake Vadnais.

Today's top speed, on the hill from Victoria down to Snail Lake, 34mph.

One last one

Here's a photo I took with my phone.In this incarnation she is Guest User of the Chair of Power (GUotCoP). After taking the photo I had to e-mail the photo to myself (something I can do from my phone), open and view in the e-mail program, save to hard drive etc., almost but not quite more work than it was worth.

Beating the rain

We were checking the radar right after lunch. It was evident that it was going to rain but it looked as though there would be probably two hours before the storm system arrived here. We beat it out the door and the GRider and I hightailed it to the Port Sheldon Party Store.We made it back before it rained.

In fact, we made it back about six hours before it rained. Finally this evening at nearly 8pm we are seeing some significant raindrops. This is not to say that there wasn't a weather show visible over the lake during the intervening hours. It is only to say that it hasn't actually rained until now.

It is raining now.

Monday again

And still here.And still really enjoying ourselves.

In Ligue 2 action on Monday night FC Nantes, playing its fourth game of the season, was the last team in the league to score a goal. After losing two games by 2-0 and playing a nil-nil draw FC Nantes erupted for 4 to defeat Guingamp by 4-0. The result squares the FC Nantes goal differential at 0 and vaults the side from dead last in the table all the way up to 13th.

Week ends

Or begins, depending I am pretty sure, on your individual perspective. I have a pocket calendar which displays a week at a time, 7 days. The first day on the new page is Monday, the week ends on Sunday.

We just don't do this as well where I live, the whole trees arching over the roadway to make a tunnel trick.I think it is because we don't have that particular species of tree where I live. I believe the secret is beech.

Here is the Guest Rider at the new public access point on the Pigeon River.The road ends there.

Tonight's sunset.And this, something that I thought I was through with.

Afternoon rain

It rained pretty hard for a relatively short period this afternoon. It wasn't enough to make the day a disaster or anything like that but it did deter bicycling.As is probably apparent from the series of photos the days are low key and tend towards lazy. It feels like vacation.

Coast Guard

That's a Coast Guard patrol passing through the frame returning towards the Coast Guard station in Grand Haven.Here's a Coast Guard joke I learned long, long ago, most likely during the time when I was PFC Miller. It is a joke told by the Navy.

Q. Why is there a requirement that everyone in the Coast Guard be at least 6 feet tall?

A. If the boat sinks they will be able to wade to shore.

Another spectacular day in Western Michigan.

Parallels

Another one of those parallel universe things, this one photographed at the PSPS:Or as the Guest Rider would say, PPSS.

Here's one of the neighbors:I think it means lake oaks.

This one looks quite a bit like Tuesday.

Tuesday

Holland plage

Autumn leaves?

It was a spectacular day, I was JRA.Not to panic just yet despite appearances. I have noticed that tree each of the past several years. It has been the first to turn each of those years. I speculated that the tree was in distress. This year it looks even more like distress to me. That tree is, like, not healthy.

Motivational bicycling

Or perhaps more correctly motivated bicycling.

It rained pretty hard overnight and was still raining when I got up this morning. I almost went directly to the bicycling log to enter "no ride - rain". I didn't but only because breakfast seemed more important than updating the log when there would be plenty of time to do that later. There was only going to be one opportunity to start the day, actually START the day with breakfast.

But by 11am it was sunny and getting dry, the temperature was rising to what would be a nice day in September. I checked the various weather sources and decided that we could ride after all.

The most troubling of the weather sources said that despite a clear radar picture that showers could still form during the afternoon even while making such showers a low probability.

We headed out toward the eight lakes. I knew GRider hadn't been out there for a while (she demands LAKES on most rides) and I knew she probably wouldn't have another chance to go there for nearly two weeks after today. I knew where the storms would form if they did form so I kept my head up scanning the sky as we proceeded to the north.

At the turn back point, the point at which we would become too far from home to make it back without getting really uncomfortably wet if it did rain, the sun was out. We rode on.

We made it to the lake but even as we stopped I cautioned that we should not stay long as neither of us liked the looks of what was happening in the sky. As you can see from the photo, the patch of blue is very small, the sun is obscured by the clouds (the picture is grey) and we are too far from home.As we started to ride for home the GRider announced that she had felt a rain drop. I checked a couple of puddles in the road and saw a few drops hit those bodies of water and then eventually felt a single drop myself. GRider pronounces that she felt 6 or 8 drops.

Regular readers will know that I am highly, highly motivated by rain. At Lake Vadnais we are at least eight and a half miles from home on the absolute most direct route. The other issue with most direct route is that it is far, far from flat. But with raindrops around us it seemed important to get at least several of those miles behind us before the deluge arrived.

We rode pretty hard, particularly for persons of our age group. We were rewarded when the clouds broke and the sun reappeared even if the reward came only after we were within a mile of home.

We rode hard but there is an aftermath of hard physical exertion that always makes it all worth while. As long as what you have done is only hard and not actually outside of your capabilities at least I always find that once having completed the task that an exhilaration quickly appears.

It was a good ride and later on it did actually rain cats and dogs for about 15 minutes. We were inside the house to watch the rain out the windows.

I love my bicycle.

Parallel universe

It wasn't a pretty day today. During the time I was riding the sun made three brief appearances, at 7 miles, again at 9.5 miles and finally at 19 miles. Late afternoon is rallying pretty well though with the sun now out. Overall grade: B, I guess. It is warm enough and not humid. A pretty nice day.

But the sort of day that leads to just riding around thinking about not much of anything at all. You have to be careful on days like this because you just never know when you are going to catch a glimpse of what your life would be in a parallel universe.I think Gene was trimming an ash tree in the front yard but possibly he was involved in preemptive ash removal. There is a lot of that going on around here lately.

I dunno, losing our ash trees, if it is to be, will be pretty traumatic. But personally I am going to go ahead and ride it out with these trees, they have been good to us here, providing lots of valuable and enjoyable shade. If the bugs get them, well, so be it. But the chain saws don't come until the bugs are here.

New pavement

The closing of the Fairgrounds and some road repair unpleasantness near Como and Hamline Avenues have encouraged me to start my rides in a manner completely unlike the route I have used with great regularity over the past several years. I cannot ride through the Fair and I do not want to ride through the tar on the road over by Como Park. I hate those pebbles stuck to my tires which are the inevitable aftermath of riding near road repair.

Instead we headed straight south through the farm campus. This cuts a couple of miles off the familiar distances. With a strong south wind I intended to ride to Minneapolis. I was a bit surprised by how close some of that stuff is when the direct route is taken.

We ended up circumnavigating Lake Calhoun.I have been to Lake Calhoun before but it was a revelation to find that a circumnavigation of Lake Calhoun is about the same distance as the eight lakes tour. We could do that all of the time if we wanted to.

Here is the GRider at our pause, at the Upton Avenue beach on the south side of Lake Calhoun.The entire east side, south side and most of the west side of Calhoun is pavement never previously ridden upon.

It was a beautiful day, a nice day for a ride, a nice day to be outside.

Algae alert

I rode the full eight lakes tour today for the first time in over a month. I don't recall this wind storm but then again I wasn't here.The felling of that tree has left a quite large gap in the shoreline cover at Sucker Lake.

Over at Vadnais it was very pretty today.Those of us who drink Saint Paul city water should be forewarned by that patch of green out there on the lake surface in the background. That sort of algae bloom in the city reservoir often leads to a month of fairly foul tasting water.

Best available tower

Eiffel it is not.

The weather guy this morning said we would be getting our first shot of autumnal air. "Haha!" says I. As if autumn comes in the first part of August.

Cool, barely 70 when I headed out, overcast, northwest winds at 20-30 mph. The air had that unmistakable feeling of fall.

I rode down a patch of pavement that I had not previously ridden on. It is downhill from a place I have been a lot but it was downhill into the wind and I was confident that the wind was strong enough that uphill would not be a chore. At the end of what turned out to be a dead end I found today's best available tower.The uphill was as expected a piece of cake with a 20-30 mph helper.

Pretty grey looking, eh? As grey as it looks it never felt even the tiniest bit like rain. It just felt like fall.

40 percent chance

Here is what a 40 percent chance of precipitation means to me:

There is about a 100 percent chance that I am going to try to ride. Unless of course the 40 percent has achieved 100 percent chance by producing actual rain at the time when I usually want to start a ride.

There is about a 60 percent chance that I am going to ride loops which keep me from ever getting more than about a half hour's ride from home. What this meant today was a loop to the east (Lauderdale to the Minneapolis city limits), a loop to the south (over to Como and around Langford Park), a loop to the west (Wheelock Parkway over to the point where it descends the hill to Rice), and a loop to the north (Roseville library). In the end it didn't rain at all.

It is nice out right now but it was mostly cloudy (see above 40 percent chance reference) while I was riding. The sun came out briefly and I circled back a half block for this picture. The sun went away again as I lined up the shot.

There are some more of those cardinal flowers in there but what really attracted my attention was those purple things.My sleep pattern continues its progression back to normal. In the meantime the bicycling seems way, way harder than it should be. An out of time sync body is no ally in a plan of vigorous daily exercise.

Routine begins to be routine

I promised that I would have some additional commentary and some additional pictures after I got home. Well, if I can just somehow figure out a way to carve five or so minutes out of my suddenly full days I will be able to copy all those photos from the travel computer over to the desktop and be able to act upon that threat.

For now I seem to have full days.

GRider at Lake Emily where we stopped today.A couple of days ago it was find GRider in the corn, today's task is find Lake Emily in the trees.

The wind was a bit fresh and today ended up being pretty hard. The wind wasn't strong enough to make the ride hard for routine August fitness. Routine August fitness is still several rides away.

A fair warning

The grounds are buzzing with activity as Fair time approaches and I have been given a fair warning to stay away.I believe that I am interpreting the sign correctly when I conclude that they definitely mean me.

It is also, of course, a Fair warning.

That new building on machinery hill that I thought was going to be a Ford display room turns out to be something completely different.Walking fitness is good, bicycle fitness is a little lacking but coming back quickly. I remain a bit jet lagged as I still want to go to sleep and wake up at hours inappropriate to my current time zone. But like the bicycle fitness, my time zone orientation seems to be on its way back to what it should be.

FC Nantes has opened its home season with a loss, FC Nantes 0:2 SC Bastia.

After last Friday FC Nantes was 20th in the table but yielded that spot on Saturday to the apparently even more pathetic RC Lens. This week RC Lens has lost again but have scored a goal and lost by only 2-1. On goal differential RC Lens rises to 19th in the table, FC Nantes reassumes the basement.

Pathetic. Disturbing.

Translation

Lunch.

Bicycle (with GRider).Cardinal flowers.Full day.

Trente-deux ans

Déjeuner.

Vélo.Journée complète.

It was raining this morning in Paris

Big iron tower, big metal sculpture, big stone church

We finally went over and stood underneath the big iron tower. This year we had no intention of going up the tower. I have been here twice when I intended to go up the tower and did. The weather was pretty dicey both times, overcast and extremely windy. Obviously today was sunny and clear.The thing about the big iron tower is that even though it is extremely familiar to all of us, a thing whose image we have all seen at least hundreds of times in still photography and movies, the thing is that even though you have seen it probably thousands of times, let me assure you that you just cannot comprehend the scale of that thing until you stand underneath it, inside the perimeter of the four corner towers.

I keep trying but pictures absolutely do not do it justice.A few puny humans for scale against just one of the four corner towers.It was a shortish walk from there to the Rodin Museum.

There were no really pedantic persons around when we viewed this sculpture.Of course, Carla Bruni was also not present.

Here is the pool at the end of the garden with another one of those big old stone churches in the background.Open circuit to Wireless: This looks for all the world like two gas pumps just parked on the side of the street with no gas station anywhere around. Comments?I haven't really shown this view before. We are here every day and don't have to go out to the square in front of the big stone church when all of the other tourists are here so we don't. But today I was out there at pretty much peak attendance and got what I think is a fairly representative photo of the daily mob scene, including a tourist bus turning the street corner at the corner of the church.One last look on a sunny day at our neighbor for the past two weeks, the big stone church.And sunset in Paris.