France again

I was watching the TV coverage of le Tour this morning and I was struck by the majestic old stone church in Amiens.

Back in the golden age of Catholicism in France they put up lots and lots of really impressive buildings.  The one in Amiens looks like it should be investigated.

But our concerns here today were actually much more local than that.  It was not quite warm enough today but I had a GRider and generally speaking she tolerates better what are for me marginal conditions.  That means it was warm enough for her and I wore my jacket again.

I made my first appearance of the season at the confluence.  If it was my first appearance it fairly obviously must have been her first appearance as well.

We had a few more concerns on the return trip.  I thought we could ride Cleveland Avenue on the way back to get a look at what the controversy is about adding bicycle lanes on that arterial street from Summit Avenue down through Groveland towards Highland Park.  Riding on Cleveland ended up being a really bad idea.  The pavement down there on the south end of Cleveland beyond Ford Parkway is some of the worst pavement in the history of pavement.  One bicycle ride down there would convince anyone a repavement is overdue.  I won't list all of the defects but suffice to say that I at first was not sufficiently vigilant about the road surface and through that lack of attention I hit one giant gaping gap in the concrete pavement that as soon as my back tire encountered the several inch wide and a couple of inch deep pothole I was certain without any reservation that I had just pinch flatted my rear tire.

Fortunately I was wrong.

Eventually we got across Ford Parkway and diverted over to Finn Street.  Some of the Cleveland Avenue bike lane detractors have said that people should just ride on Finn Street, one block over from Cleveland.  Problem.  Finn Street doesn't go though.  For example, riding along Finn south to north you will quickly discover that Finn ends at Hartford.  We tried an alley, it didn't go through either (although it was an excellent alley, much better pavement than what we had encountered on Cleveland).  Eventually we did find our way out onto I think Niles where we were able to locate the continuation of Finn Street.

Note to bike lane opponents, don't keep recommending Finn Street, it makes you look stupid.

And then later on further down Finn Street we were able to demonstrate our compatibility with European traffic furniture.

Everyone get plenty of sleep, I know we will.  The end of tomorrow's stage is on roads that we in this house expect to be able to recognize based on having been there ourselves.

Anyone else think the Age of Cav is definitively at an end?  I know that's what I think.  In this Tour so far Greipel looks clearly superior in that explosive final short burst which wins the bunch sprint finishes.  And the in my view better of the two German sprinters, Marcel Kittel, is not even here for this race.  It was a great run, it is over. Cav is just so very much Eric Zabel at this point.  Great, certainly great, but great in the past tense.  The Age of Cav looks past tense to me.