Unicycle guy

Boy, I tell you, today was nice.

I rode over to the river and for a change had a very pleasant experience over there. At the river every single male rider is racing and it usually gets a little old. But apparently I was there at the right time today as there were not many of them about and I was free to just ride along without having to be constantly alert for yet another one of those posers overtaking without a word. I know, I understand that they are only mirroring racing etiquette. But I just wonder where the hell they get the confidence that I am going to hold a straight line which allows them to come within a few inches of my handlebars. Because I tell you, I do not hold a straight line. I am not racing, I am taking care of my bike. Which means I ride around potholes, not through, around road debris, not over. I am not holding a straight line. End of rant. What I really mean to say is, boy, I tell you, today was nice.

I saw a guy riding a unicycle. I tried to ride fast to get far enough ahead of him so that I could get a picture but was unsuccessful. I got ahead but he motored past well before I could prepare for a photo. So I got back on and followed and eventually caught and passed him in the hills. Hills are a problem both going up and going down for a unicycle. Obviously you cannot coast downhill, you have to keep pedalling. I actually passed him on the downhill. Downhill looks harder. Anyway, by then it was time for me to turn off and approach the giant climb out of the river gorge so I had to abandon the photo opportunity. Take my word for it, there was a guy on a unicycle riding at the river today.

The boys on the Tour greatly disappointed me today. Rasmussen is suspended by his national federation and Paul, Phil, and Bob all lined up behind the rider. Eventually even Al, the reporter of the group, joined in the federation bashing. They claim cycling politics, that the Danish federation as part of the UCI is only trying to wrest control of the sport from the old guard, the grand tour organizers.

Lame.

Really lame.

The only thing suspicious here is that a rider claiming the advantages of being clean cannot organize his life as required by the rules of the federation which rewards him for being clean. It is just plain bullshit to say anything else. He knew the rules, he dodged the tests. Dirty.

Boy, I tell you, today was nice. It was a beautiful day in the neighborhood and after missing out on the unicycle I hoped to find the Babe at home as this was my next preferred photo of the day, something from our backyard.It may look casual but it is actually very carefully posed.

FC Nantes has completed playing friendlies in anticipation of the Ligue 2 season opener on July 27. They drew and lost against Ligue 1 opponents, defeated a team from the Championnat National, also known as Division 3, and today dropped their only outing against a fellow Ligue 2 participant. Not a particularly auspicious pre-season but they were after all only friendlies. Allez Nantes, the season begins next week against Reims.

Ten lake tour

I had my first flat in two years about three weeks ago and I have now had another. I noticed earlier this week that the rear was soft but not flat. I pumped it up and it held well enough to ride. I did that a couple of times and my plan was to baby it along until this afternoon when I thought I would throw on a new set of tires. The mileage was short of what I like to get on a set of tires but tire mileage for me is determined not by what I wish for but by when I start having flats.

I went out this morning to pump the rear again so we could take the eight lake tour. It was not as soft as it has been the last couple of days so I was optimistic. Ooops. I pumped it up and I could hear the air escaping. Best laid plans and all that, we had to delay the ride while I patched a tube.

Then this afternoon I planned to do the new tire thing. I went to the basement to retrieve the tires and tools and discovered that I had a spare used tire that I had forgotten about. When I change a set of tires I always save the less used front tire to be used as a spare if something goes wrong with the new tires. So instead of new tires I put the spare on. The only down side is, as I told TOPWLH, I had blocked out most of the afternoon to complete this task and it only took about 20 minutes. More time to blog.

We rode out towards the eight lakes but deviated again at Highway 96. We continued north to Turtle Lake County Park, an additional 1.2 miles.A careful examination of the photo will reveal a water tower on the other side of the lake.

A controversy erupted at the lake when the model declined to be in the photo. She said she only wanted to be in one and she anticipated that her participation would be necessary for scale later on. I told her that this was certainly her call but that any failure to conform to the norm would be reported later. So there you go, a full report on why the model is not in the Turtle Lake picture.

Including Turtle Lake in the ride slightly alters the route. We travelled back south on Hodgson Road and cut behind the commercial development on the northeast corner of the intersection with Highway 96, left on 96 and on down to Rice Street. We got back on the route there, swinging in at the entrance to Sucker Lake park. Once back on familiar territory the steeds seemed to sense the barn and we completed the tour without much difficulty. I note for clarity that the eight and/or ten lake tour is not always exactly the same lakes. We don't always pass Wabasso, we often pass Emily, we occasionally get to Willow Pond or Lake Johanna, sometimes to Grass, or even once in a while Lake Valentine. Today I believe we counted ten.

I think it safe to say that today, June 30, the corn looks to be a prohibitive favorite to meet or exceed that knee high by the Fourth of July thing.Babe for scale.

Apologies to the dew point gods

Rest days can be provided by more than one set of dieties.

It rained today while I was at work. But it was another one of those cases where it rained downtown but hardly at all out here in the suburbs. It was plenty dry enough when I got home. It appeared while I was at work that the rain gods were about to provide a rest day but when I got home it seemed that the rain gods had once again declined to declare a rest. It had been 93 before the rain but the rain cooled things off a bit, down to 84. I have ridden lots of times with temperatures higher than 84.

I read a Wikipedia entry on dew point. The entry can perhaps be summarized by this paragraph:

"Humans tend to react with discomfort to high dew points. Those accustomed to continental climates often begin to feel uncomfortable when the dew point reaches between 15 and 20 °C (59 to 68 °F). Most inhabitants of these areas will consider dew points above 21 °C (70 °F) to be oppressive."

The dew point was 68 before the rain. The rain lowered the temperature but greatly enhanced the humidity. The dew point when I got home was 73. Oppressive. The dew point gods provided a rest day.

A bit ago I told the story of Emily's three home run game. I found a picture of her in the batters box at the field where that game was played. This was one of the pictures in the picture frames at work which I scanned recently.

Nice stance, excellent form, good level stroke, good hitter. Your overall best hitter bats third. Our lineup that year, as it often did, started Knutson, Sventek, Miller. Good hitter.Another interesting bit about the picture is the appearance on the bench of my cooler. I brought that water cooler to every practice and every game. It was one of the important rites of passage about being on our team that you had to learn to drink from that cooler. New players would first watch the experienced returning players take a drink and then try it themselves.

Giro d'Italia

Team time trial today. The Giro only rarely has a team time trial, the Tour de France almost always features one. This year no TTT in Tour, Giro has TTT first day. Liquigas crosses with the best time putting Enrico Gasparotto in the leader's jersey (Maglia Rosa) although the real leader is team leader and second across the line Daniel Di Luca. Astana second (former Discovery team rider Paolo Savoldelli), Team CSC third (Fabian Cancellara). A flat stage scheduled for tomorrow, chance for Milram and Alessandro Petacchi to shine.

Obviously I meant Arden Hills. Hazelnut Park is in Arden Hills. On New Brighton Boulevard, but in Arden Hills. We did play in New Brighton that year but it was a weekend tournament. The cities represented in our league were Roseville, Arden Hills and Shoreview. We played at least one game in Shoreview in addition to the Arden Hills games.

And this is Oasis Park in Roseville.This is where we played as 3rd and 4th graders. We also practiced there as 5th graders. This is the site of the team record for home runs. The 4th graders were the undefeated Rangers featuring that year's best female 4th grade softball hitter in Roseville, Tiffany Schreifels. Our batting order that year was Knutson, Sventek, Miller, Schreifels. Tiffany had a game that year where she had a 3 run homer and 2 grand slams, back to back grand slams at that. Tiffany hit them so far that other teams were in disbelief. Coach Knutson and I would stand at the bench and comment to each other, they are probably going to want to play a little deeper than that. But they wouldn't. And then Tiffany would come up and paste one way, way over their heads. It was almost unfair.

This is also where Leah had a bad run of outfield while Tiffany was batting in batting practice. Usually in batting practice there wasn't a heck of a lot to do. Shag the occasional ball that comes to you but mostly just stand around and contemplate. Leah got caught in the outfield several practices in a row when Tiffany was taking hits though and that always involved chasing down a plethora of long balls.

This is also where the star of yesterday's post had one of her most ignominious moments. When she was a fifth grader we had an actress on the team. The actress was at that time appearing in a Children's Theatre Company production of Alice in Wonderland as . . . Alice, who else? Yesterday's star was playing catch with Alice and somehow or other Alice ended up with a black eye. Ask her, she can tell you about it.

Fishing opener this weekend in Minnesota. I rode out to Lake Vadnais and the road was parked nearly completely full with cars. There were more people there than I have ever seen there before, happily fishing and kibitzing away.

The news of today's ride is that once again I dressed for yesterday. I went with base layer, sleeved jersey and arm warmers. It was fine at the beginning but about half way through I had to pull the arm warmers down. But then, the last few miles before reaching home had the return of the cloud cover and I had to pull the armers back up. So my choice of clothing was vindicated in the end.

Squirrels are vermin.

Nantes relegated

Today I made one of the classic blunders made by people who work indoors and then intend to get some exercise outdoors. I dressed for yesterday.

It was about 75 when I set out. I checked the weather channel and Mikey J's. I knew it wasn't going to be as warm as yesterday but I expected a gradual cooling. I should have paid more attention to Mikey J's as, in retrospect, there was definite evidence of an arriving front. Much to my chagrin it rolled through in the middle of the ride.

The weather went from sunny and pleasant to overcast and windy within minutes. It was overcast for about half an hour and then it went back to sunny. Only now it was sunny and cold and windy.

But I endeavored to perservere and it was okay, not perfect, but okay.

This is Hazelnut Park in New Brighton. This is the site of a family record. The record was set by a member of the 8th grade softball team. That team, as every one of those teams except the very first one, was pretty good. Also like every one of those teams except two, we were not quite championship quality. I think this year was one of our many second place finishes.Anyway, games we played in New Brighton were always against a New Brighton team so we weren't familiar with any of them and they weren't familiar with us. But as the vagaries of recreational league schedules go, we were the home team in their town.

They got I think 3 in the top of the first and their fans were getting downright rowdy. We answered in the bottom of the inning with our usual batting order, recite it with me now, all of those of you who know this, Knutson, Sventek and Miller. Knutson and Sventek got on, Miller drew a walk and eventually came around to score the tieing run.

We held them without a run in the top of the second and that's when things started to get interesting. We had two outs with Sventek on base, Miller at the plate. The New Brightoners were playing a four across outfield (we always, ALWAYS played three across and a short fielder) and might have been a tad shallow, particularly against our number 3 hitter, a spot in which most opponents would assume that you have a pretty good hitter. Emily roped a shot over the right center fielder's head which rolled nearly to the fence. By the time it was retrieved Emily had circled the bases for a two run home run and we had the lead. The rowdy fans began the journey to glum.

On Emily's next plate appearance we still had the lead, in fact, had expanded it some. This time both Knutson and Sventek were on base. The outfield played the same and Emily hit another shot to the same place, this time for a three run home run.

Back to back home runs, but that still wasn't all. On her final at bat of the game, Emily stepped in with Knutson, Sventek and one other teammate aboard. That's bases loaded for those of you unfamiliar with the terminology. Well, she did it again, over their heads, grand slam, or as known on ESPN, the grand salami.

And that's the family record, back to back to back home runs, a two run home run, followed by a three run home run, followed by the grand slam. As Wendy's Dad said, a lot of teams would have played their outfield deeper after the first couple. But they didn't and she kept hitting them.

I met Scott, one of the three commuting bicycle mechanics from County Cycles while on my way home today. Note to road biking snobs, Scott, who rides all year round and therefore way more miles than any of you fancy wannabe racing types, greeted me by ringing his bell. He said, "Hey Gene" and I said, "Hey Scott". It was a kinda nice reminder that this whole bicycling thing is not nearly as anonymous as it sometimes feels.

And finally, in Wednesday night's game, Nantes did the best they could to stave off relegation, defeating Bordeaux 1-0. However, both of the teams which they still had a chance to overtake also won, Nice defeating Paris-Saint Germain 1-0, and Valenciennes defeating Saint Etienne by the same 1-0 score. With only two games remaining and therefore only 6 points available, Nantes is 7 points from safety. In some ways it should please me. I am now the owner of a jersey for a French second division team. A jersey for a second division team is even more obscure than a jersey for a French first division team and I usually prefer obscure things. But I am saddened from afar. Allez Nantes, begin to prepare to win promotion back to Ligue 1, where the team representing so fair a city obviously belongs.

Autumn Grove

I have spent many a weekday evening and many a Saturday morning here. This is Autumn Grove, the southwest field. For some reason very few other coaches ever wanted to practice at Autumn Grove so we were always able to get practice time here.This is the site, if I recall correctly, of, "Sara, is that the absolute fastest you can run?" and numerous other memorable moments.

The ride today was another good one. Usually the second day after a breakthrough isn't as fast as the first day, and today wasn't. But it was still the second fastest day of the year. And further, today's conditions were not quite as ideal as yesterday's, so some fall off was probably inevitable. Today was warmer than yesterday, a gorgeous summer day, but a wind kicked up about half way through the ride and eventually proved just a tiny bit troublesome.

But it was a good ride and when I got home Wireless was still home after stopping by to pick up some pants and a volleyball. So that was very nice. She has some news but I won't rain on her parade, she can toot her own horn. She is a most excellent dafter.