Missed this yesterday: Hooray, Hooray, the first of . . . oops.

It was a beautiful day for a ride today and what with my recent feelings of returning fitness we may have worked a little too hard.  It was fun, for sure, but as the day winds down we are both a little past peak.  It is OK though, the day is winding down.  Further, working hard and getting knackered is actually the entire point of it all.  Work (as in physical work, not employment at the plant) is good.

These are always kind of fun.  Today we had to pull over on Raymond, 8 miles into the ride, right directly adjacent to a lost hub cap, to record this milestone.

We observed but did not interact in any way with the lost hub cap.

I note that my bar tape is starting to look like 13,000 or so miles since it was last changed.  The part you can see here is dingy, out towards the hoods where my hands are most often the tape is both dingy and getting frayed.

The Great Flatlands Rider once stated that the only people with clean bar tape are people who don't actually ride.

That might not be the exact quote but it captures the idea.

My bar tape is getting dingy and I am living with it.

My route to the Falls now features a ride down 46th Avenue South with a jog over to 44th for the crossing of 46th Street.  There is a curb cut and a path at the end of 44th leading directly over to a crosswalk across Minnehaha Parkway.  This means that I ride regularly on 44th anyway.  I had to turn a block early to ride over to 44th but this got me to this intersection:

That's the last easy one, the last one actually on the route.  Riding to 43rd and 43rd is going to be a detour off of the regular route, extra mileage.

I am intrigued by that stop sign which appears to be mounted off center on the pole.

We got to the Falls.

But we didn't stay long.  The crowd was huge with very many members of the M-family present.  We escaped with our lives with the GRider only a couple of times admonishing other citizens for at best inattentiveness and at worst clear stupidity.

We escaped with our lives and were soon riding happily back along the river road.

Those four person pedicab things are a bit of a problem out there on the riverside path but we managed to miss having to meet one on the narrowest bits.

It was all fine.

We had fun.

July 3, time for a knee high by the 4th of July corn report. 

Where's Waldo?

It is fairly obviously a good year for corn.

The Tour starts tomorrow, short time trial in Utrecht.  Netherlands?