6 + 10 with hail in the middle

I have been dancing with rain gods the last couple of days.  For example, yesterday was 80 percent chance of rain but I caught a doughnut hole in the middle and got in a full ride completely dry.  I admit that most of the miles were pretty close to home (although I was about 6 miles out at one point) and that the 80 percent proved accurate as it rained like heck after I made it home.  But I danced with the rain and didn't get wet.

So today it was only a 30 percent making me feel tres confidante.  Someone check my French.  It was sunny and nice when I started out but before I really cleared the neighborhood I felt a drop or two.  I veered back towards home and ended up sprinting the last two and half blocks to make it home (with 6 miles) in time to be able to initiate the production of this fine short feature film while still standing in the garage in my bicycle clothes.

The video pretty much speaks for itself.  I recommend keeping an eye on the driveway as it very clearly (and rapidly) reaches a state that I personally describe as "wet".

She doesn't seem to notice.

Some may not recognize the technical achievement there but this is a crowning moment in my video with a cheap pocket camera while riding a bicycle career.

I opened the video in Windows Live Movie Maker and made an edit.

How about that?

Eventually the storm produced quite a heavy downpour which included HAIL, small maybe a bit larger than pea sized (marble perhaps?) hail.  I heard her discussing this on the telephone and complaining that her seeds were covered with ICE!  Yikes, indeed.

But by 5pm it was mostly dry and sunny again.  I decided I wanted some more miles.

During that period of my life when I had a job (SOOOOO long ago) I often rode at 5pm or later.  It was now only 5pm.  I decided to give it a shot.

I may be a fool but I am NOT a donkey.  I was still sticking close to home.  I rode a loop that takes me downhill (into the wind) past the country club and through Lauderdale.  This leads me back over to Larpenteur for an uphill (but with a strong tail wind) that I usually actually quite enjoy (especially with a strong tail wind).  The white fog line on the street leaves a nice wide shoulder and once I get up even with the farm campus the shoulder actually turns into a designated bike lane.

The problem arose when I got near Snelling.  My practice at that spot is to check for a break in the traffic and turn left up towards the Fry Garden neighborhood.  However, at around 5:30pm there are NO breaks in the traffic on Larpenteur.

I turned right into the Fairgrounds.  I sometimes exit the Fairgrounds from the gate but I very, very rarely enter from there.

Look what I found.

That's the back entrance to the Grandstand area behind that amazing looking construction down at the intersection.  There are lights arranged along the side of the road and there are also speakers which when I was riding through were playing some sort of possibly new age rock.  Very mysterious.

And over on Machinery Hill there is this.

No idea.  I suppose the Fairgrounds website may have some information but what with editing the video and all I won't be checking that until later.

Shortly after riding under several (but not all) of those arches I again felt a drop or two and had to sprint for home (AGAIN), this time from a little farther out.  It was weird, I got home almost dry as a pelting rain began again, all of this from clouds which were overhead but at that late hour were not blocking the descending sun.

Rainstorm in full sun.

After I got home this guy was hanging around.  He and his mate for life female partner live in one or another of the neighbors' yards.  This photo is the first time I have gotten a camera and a cardinal together in the same moment of time and doesn't have the lighting that I would like.

But they live here, it is only a matter of time before I get one in full sun.  Stay tuned.

10 more miles, enough for today.

Very hard

I am not sure what Bing said but the sources I use said 61.  I mean 61, you gotta ride in 61, right.  The sources I use also said SSE at 20 mph gusting to 25.

Riding in the cold and wind is extremely hard.  I tried south first, the wind was flapping the sleeves on my jacket.

Yes, I wore a jacket on May 25.  I took it off after a while but not before I came upon this:

Cold and windy, very hard.

I often have a little burst of energy as I near home, the horse catching a scent of the hay in the barn syndrome.  This is less than two blocks from home, a corner where I often go right at a fairly high rate of speed.

That cone really isn't doing an adequate job.  That things about two inches deep, not really a problem for a car but I nearly soiled myself.  Actually there was a car there coming from the right and turning at the intersection.  The car left just barely room for me to get slowed down and complete my turn between the far end of the trench and the driver's side door of a green sedan.

Another reminder to be careful out there.

Curse? There is NO curse.

The saga of computer replacement for TOPWLH has reached new levels of insanity.  The first one was a major POS, I took it back and claimed that it was all her idea.  This is OK in this instance because she uses the same strategy ALL the time for returns, i.e. it was my husband.

The second new computer worked for a few days and then turned itself off.  When turned back on it declined to participate, turning itself back off.  Then it launched itself into a bizarre sequence of turning itself on and off while sitting on the desk with NO ONE TOUCHING IT.  Not acceptable, clearly, and that one went back too.

No huge problems with number 3 yet (except for that pesky and totally non-intuitive Windows 8).  But with the most recent download of Firefox the primary user has acquired a Bing weather bug on her Yahoo start page.  I know about Bing, of course, it now does my searches.  I have, however, until now avoided any overt manifestation of the Bing or the Bing tool bar or any of the other things Bing.  She loves the Bing and reported earlier today that Bing predicts a return of 2M*R beginning at 6pm this evening and lasting for another four days.

*sigh*

It was OK when I set out if a trifle chilled for this late in May but by the time I returned they were socking it in, clouds feeling like rain.

*sigh*

I rode down towards the southeast and discovered that the road construction behind the Capitol is complete.  Traffic is passing in all four directions.  I got this view of what the newspapers have begun to refer to as "the crumbling Capitol building" from near the new light rail station.

It's old, it's made of marble (not the most durable of stones), it gets heavy use, it needs some major repairs.  Crumbling state Capitol building.

I was headed over towards Summit Avenue but paused for the traditional front view including hero of labor Floyd B. Olson.

It can be tricky trying to line up a shot on an LCD screen in bright sunlight.  I got Floyd just fine but missed a bit of the spire at the top of the dome.

*sigh*

I am doing the best I can.

So, the heir apparent called us up this morning and threatened a major usurpation of the lead role in picking the race.  Isn't the heir apparent a vassal who should still be at least mildly subservient to the lord of the realm?  That's the way it works on Game of Thrones anyway.  My problem is probably that I DO NOT HAVE DRAGONS.

Just when I was getting ready to sell naming rights.

I invented this thing, I have promoted it, I have participated, I have even won.

So here goes:  First I must address the matter of the curse.  There is NO curse.  Rex Mays for example, started the race 12 times including 4 times from the pole and led 9 of the 12 races.  Number of wins?  Zero.  Nada.  Zilch.  Has anyone ever heard a whisper about a Mays family curse?

I thought not.

These Andrettis have at least won the thing.

And my prediction is that they will again.

With the first selection in the Gino's Diet Mountain Dew Indy 500 winner pool, Gino selects Marco Andretti.

I nominate the usurper to go second (sorry Santini but I have to throw her some bone or she will take over the whole deal), Santini third, GRider four, Jimi five.

Anyone else who wants to participate will have to jump in after Jimi.  I will leave a decent interval after he picks before I initiate the second round.

Also all should please be advised that as the blogger of this blog I have the power to delete comments.  It is a power of staggering importance but one which I much prefer to not have to use.

Everyone behave themselves.

Where were we?

Around noon sun time today I found myself dressing in completely different clothing than I have been wearing for the past week.  I asked TOPWLH why it was I dress in this costume.  She said something about a "bike?"  I was puzzled to be sure but apparently once you have learned you never forget how to ride a "bike".

And it felt great.  I love my bike.

Six days of rain.  TOPWLH coined a new acronym to describe it:  2M*R.  But just look at the blue sky.

Lots of us have been there, the four crab apple trees at the top of the hill in Shoreview.

A definite outcome of the truncated spring is a truncated flowering shrub season.  But six days of rain, everything is green but the trees are already nearing the end of the cycle.  This is another one of my favorite spots, the pink, white, pink sequence, also in Shoreview.

I rode past my favorite tulip yard out there, one that has a nice selection of orange tulips.  Too late, mostly stems.  Lots of the really colorful, fun things about riding in May have been completely missed this year.

*sigh*

Today the wind was mostly east with a little north, making the ride to the north a ride with mostly a cross wind, not too punitive.

About the time I turned back the wind shifted slightly becoming much more from the north.  The north wind was a tiny bit chilly, it was not warm out there today, but when you put the wind behind you mostly what you feel is pretty strong.

The blues and the greens at Vadnais seemed particularly vibrant to me today.

I have fallen into a pattern of checking my average speed at the quartile mileages of the expected ride.  Today the first quarter WAS slow but each succeeding quarter featured an increase in the average.

I got stronger as I went along (and I got the advantage of a favorable wind change).  I felt strong, I felt good, I love my bike.

Glacial river valley

May continues on its somewhat erratic way.  Today was quite nice but there is a front moving in which some predictions say will produce rain for the next five or six days totaling perhaps as much as six inches.  If the predictions are correct that's going to be a week of mostly pretty hard rain.

I might be off the bike for a week again so I wanted to try something new today.  We had nearly 80 and an east southeast wind when I started out.

A southeast wind often produces a ride down to the Capitol but today I didn't feel like that big pull on Como between Dale and Rice to get up the quite high overpass over the railroad tracks.  I was kinda just riding around and finally settled on a destination goal of the Arlington Avenue entrance to the Gateway Trail.  I haven't been on the Gateway for at least a couple of years.

The problem with going over there is that to get from my house to the east side one must cross one of the major local iterations of a prehistoric glacial river.  Crossing that wide and deep valley requires riding up nasty hills both on the way out and on the way back.  I some times don't feel like doing that.  As noted, I hadn't been there for a couple of years at least.

One of the geologists who worked there for a while (not the Geology Guy) once told me that the valley was an iteration of glacial River Warren, the outflow channel from glacial Lake Agassiz, but I am not so sure any more.  It is clearly a major outwash bed but being as it is east of the Mississippi it seems more likely to me to be an outflow channel from glacial Lake Duluth or perhaps Lake Grantsburg.

More geology there than most of you care about.

I got across on the ride out but after arriving at the entrance to the Gateway I still had plenty more miles to ride so I rode down the mile and a half or so to the western terminus of the state trail.

The last time I was there there were people living in those woods.  Since then there is a major construction project widening the freeway (on the right of the photo).  Also, a new street has been punched in off to the left of the trail resulting in some new warehouse type structures and a fence.  This has significantly reduced the available liveable acreage in those woods and it appears that everyone has moved out.

I also came upon this.  I remember the construction project but didn't realize they were doing this new underpass.

Fairly obviously there is some future plan for rerouting of the state trail over there.

More particularly, careful examination will discover a profile of an individual sitting on the ground on the left near the far end of the tunnel.

They may have made the woods unlivable but they haven't driven all of the old residents out of the neighborhood.

I headed further east, and eventually rode all the way out to milepost 5.  I made a detour out to Lake Phalen.  Here is a LOOK at the north end of that lake.

Turnaround came at the Ramsey County satellite courthouse in Maplewood.

I rode all the way to the top of the bridge crossing White Bear Avenue to get that photo even though I probably didn't have to.  The thing about hills though is that once you start up it just seems like riding to the top is the best thing to do.

I used Wheelock Parkway on the way back and had to climb back out of the valley on that hill.  It is unpleasant, gradual at the bottom but stiff enough to get me to shift down a couple of times, then quite steep through the middle (although not long) which always tricks me into using up too much of my energy.  At the top of the steep part there is a false summit, it flattens out considerably but then continues a still unpleasant uphill bit for another block or so.  I don't ride it often enough to have muscle memory of how to climb it but I have ridden it often enough to know that no hike a bike will be necessary.

It was a good day to be out.  What day isn't a good day to be out?

Call the rewrite desk

That's what I am imagining as a line from an old time newspaper movie.  You know, right after Perry White or somebody decides they have to tear out the headline and remake the whole front page to go in a new direction based on last minute developments.

I had to do that today.

It might be fairly obvious or maybe not but what I am doing out there is riding around making up lead sentences and paragraphs, writing a little story in my head.  I take some photos (art they call it in Lucas Davenport novels) and integrate the little story with my visuals, and here it is.

As the TCWUTH once said, "But Dad, that's totally bloggable".

Here's the one I HAD going.

After yesterday's record breaking heat today we were promised something more seasonable, sunny and upper 70s.  There was a front passing through just on the south edge of the metro area which must have ended up a tiny bit more north than expected because we had off and on mostly on cloud cover for most of the morning.

But at noon the radar indicated clearing, the clouds scuttled off the the south, temperatures started to rise.  It was 70 with light NW winds when I headed out.

I rode through Grass Lake today for the first time this season.  Grass is a very shallow lake, some years it is mostly grass, some years it is a lake.

At least at this point it looks like it is going to be a lake year.

It was sunny and nice (did I mention light winds) and I was thinking along the lines of OOTNDITHOD.  Except that with the substandard morning I was thinking of creating a new category, a sub-category if you will.

One of the nicest afternoons in the history of afternoons.

But wait, hold that headline.  The front that spoiled the morning wasn't through just yet.  Just before I reached the half way mark the moving away air mass produced a behind the weather change wind change.  The wind abruptly came around to be from the southeast.

Too late to do anything about that except accept fate and push back into the wind towards home.  I rode through Lake Vadnais again today.  No merganser today but there is a loon out there on the water.

There is a secondary item of interest too which I am comfortable most would not have noticed.  This spot is quite near one of the new fishing platforms.  In support of the idea that these areas are appropriately placed a careful examination will spot a bobber in the branches of that tree.

I didn't see the merganser family today but there was profusion of red winged blackbirds.  I don't know if they just arrived or what, but today they were all over the place, colorful AND loud.

The wind from the southeast was not only a head wind, it was blowing quite a bit harder than the earlier very light breeze.

There used to be a school here.

That's near the bike shop and Lake Owasso.  I believe when it was a school it was Owasso School.  Most recently the local cable franchise had been using the building for offices.

There are softball fields behind the school site at which one of the most important games of the Undefeated Rangers was played.  In the next to last game of the season we played the other team which was to that point in the season undefeated.  I recall that Tiffany had a big game (no surprise) and Sarah made an important catch at first base with a throw for a tag play for us at 2nd base (at least some surprise) which defused the other team's (the Angels) strategy which was to run, never stop running until you score or are out, the idea being that most of the teams in that league couldn't hold a decent game of throw and catch, if you keep running what happens most often is that you score.

We were capable of playing throw and catch, we spent a lot of time on that at each and every practice.  We clobbered 'um.

The game was also very notable for the deployment by fans of the other team of a sign proclaiming "Go Angles".  That's the part everyone else remembers.  I remember details of the play by play.

Even on the northern ride I detour a bit to the south of the direct route home to line up the easiest crossing of the major traffic carrier, Snelling Avenue.  I had reached that southern turn back point when I noticed that the wind had shifted yet again, now being northeast, the exact directions I had to ride to cross Snelling and get home.

Every single mile into a head wind.

Call the rewrite desk, clearly this was NOT OOTNA . . .

Here's an intersection about a bit under 2 miles from home.

I ride there a fair bit but hadn't really started to contemplate the significance of those signs until recently.  Note that there are three signs, no parking during the State Fair and Fry and Garden.

So Fry Garden seems like a natural attraction at the Fair, sort of like the Beer Garden or something.  With the vast cornucopia of fried foods available (quite often on a stick, of course) a Fry Garden is a concession which seems to me like it has a chance of making a profit.

Or maybe it is Garden Fry which sounds like a vegetarian stir fry at a Chinese restaurant.

That's all I got for today, or as they might say in an old newspaper movie, that's a wrap.

Heat advisory

I am unsure exactly who is charge of this sort of thing but a heat advisory was declared here today, announced by all of the websites and TV stations.  I suppose it is the National Weather Service, you know the government.  So in the midst of the big Libya cover up and the outrage over IRS investigations it appears that BIG government is still actively overmanaging my existence.

It's OK.  I have reached the stage of life where I fully understand that when they say "heat advisory" they mean ME.  And, in fact, it doesn't really even sting very much any more.  Heat advisory?  OK, I better make sure about this whole bicycling thing before I set off.

The last time I checked the web before setting off at shortly past noon the temperature was still a few degrees below what they had sketched out as possible at  that stage of the day.  We had a semi-threatening front pass through during the late morning and some high cumulus clouds were still hanging around.  It was still only in the 70s.  Notice how quickly I adopt "only" to describe the 70s.

I note at least one website is currently saying 96 which would be an all time record so it IS HOT.  It wasn't too bad while I was out, 89 when I arrived home.  The humidity was under control, the heat index was plenty OK.  Some 89s are worse than others, today's 89 was not that bad.

I experienced for the first time in, oh, about 8 or 9 months that quintessential bicycling while hot experience of riding along completely dry and immediately upon stopping blooming into a full sweat.  The miracle of evaporative cooling.

One of the inevitable occurrences of any large temperature change is turbulence in the atmosphere, also often described as "wind".  It was windy.  From the south mostly, promised to be south and west but when I got out there actually south and east.

South was unavoidable.

That means deadman's curve.  Here's another look at why I call it deadman's curve:

The double curve beneath a double overpass is a classically really bad road design, tres dangerous.  To further the danger most cars do what cars always do, they don't stay within the painted lanes, they just go ahead and drive the shortest distance, right down the middle.  From both sides.  Sometimes at the same time.  With bicycles present.

Deadman's curve.

I have said there is no real alternative but actually there is one.  The University transit way also crosses the tracks in question.  The problem should be immediately apparent.

Deadman's curve goes under, the transitway goes over.  Under is easier.  I went ahead and used the curve on the outbound leg.

But I have over 300 miles on my legs this season and I decided I could do the over on the return.  The only problem was that the web promised south and west, I actually found south and east.  That meant that when I was riding up the longish (but not terribly steep) overpass I was riding uphill and INTO THE WIND.

Who doesn't hate that?

I rode all the way over to Minneapolis.  Here's a look at the actual location of Bridal Veil Falls taken from the Franklin Avenue bridge.

I never noticed that path down there before.  I wonder if bicycles ever use it.

I rode as far as the Sabo bridge on the Greenway.  The bridge is fixed but there is major road construction going on at the street where the Greenway crosses right after the bridge.  I thought it over for a bit and decided to take the hint and turn back.

Into the wind.

*sigh*

I rode through a major swarm of what at first I was going to describe as gnats, always an interesting early season blip.  After careful consideration I am going to change my mind though, I think they were mayflies.

Why wouldn't they be?

I went to the grocery store after getting home, the Cub store at HarMar.  They have a large back parking lot over there much larger than what is required for the Cub store.  During the winter they plow all of their snow up into a big pile back there and apparently also accept some hauled in snow from places with inadequate storage space.

Just business.

If it was a video game I think you would say that the melt this spring has revealed an easter egg from the winter haul in.

Big rock, very big rock.

The show at the bridge

I am pretty sure that there will be others who will find this photo to be as interesting as I do. I found it at Paris Daily Photo.

I defer with great respect to the PDP photographer.  I have been there, I have seen that, I have wanted to get a photograph.  I am not worthy.  This is a great photograph.

He says in the post:

"Not far from Notre Dame Cathedral, on the Ile de la Cité, there is a little bridge that is used by roller skaters to train."

He does not mention that the in training roller skaters gladly collect "donations" from the crowd that gathers every evening to watch the "training".

Just business in the City of Lights.

I have been there, I have seen that.

Moms not fishing

Fishing opener was yesterday, Mothers Day today.  This is a classic Minnesota culture clash.  I went looking for the fishing.

It was pretty dang chilly, I had to revive most of the early winter/late fall costume including tights and jacket but with the sun out it ended up being a pretty nice day for a ride.  North into the cold wind was enough to give me a headache but that is only half the ride, south on the way home ended up being a little towards the warm side of comfortable, but plenty nice indeed.

I rode through the northern lakes from north to south, as is the usual procedure.

Quite a bit to my surprise this was the only actual fishing guy I saw.  He was casting an unbaited big plug, kind of a muskie looking plug but given that there is no history of muskie in this lake I suppose he was thinking bigger northern.

Most likely he was enjoying an afternoon out in the sun and some casting practice.  For sure he wasn't going to catch anything.

Down at Vadnais I reconsidered my recent success at hoodwinking the mallards and decided to find out if I could pull the same trick on the merganser.  I hid behind this tree.

The black dots swimming away that you may be able to spot with an enlargement are the merganser family.

Wildlife he not as stupid as mallard.  He very shy.  Ducky swim away.

According to Wikipedia, the preferred habitat for breeding for hooded mergansers is in swamps and wooded ponds of the northern half of the United States and southern Canada. They prefer to nest in tree cavities near water.

So swamps and wooded pond and tree cavities near water seems unlikely in an intensely urban park like Como.  There are plenty of swamps and wooded ponds and tree cavities near water at Lake Vadnais.

At the bottom of the lake I discovered probably a significant contributing factor for why there was no fishing on the lake.  The southern area of the lake is where most fishing occurred in years past.  The access road to the new southern parking area is still not officially opened.

The gate on the path over to the right of this gate IS OPEN.  And it is easily within the realm of possibility to ride around that gate on the flattish area seen to the left of the gate on this photo.  Automobile traffic is still not happening, lots of folks on bicycles are visiting the new path.

Lots of exciting computer stuff going on here as well.  A five or six year old eMachine stopped recognizing important hardware and has been replaced (don't ask, way more hassle than necessary, but done now) with a new built in wireless, 6g of ram, 500g hard drive, AMD processor, way more machine than we need but pretty cheap all things considered upstairs computer.  That's the one for which TOPWLH is the primary user.  I probably have a full day tomorrow doing the tech support tweaks to get her back to her happy zone.

Green head not as shy

Plus maybe not as smart.  I rode down the shore a ways and got ahead of him and then hid behind a tree.  He swam right down in front of me.

He still some shy, though.  He see me and swim away.

I turned the other direction here's another look at the end of the peninsula where the new parking lot and fishing platform have altered the topography.

It's pretty out there even still without much green.  The wildlife is mostly all there now, though.  Today in addition to the mallard, I spotted the merganser, a loon, a couple of cormorants and both the white and the blue heron.

Fishing opener tomorrow, probably not a good day to try to ride to Vadnais.

Rained today

Spent a little time looking through old files.  I don't think any of these have been posted before.

My notes in the file say 1997, obviously at the Bay House in Michigan.  I think Ted was the artist for that painting behind us.

Not sure of the year here but it is Michigan again, in the street behind the beach house.  I see Kelsey too,  I think the two of them were doing ice skating tricks on roller blades.

 I think this is 1995, the year of the world championships in Seattle.  That's out at Rose Beach on the Washington Pacific Ocean coast.

And an undated sunset picture on the deck in Michigan.

The temperature has dropped about 20 degrees F since yesterday but the forecast is for clearing skies with temperatures tomorrow rising back towards 20C.

50 percent chance

I think I dodged one today.  I should have gotten wet.

A 50 percent chance works it to it should be raining about half of the time.  At least that's one way to look at it.  While I was out it actually rained less than 10 percent of the time.  The "geez it feels like it is going to rain" changed to light mist about 3 miles from home.  At first I was going to continue on the route I was riding for another couple of blocks and then head for home on the street I usually ride from over there in that part of Lauderdale.  At the next cross street the mist had intensified into identifiable drops and I cut off and started the sprint on the shortest direct route to my garage.

The problem being that the shortest direct route led down into a significant depression requiring a long uphill to get home (Roselawn past the University golf course in case anyone wants to know or cares).

The good news is that it only heavy misted like that for about a mile and a half and I was still nearly a mile out when the rain stopped.  The streets never got wet, in fact I never even noticed any drops on any surfaces of the bike.  I know it was raining, I could feel it hitting my skin, but it was obviously a light rain which ended quickly.  I turned off the direct to garage homing device and resumed my just riding around..

I've been looking around for these, this is the first spotting for me of the year.

Everyone should have a NiceRide.

I understand from BikeSnobNYC that NYC is trying to get a similar program started but is experiencing strong dissent from certain neighborhoods.  As usual with the Snob, it's a pretty good read if a trifle snobbish.

I tried to ride south but it is hard to get very far in that direction without dead man's curve and besides that even though the rain stopped the "geez it feels like it is going to rain" came flooding back with a vengeance.  I didn't want to get too far from home.  I did get as far south as the Fairgrounds.  That new building is definitely rest rooms.  Check out the plumbing.

Sinks on one side of the room, um, sanitary facilities on the other.  Both sets of devices require drains and it looks to me like a giant load of PVC drain pipe.

And this had to happen this morning because I have been watching for this too and it wasn't there yesterday.  The corn has been planted.

Check back on July 4, with this late start the knee high thing looks as much in jeopardy as any year when I have paid attention.  On the other hand, the drought is over, there MUST be plenty of moisture in that soil.

I had a nice coincidence at the end of today's ride.

I am not afraid of 6's, or 666's, or any of that stuff, so it was just a fun moment.  It started raining, real raining this time, as I was standing there after taking the photo.  I think I dodged one today.

I checked the cumulative log and 6,666 puts NewLOOK third on the list of most miles ridden on any bike.  I failed to notice late last season when LOOK pushed past my Bianchi into third place.  If you add up the total miles ridden on those four bicycles and divide by four you get a nice average of 10,939 miles per bicycle.

That's kinda fun.

I have already used this line a couple of times but I like it so I am going to use it again.  I went to a book signing last evening.  When I got to the front of the line I asked the author if he would mind doing me a special favor by holding the book upside down for the photo opportunity.

The people behind me in line and close enough to catch the exchange were amused and tittered politely.  As you can probably not terribly clearly see (I am still on a learning curve with the camera in the phone), the author complied.

I was visiting his website earlier.  Many may know that before becoming as he puts it "a commercial writer" he was a newspaper reporter and won a Pulitzer Prize for a series published in the Pioneer Press, Life on the Land:  An American Farm Family.  The series is now available for reading at his website.  As is appropriate for something that won a Pulitzer Prize, Life on the Land is powerfully good writing.

Artist's note:  three different cameras were used in the production of this artwork.

Flowers and falls and racing

The wind picked up a bit today.  It was mostly east but the secondary direction was without any possible doubt south.  Despite the road conditions I headed south, down into the big city.

I was over there in that zone of uncertainty where I have definitely left Roseville behind but I am still in some doubt if I am in Falcon Heights or if I have crossed into the big city when I encountered my first sighting of the year of flowering shrubbery.

Actually, I bet that qualifies as a tree.  It is not of the species that has in the past been the first flower sighting but that's no surprise, everyone will agree that this year is not a usual year.

That tree is on Sheldon Street, the tree with all the oak trees on the boulevard.  It is across the street and 3 or 4 doors down from Larrie's mom's house.  It was pretty today over on Sheldon Street.

I got through dead man's curve on the way south by simply waiting for a large break in the car traffic and moving out into the center of the street to dodge the giant pot hole.  This is a strategy which is easily available Tuesday early afternoon.

It was fun being out over there, there are lots of places in that area that I enjoy riding to.  Like the Falls.

Still pretty grey over there but at least there is a decent flow over the edge.  Note that there is still a small amount of ice under the lip.  It has not been a usual spring.

I had some fun riding back.  I crossed the Lake Street bridge and found a nice break in the traffic right behind a motorcycle to get over into the left turn lane for Otis to ride through the country club.  The light cooperated by changing to green as I rode up behind the motorcycle who was second in the turn lane.  It was definitely a motorcycle, not some puny moped.  Not a big motorcycle but a 250cc or 300 or so, somewhere in that intermediate range, a motorcycle.

I was a little stunned when the motorcyclist failed to get the proper gear as he tried to move ahead and he could just barely keep the motorcycle upright on the uphill to make it through the intersection to complete the turn.  I had to slow pedal behind a MOTOR VEHICLE to keep from running him down.

It developed that it may have been more than a gear problem, the motorcycle may have been having mechanical difficulties.  After the country club I take a circuitous route through the neighborhood to approach the uphill leading away from this location.  I prefer to tackle the hill at a location which is a much steeper hill but which is much shorter than the long uphill direct route over towards the north, my destination.  That's just the way I like to do it.

He went the short route, I went the long route, he had a MOTOR, I had me, at the top of the hill he passed across in front of me as I approached the intersection one block from the top of the hill.  I was gaining on him.

He was taking the same route as me, I passed him again as he pulled over at the top of the hill by Raymond School.  He got going again and passed me as we topped the hill at the railroad overpass.  Hang in there, here comes the best part.

He had to pause at a red light at Energy Park Drive, I was free wheeling down hill, closing rapidly.  He had a bit of trouble getting it going away from the light and I PASSED HIM.  I was a bit worried because I didn't want to be at speed going through the upcoming dead man's curve in reverse, I was worried about the state of the pavement down there.  The motorcycle got back to even with me but suddenly it seemed like his engine was missing.  I pulled in front of him (I WAS going faster than he was) and used him to block traffic behind us so that I could take the center of the car lane.  And a good thing I did because the pot holes on that side of the road could easily have Breyer-ized me and my shoulder if I had to ride through them.  He turned off at Langford Park, never having retaken the lead.

I don't race, but I going to go ahead and take a victory in this one.

Slightly overdone

It was 20 degrees C shortly after noon when I started out.  Anything 20C or above is pretty much officially a nice day.

I rode out to the 8 lakes again.  Today I tried.  Up until now I have mostly been JRA out there.  Today I felt pretty strong at the start and tried to keep the pace up.  I ended up with an average speed nearly 1mph above what I have been averaging.

I also ended up slightly over cooked.

Sometimes you gotta try though.

I rode through Vadnais and my assessment of yesterday is most likely correct.  Riding through there at mid-day M-F is not going to be ideal but it IS going to be OK, probably not a heck of a lot worse than what it was like last year with a wider paved area.

I got a photo of one of the stone fishing areas newly constructed between the new path and lake's edge.

This is a good choice as a location for a fishing platform.  I (and the Guest Rider) get out there quite a bit and we have had at least a couple of conversations with a young WOMAN (yes, some women fish) who fishes at that spot based on a tip she received from an older fellow (we have met him too, but only once).  Apparently there is a weed bed slightly off shore there that the older fellow and his female fishing disciple have decided is a "good spot".

The effect of the new platforms is to elevate the angler up off the immediate shoreline.  This will make citizens less likely to try to interact with what is, never forget, my drinking water, by wading or engaging in other activities which, due to the fact that it IS my drinking water, I prefer not to contemplate.

Meanwhile, before I get too squeamish, it is probably best to remember that ducks f . . . well, you know what I mean.

And speaking of ducks, I saw some new wildlife out at Vadnais, a species of duck never before seen by me out there.  I tried for a photo but as we all know, the wildlife, she is shy.  Ducky swim away, photo tres blurry.

But I do have this new inter tubes dealie, so I was able to type "ducks with white on head" into a search engine (what is this search engine thingy?) and come up with lots of images of ducks with white on their heads.

My new ducky is one of these:

 Hooded merganser.

According to Wikipedia (and confirmed by my observation today) Hooded Mergansers have a crest at the back of the head which can be expanded or contracted.  In adult males, this crest has a large white patch and the head is black.  The male kept popping his crest.  It was actually quite a good show during the time that the merganser family was close enough to shore for me to be able to get a good view.

But not a good photograph.  The wildlife, he is shy.  Ducky swim away.

Turnaround

As late as 10am this morning I wasn't even considering the possibility of a ride.  But the sun came out and the sun in May is a powerful force.  TOPWLH was departing for some pagan event but she proclaimed as she went out the door that she was looking forward to the ride report.

I started to think about it and discovered that something called the inter tubes has temperature forecasts more up to date than the at least 12 hours old newspaper forecast that I had been relying on.  This inter tubes deal said 60s.  Well, I definitely have gear for that.

And the niceness of the day convinced me to go ahead and pretend that my fitness level is appropriate to May instead of its actual end of March level and to take the big northern ride.

Sunday out there at the lakes IS going to be a problem when the weather improves.  The path is now a path, and today they were enough pedestrians present to make it pretty clear that the path is to narrow for bicycles to share with pedestrians.  And since pedestrians are moving more slowly and therefore have right of way (also they are unpowered and bicycles are under at least some power) bicycles aren't going to be able to go there .

Today was OK, it is still cool enough to keep the numbers down.

Here is a look back at the new parking area at the lower end of Lake Vadnais.  That shoreline on the right was formerly dominated by several huge old cottonwood trees.

 That business over closest to the lake is the new path, the wide enough to be of actual use bit where I was standing is the road, cars can still come in this far to the parking lot there at the end.

Road ends there, only path for the rest of the way through not only Vadnais but the next lake north as well (Sucker).

I stopped at County Cycles, still expecting that one of these weekend days when I am there is going to be the day when bicycles are FLYING out the door.

Today wasn't the day, inventory is still plentiful.

This one isn't actually for sale, it doesn't have the necessary safey equipment to allow it to be sold under state statutes governing bicycles and safety equipment.  Just off the top of MY head, no reflectors, no brakes.

Scott and I had a discussion of what accessory is needed to make this into just exactly THE right bicycle.  I thought hydraulic brakes which would make the bicycle much closer to street legal and eligible for sale.  Scott suggested that they could convert it to fixed gear and then they wouldn't need brakes.  His suggestion was aero bars.

Scott wins.

They used to have a guy working there who could actually ride that thing, now it is only a prop, a mere pawn in game of life.

Light snow

Here's a bit of activity from April 29.  Up here in the snow belt you need one of these snow removal machines.  When the season is over the machine requires a certain amount of summerizing.  The main thin is that you cannot leave any gasoline in the tank over the hot months as evaporation will result in gumming up of the carburetion bits.  Once it has been decided that there will be no more snow one takes the machine out into the driveway, fires it up and waits for it to run out of gas.  It was a beautiful day on April 29, I included that task in my list of things to do after riding my bicycle.

Looks nice out there in the field past the snowblower and car, doesn't it?

Here's the backyard this morning, May 3, 8am.

Mind you, we got off easy.  Cottage Grove on the southeast side of the Metro had 8 inches yesterday while we on the northeast side got none.  Places in southern Minnesota and Western Wisconsin got a foot and even more.

We got off easy but we didn't get completely off.  Snow in May.

Paris 2004

The second week of our trip the student took us to the City of Lights.

I've told the story before.  We arrived by train, she checked us into a hotel a couple of blocks from the train station and then took us onto the Metro for the first time.  We got off the Metro, walked up the steps, turned the the corner and outside to this, the first thing I ever saw in Paris, Place de la Concorde.

This is the best picture I have of the Arc de Triomphe.

That time was the only time we ever went up to the top of the Arc.  It was, if I recall correctly, 248 steps.  This is the view down the Champs Élysées from the top.

Across the Seine from la Tour Eiffel.

My two girls at the top of the tower, with the Arc de Triomphe visible at the end of the green boulevard (Avenue d'Iéna) in the background behind them.

Ms. Wireless with her favorite art work at Musée d'Orsay, Ours Blanc, the White Bear.

At Point Zero before tourists started leaving coins.

I was there too.  Our first trip to Paris, the quintessential stop for an American of a certain age visiting Paris for the first time, the grave of Jim Morrison.

The Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel with a wing of the Louvre and the tower in the background.  Wireless in the foreground, leaning on the lamp post at the corner of the street . . .

Tulip time in the Tuileries.

The replica Davis Cup at Roland Garros.

The gate was open, no one was around, we walked down a tunnel underneath the grandstand and . . . me, on the court at Court Philippe Chatrier.

The exact size replica of the flame of the Statue of Liberty at Place de l'Alma.  The main road dives into an underpass there and that is where Princess Diana died.

The courtyard of the house where Gertrude Stein lived.

We dodged the big storm here today although apparently southern Minnesota and Wisconsin are getting whacked pretty severely. Here only cold, cold enough for the snow that we didn't get. Too cold for biking after having ridden on a couple of days when I broke a sweat.

I have some photos from the trip in 2006 that I will probably post some time in the future when a couple of rainy days promise to keep me off the bike.