An ill wind blows

And no, I am not talking about the election results. Although I readily admit to be somewhat less than completely pleased with local, state and national results, I subscribe to the axiom that if you give every single citizen one vote you always, always, end up with the government that you deserve. No, I refer to to the actual wind.

It was warm enough today, yet another day with above average temperatures. Today that meant low 50s while I was out. The sun was shining and it was a very, very pretty day.But the wind turned around to out of the north and it blew HARD. Today's lesson is learned several times each year. For some reason the lesson never seems to stick. But here it is for today, when it is cold and windy, bicycling is extremely hard work.

There has been some discussion elsewhere on the internet about being in France in May. Me too.We went to the French Open.

Election Day

I did my public duty today and voted. -Senior Cyclist

I did my civic duty today and headed over to my local polling place . . . -A Traveler at Home

I got no excuse. I was just trying to have some fun. Ah, that's not true. I did my duty as a citizen by doing something that I always enjoy, I voted.

I detoured off from the usual start of my ride and rode past the polling place.I assure any and all that I didn't actually interrupt my ride to vote. As we all know, how ridiculous you look in your bicycling clothes is directly proportional to your distance from your bicycle. I don't think FirstLOOK would have been welcome actually inside the Community Center gymnasium where voting was occurring. The distance from the bicycle would have been great and my appearance would have been beyond vaguely interesting, completely through outlandish, all the way to perhaps that person should be arrested. There was NO voting in bicycling clothes.

How it went down was TOPWLH detoured on her way to work to vote and I rode along with her. I then walked home. I was wearing a Castelli jacket but even that is a jacket really designed for regular off the bicycle wear. It does say Castelli but that is as close as I came.

Shortly thereafter I WAS riding.

This was the display at the corner of Cleveland and Larpenteur. Lots o' geese, an entire gaggle, at least.That isn't even an official lake that I am aware of. I personally think it is just that when the streets were constructed that surface water drainage was obstructed and water has backed up in the back yard of that church. There is a wetland kitty corner and a lowish corner of the golf course on a third.

I was in Minneapolis yesterday and I must have enjoyed the experience. Today I set out to do it again and this time ventured much deeper into Minnesota's largest city. I was determined to take my bicycle to another bike shop that it has never been too. I rode all the way to the foot of Lake of the Isles to Kenwood Cyclery.There used to be a bike shop here. A really nice bike shop. That's the corner of West 21st Street and Penn Avenue South and I swear, the last time I was there they had an antique Bianchi motorscooter in the window and a really choice Waterford with Record hanging on the wall. On that occasion I was not there on bicycle business but as is my custom, I bought something, I think a tube.

I was in such completely unfamiliar territory that I ended up riding on a bunch of streets that I know I have never ridden on before. I ended up in a couple of spots where I pretty rapidly concluded I shouldn't be there. But, final result, home unscathed.

It was a little bit warmer today. Light weight jacket, lighter weight gloves. It was a very nice day for a bicycle ride.

November miles

Despite wide spread rumors to the contrary the season isn't over after all. Today was just a tiny bit nicer than yesterday and Monday is my favorite day to ride so I started the process yet again, accumulating November miles.

The theme for this month for DailyPhotoBlogs is public transportation. I am not sure if this actually qualifies as I don't think that technically Nice Ride is a completely public entity. I have discovered that Nice Ride is non-profit so I am going to go with it, a bicycle based public transportation system.The bicycles are short term rentals certainly reminiscent of Velib in Paris although not yet nearly as wide spread as the Paris rentals.

Here is the Nice Ride website.

And here is the Nice Ride Wikipedia entry.

Nice Ride is currently only available in the densest parts of Minneapolis, the downtown, very near south side and the University. Today I visited the four Nice Ride locations closest to my home. The one above is on University Avenue a couple of blocks from the new football stadium and therefore a couple of blocks off campus.

The next one is located near Ridder Arena.At this one FirstLOOK usurps a spot in the rental queue. TOPWLH will no doubt recognize that spot, it is where we park for hockey.

View three is at Franklin Avenue and 28th Avenue South. Surprisingly enough, the rental kiosk is actually taking up pavement that is at least nominally part of the street.I like this last one at 25th Street and 33rd Avenue South. This is a mostly residential neighborhood. The rental kiosk is nearly in front of the Birchwood Cafe. I approve of this restaurant. If you look closely you can see that in addition to the rental bicycles, right in front of the cafe they have signs designating that area as a "Bicycle Parking" zone.I find it necessary at this time to issue another correction. Even at the time of yesterday's posting I had some misgivings about identifying that spring as the headwaters of a creek that flows over Bridal Veil Falls. I knew there was a Bridal Veil Falls and I just went ahead and decided that this was it.

So, CORRECTION!

Today I did due diligence and conducted internet research. I soon discovered that the real Bridal Veil Falls is located in Minneapolis, near the Franklin Avenue bridge. Here is a link. I recommend the photos on that website, apparently Bridal Veil Falls was quite an impressive spot during the early history of Minnesota. As usually happens with small creeks and other small surface waters, the demands of urbanization resulted in the creek being buried and it now runs underground in a Minneapolis sewer pipe with only a much diminished discharge of water over the falls.

I was unable with Yahoo or Google searches to identify the correct name of the area pictured yesterday. I also searched Google maps without success. Finally I went to my paper reference materials and consulted "The Street Where You Live, A Guide to the Place Names of Saint Paul", by Donald L. Empson. I looked up the name of a nearby shortish street, Exeter Place.

Bingo.

I also need at this point to clarify out that I am not referring here to the Grotto located in a ravine near Goodrich Avenue on the grounds of Saint Paul Seminary. This is the best link I could find for the Grotto. Scroll down to Grotto. That ravine contains stone crosses to mark the Stations of the Cross. It is also listed elsewhere on the UST website (again, scroll down to Grotto) as a place on campus to pray. Shame on annoying boys for using such a place to scare unsuspecting females.

No, the gorge I am referencing runs towards the Mississippi from just across the street from the stadium entrance, right at the corner of Cretin and Exeter Place.

Saint Paul place names identifies the waterfall as Shadow Falls and the area as Shadow Falls Park. The guide says that the park is an 18 acre, deep, rugged, and very picturesque gorge. The park features a spring fed stream that is particularly beautiful in the winter. Here is a view of the falls and information about the park.

The Guide states that Archbishop John Ireland intended to donate the park to the city. In the end, however, the park board had to purchase the falls property.

Haunting

I missed out on a ride yesterday on a completely rideable day. But the city vacuum truck crew is coming this week to collect our leaves. This made it necessary to amass the annual giant leaf pile. The task is now performed by out Team of Three (To3). The junior member, the most indispensable of the team, is only available on weekends so Saturday it was. The entire process is being photo documented by the To3JM, she is good at stuff like that. But today as I set out to ride I got a picture of the pile.Some may notice that the pile is not up to the monumental standards of some other year's piles. This year the leaves were still a little bit wet so they settled in the pile instead of fluffing up. Furthermore, when Hurricane Minnesota blew through here last week it may well have taken quite a few of our leaves and made them into someone else's leaves. We made do with what we still had.

Today's SSE wind led me down into the big city. Here is something you cannot see when the leaves are on the trees. There is a gorge leading down from Saint Thomas towards the river from near the intersection of the Cretin and River Road. There is a very small creek flowing at the bottom of the gorge which eventually goes over something called Bridal Veil Falls. This is the headwaters of the creek, a spring about 50 yards or so from the top end of the gorge.It's right in the middle of the picture where the browns of the leaves turn to a darker color. That's naturally flowing water. It isn't a culvert, it doesn't come out of a pipe, that's water rising up out of the ground. A spring is something you just don't actually come across very often in an urban environment.

I was riding up Summit hoping to reach the traditional turn point for having a SE tailwind on the way home. I had just passed the Our Lady of Peace School of Law when a person walking to her car hailed me by name. Being hailed while riding is also something that doesn't happen very often. It was a friend from work (some observers may remember that I used to have a job) so I stopped and wheeled around and went back. We were warbling fair weather as when . . . wait, never mind, we were having a pleasant conversation about this and that when another person ambling down the sidewalk turned out to be my brother, thereby completing a hat trick of unusual occurrences.

It is the last day of the month and as is the usual case, it is time to review the numbers. I often say that it is a seven month bicycle season here but the truth is that until today the highest total mileage ridden in each of the months was more than 600 for only six of those months. For a variety of reasons, but mostly October's failing light and falling temperatures, the total mileage for the month just never got up to the totals for the other months. Until today.

So today I established a new record for the month, 614 miles. The "golden year", the total for a mythical year in which the record for each month is ridden is now up to 6,335.91 miles. That's about 950 miles more than the actual most miles ever ridden in a year, 2003, the year of the second Ride Across Minnesota (the Ortonville to Red Wing trip).

So here's a new feature, a quiz.

Guess which of the following is the most haunted building in Saint Paul. Click on the link to the one you think is the actual haunted house. If you are correct you will receive confirmation. If you are not correct you will see an entertaining video of a bicycle crash.

A. Governor's MansionB. Griggs MansionC. Cathedral of Saint PaulD. State CapitolThere, that was fun, don't you think?

Don't forget, tomorrow is the first day of National Blog Every Day for a Month Month.

Growing season ends

We never did get a killing frost this year. Instead the growing season has ended on a more definitive note with temperatures last night descending into the mid-20s F. I am pretty confident that that should do it.

Today was only a little warmer than yesterday but the wind died down a bit and out I went.

Temperatures had risen only to the mid-40s by midday. Such temperatues required a few costume adjustments but I have the gear. Long sleeved base layer, heavyweight long sleeved jersey, winter gloves (well, late fall and early spring gloves, for winter I have, obviously, mittens), and balaclava.

The wind was south and I must admit that the south wind of October 29 is not that gentle southern breeze I went on about earlier in the year. At 44 even a south wind has a very distinct bite. I started with the balaclava in my pocket but my chin soon became painfully cold so I found the lee of the Fairgrounds grandstand and made the further adjustment.

EG:44 CB:44 AOWG:53.

I noted this very Minnesota signal of the oncoming winter.I have I think almost annually photographed the hockey boards at Langford Park but I am quite sure this is the first time I have seen the crew putting them up. Today's the day. Fortunately, it is still another month at least until they can flood, about six weeks until they expect to have reasonably good ice. I know, long ago I was responsible for producing one of those hockey rinks, I have done it. The school Christmas vacation is when your ice gets good, not until.

I headed down into the city at least partly to get this photo of the Saint Anthony Park Branch Library. I have published this library before but the other time I did so there were leaves on the trees. This time there is a much better view of the library building.As previously noted, and as cited in my American Institute of Architects Guide to the Twin Cities, this is one of three classically inspired neighborhood libraries constructed in the City of Saint Paul in 1916-17. The other two, also designed by the then city architect are Riverview and Arlington. All three are among the more than 2,500 libraries nationwide financed under a program sponsored by U.S. Steel titan Andrew Carnegie, including the library that I frequented as a child, the Carnegie Public Library of Coleraine, Minnesota. These three in Saint Paul are among the last Carnegie libraries to be built, Carnegie died in 1919.

According to the guide, the building has an enormously dignified and gracious presence in the community. It evokes timeless images of classicism yet manages to be inviting at the same time. Design features include ionic pilasters, arches, a simple parapet and strict symmetry and is cited as an excellent example of how even small public buildings of this period could achieve monumental effect.

On the front lawn they have one of those plazas with bricks engraved with messages from various sponsors. I was tipped off by a person who has listened to a lot of the same music that I have listened to in my lifetime to the presence of one brick that might have some special interest for a person with my musical tastes. The tipster notes that this brick has already been published elsewhere on the internet so there is no general need to alert the media.Here's why we find that brick interesting:

The Allman Brothers Band live at Fillmore East September 23, 1970, performing "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed", widely considered one of their greatest pieces (this is also considered one of their greatest performances). This is the band before the deaths of leader Duane Allman and bassist Berry Oakley, both in motorcycle accidents and both within the next couple of years after this performance.

On the way home I rode through the Saint Paul campus.Tonight in Dijon FC Nantes has played yet another nil nil tie. In some ways they are on a decent streak, now not having lost for 6 games. The problem, of course, is that the last 4 of those 6 are ties. FC Nantes loses ground in the table and now sits ninth.

Mileage note

No bicycling today. No bicycling yesterday. No bicycling Tuesday. Only half a ride on Monday. No bicycling Sunday.

In reverse order: Sunday rain.

Monday: Just got home in time before it rained.

Tuesday: Extremely high winds and rain.

Wednesday: Extremely high winds and rain.

Today: Still pretty windy and although I may ride in 40 degrees before the end of the year, today it was too big a change from what I have ridden in recently. I decided it was too cold

Today is October 28 and one year ago on October 28, I posted this photo collage.That was the day the mileage total on my bicycle odometer exceeded the mileage on my automobile odometer. Bicycle plus 15. I also note that it was 50 degrees inside my car that day, The car was parked in my garage but even so I think this clearly indicates that last October 28 was a warmer day than today.

Today I performed an odometer mileage update.

Automobile: 20,376. That's 2,755 miles for this year.

I have not ridden that same bicycle as much as in years past, the current total is 19,764. Car takes the lead. Or does it?

Bicycle miles: 234 on the Axis, 306 on my Michigan bicycle, 2,002 on NewLOOK and 19,764 minus 17,636 or 2,128 for FirstLOOK, that all adds up to 4,670 bicycle miles.

Bicycles rule by 1,915 miles.

Of course, I have no job.

Not my banana

I like Monday riding so much that even though conditions screamed "rain", I gave it a try anyway. I got back into the garage before I got wet but the mist had become so thick that I was 10 miles short of the distance I wanted to ride.

I saw this on the side of the road and circled back to see if it was what my first glimpse led me to believe it was.It was! It was not my banana. Cigarette butt and edge of the pavement for authenticity. It looks pretty good but I left it there.

Maybe I should have claimed it. The roadside banana looks a bit better than the one I ended up eating after I got home.H-R-Bek (not a noted consumer of fresh fruit and vegetables) for scale.

Andrew Zimmern note: It is only the peel that looks bizarre. The banana inside the peel was just absolutely fine.