Unfinished business

Sunday is the big Saint Paul Classic Bike Tour. The ride always is held on the Sunday after Labor Day. The organizers advertise this as the largest one day bicycle group ride in the state, and I suspect they are correct. I mean, why say it if it isn't correct?

We have ridden this thing a few times in the past but as all my close associates know, since a rider was killed on TRAM 2005 I pretty much avoid riding with people I don't know. Too dangerous.

Still, I recall a few things about the SPCBT, particularly that it often marked the first ride of the year that was clearly fall, clearly not summer. The streets for the ride are closed in the morning but only until 1:15pm. That means you need an early start. But you always need an early start on those big crowd rides unless you want to ride the entire thing with the M family. It is bad enough at 7:30am when the ride officially begins but the late arrivals make the route after about 9am officially perilous.

I digress.

I recall that most years that ride to the start at Saint Thomas would have to be made at the time of day when the low temperature for the day usually occurs. That generally meant the first appearance of the year for base layer, arm warmers, helmet liner, full finger gloves and perhaps even leg covering. Pretty much full October dress is required at 7am on the Sunday after Labor Day.

Instead this year the first fall ride occurred today.

Two things about that, yes, the Fairgrounds has officially reopened. And take a look at the sky. At noon sun time it was 65 with a leaden sky and a stiff breeze from the northwest. It was chilly. I held off on the leg covering and the full finger gloves but all of the rest of the above described fall costume changes were initiated today.

We started out to ride north but at about the 8 mile mark we each felt a couple of drops and we turned and fled for home. It was mostly cloudy but it never actually rained while we were out there. We made it back to the Snelling Avenue crossing to discover that the sun was out.

You cannot quit when the sun is out so we ducked over to take in a Fairgrounds loop. That's where the Cattle Barn picture came from. It is also where the final confirmation of the new Home Depot on the grounds occurred.

You can see a small patch of the blue that kept peeking out. There was, in fact, lots and lots of blue sky time but there was also those also visible looming greys. But we both got the miles we wanted and we didn't get rained on.

All things considered and now that we are dry at home it is pretty hard to find anything not to like about the ride. Any day you can ride your bicycle is a good day.