Sunny but cool

With the weather we have had I had completely forgotten that riding in the cold is also hard work. Today was cold. I guess it warmed up a bit later but during the time I was riding it was about 10 degrees BELOW the average high temperature for the day. Big difference.

I had to dig out some gear not because it had been put away, but because I hadn't had to dig it out yet. The most notable bit was a heavier jacket. Properly clad, it was actually a pretty nice day.

I rode out to Lake Vadnais again.I see that Charles Manson was denied parole (again) today.

Good decision.

Gale force

I had a really nice stretch downhill with a tail wind for about a mile. Other than that the wind seemed like the hardest ever. It blew hard from the WNW, so hard that it was one of those days where it feels like a head wind in three of the four cardinal directions. The wind was so strong from the side that even with a slightly quartering tail wind it still seemed to make riding difficult.

Part of the problem was that I had chosen to ride to the north. I was doing OK in that direction but as I got farther north it seemed pretty enough that I wanted to ride over and check out Lake Vadnais. Vadnais is too far east and I ended up having to get back over two and a half miles directly into the teeth of the wind.

It was hard again.

Here is another view of the brush clearing project in the Allison Forest at Lake Vadnais. This one is right at the point where the project ends. Clearly visible on the left of the photograph is what the rest of the woods out there looks like.The difference is VERY striking.

In order to alleviate some confusion about the location of this work I stood in exactly the same spot and took both the above photograph and the one below. I did zoom the one below a bit but it should still serve to establish location.Boonen wins Paris-Roubaix for the fourth time.

I saw zero Easter bunnies but I did see lots of people flying kites. It was a kite kind of day.

Wind returns

The wind came back up today and delivered a reminder about how hard it is to ride in the wind. The Auckland Rule was invoked, however, and a good enough time was had

I made my furthest south excursion of the season, riding into the mostly south wind down into the big city. Spring is springing, showing up nicely in the river gorge.That's the Marshall Avenue Bridge viewed from the Ford Parkway Bridge. My impression when I was lining up the photo was that the sky was quite blue. In viewing the image I notice that there was actually a fair amount of low lying haze.

The river still looks nice.

I deviated into the really big city for an earliest ever visit to the Falls.Here's a no surprise: That's the lowest flow of water I have ever observed going over the Falls at this time of year. It's going to be dry later on if that's all the water there is now.

I had seen that the NiceRide stations had been returned to their places on the streets. I had also heard from people who have season passes for NiceRide that the bikes have now come back too. Today I spotted the bicycles for the first time, for me, this year.But actually I wanted the picture because this time I was pretty sure that the blue, blue sky would show well.

And if it is blue sky photo time it must also be time for these to start showing up, the flowering trees.The sky looks appropriately blue in that one too, It was warm enough without being really warm, windy enough without being quite too windy, a good day to be outside riding a bicycle.

Wind shifts

Boasting is never a good idea.

We had another day of mostly east wind. The weather station said ESE when I started and that seemed about right. South wasn't very hard but east was a little chilly and a little hard. Still, I felt like if I could do it yesterday I could go out and charge again today.

Well . . .

That doesn't always go so well.

But I was going along OK, I had completed the mostly east starting leg and was riding south and started to feel pretty good. In fact, it even occurred to me that I was feeling a little too good. I dropped into the Fairgrounds as that is always a good place to ride around a block to get an accurate reading on wind direction.

The wind had shifted around a bit to more like NE.

I broke off the southern ride and instead started back towards the north for an abbreviated northern loop. Unfortunately about the time I passed the starting point I felt the wind shifting again. It continued to fluctuate mildly for the rest of the ride, sometimes NE, sometimes SE, but always east. I kept the ride to a mostly north south out and back to avoid as much as I could exposure to the wind.

It wasn't the America's Cup, in fact it wasn't even the Macatawa Bay Yacht Club Wednesday regatta, but it felt like what I imagine sailing to feel like (I wouldn't actually know, I don't like boats).

It was a nice enough day, not as nice as yesterday but still pretty. I made my northern turn around at Island Lake Park.Recovery day rides are never as fast as the peak day but I did well enough to allow for entry of average speed into the bike log again.

On the issue of Tide, I believe there are a wide variety of theories about the thefts. In fact, a quick search reveals that some are now starting to say that the whole thing may have been puffed up to a bit more than actually exists. I found this video which is about as authoritative as anything I have seen to date:

Average speed

I have a spaces in my bike log for distance, average speed and comments. Most often early in the season I am so woefully slow that I just go ahead and leave the average speed space vacant. The problem gets a little worse every year (duh!). This year started out that way again. I have been so slow that the two hour ride has been taking way too much time more than two hours. The rides have been just too dang long.

Well, today I wrote down an average speed.

After days of riding in "too windy" today featured light breezes. I started out feeling pretty strong and quickly found that winds were light enough to not discourage an attempt to try a little harder.

The northern ride, today's route, features relatively flat terrain for the first five miles. I managed to stay almost exclusively in the big ring while still keeping up a nice spinning rhythm. The sixth mile features the first of a series of hills requiring the small ring but I was able to maintain the spin and my pace slowed only slightly. I got all the way to the turn around point while being able to continue pushing the pace. As we know, at the turn around point I lose the headwind and start riding in the direction where I feel really strong, even on the worst of days.

This is a little past the turn around. This is the John H. Allison Forest on the north side of Lake Vadnais.Those who visit regularly will no doubt notice that considerable work has been done in the forest since last fall. It could have been very late last fall or possibly during our exceptionally mild winter but there has been some selective logging and a considerable amount of clearing of the understory.

The effect is to render the area open and airy in a way in which it just wasn't before the clearing.

Here is evidence of why the road through Vadnais is going to be closed after this year to be replaced by a multi-use trail (sidewalk).Those pot holes are both deep and look like they would be pretty pricey to repair. It looks to be pretty obviously true that keeping the big trucks out of there will greatly reduce maintenance costs.

The ride home is pretty hilly, lots of up and down but with the help of the breeze I felt strong all the way to my driveway.

I wrote down an average speed.

What does this mean? Well, I think it means that something resembling fitness may be sneaking its way back into my daily life. It also means that the two hour ride took only a bit over two hours and fit itself back into a time slot that seems once again reasonable.

Here for the TOPWLH is a reminder that lots of people store their boats and trailers SOMEWHERE during the winter.I know you haven't seen that thing since last fall. I also know that it will be a regularly viewed item from now until just before the snow flies again.

And finally, just a little bit of idle musing. We have seen a couple of stories recently about the rash of Tide thefts affecting big box retailers.I wonder if Tide Free is as attractive to the thieves as the regular orange Tide.

Another windy spring day

It was sunny when I started out. The sun lasted almost, but not quite, until the end of the driveway. That worked out OK though. It was a windy spring day, windy spring days can easily feature a couple of sky changes within the course of the couple of hours that I am going to be out there. Eventually the sky cleared, the sun came out, bingo, nice day.

Here's a look at the sky from earlier in the ride.

The circus has left town, it looks for all the world like the next event is going to be some sort of boat show.But those are all "pre-owned" boats. Something doesn't look right.

What is really happening over there relates the the change of season. Lots of boats and other recreational gear get stored over the winter inside one the various Fairgrounds buildings. All of the barns fill up and so does the Grandstand.

They apparently have something going on inside the Grandstand this week so the stuff stored inside is all being moved outside.Some people were showing up with trucks and tow bars to haul their stuff away. I spent way too much time today just idly thinking about how the Fair staff contacts those people. Telephone? Doubt it, too many calls. Update the Fair social media page? Twitter? Sky writing?

I may have to spend some more time tomorrow just idly thinking about this same problem.

A Mr. Don Key is here to see you.

It has been dreary and coolish the past couple of days but today the sun came out. Guess what, it was still just a tad coolish for bicycling. Riding today required a couple of layers.

This is the first trip of the season to see if this artwork is still present on the Farm campus lawn.I couldn't decide which view I liked better so I decided to post them both. I think the first one is a better photograph from a technical viewpoint but the next one provides the highly satisfactory view of all of the cows and the bicycle.

LOOK at the cows.This is the best clown photo I was able to get. Actually, it is the ONLY clown photo I was able to get.It isn't very good of the clown but it does have the virtue of having a Shriner in frame.