Feedback

I logged on to blogger today and discovered that I had a comment awaiting moderation.  This doesn't happen very often so I went ahead and took a look.  The comment was actually on a post from November 22, 2010.  Take a look.  I decided the comment was totally acceptable and okayed publication.

There are more signs of fall.

I think this thing is a woollybear caterpillar, widely considered a predictor of the severity of the upcoming winter.

I now know that it is the caterpillar form of the Isabella Tiger moth and I personally believe that that is all of the information I am going to require about this particular bug during the course of my lifetime.

As is the case almost every weekend of the fall season there is a horse show at the Fairgrounds.  I am not much of an expert on this sort of thing but that looks to me to be an English hunt riding costume and very distinctly not western saddles.

66 at the Cattle Barn at 2pm?  Pretty nice day for mid-September.

I have been circling around the new west entrance trying to discover new things and today I found these moose hiding behind the fence over near the grandstand.

They are visible from the parking lot but this is a parking lot which while it will see use during the Fair will be only occasionally used during the rest of the year.  The meese are not visible from the general area of the Grandstand and they are during the Fair hidden behind a bunch of tents and stuff on the inside of that fence running off frame towards the right.

Still, I like them plenty fine, thank you.

I was still riding and I came upon what I consider to be a fairly novel approach to lawn care.  This fellow has just gone ahead and installed artificial turf.

This tree looks like it has suffered some fairly severe damage there on the main trunk, the top half of the tree looks to have been sheared off.

I don't remember that storm but why would I.  Without a crown the rest of the tree presents a nice angle to display the red, red leaves and the blue, blue sky.

Vadnais

The weather websites proclaimed today to be calm, no wind at all.  That was close enough to being correct to encourage me to try to do something to the very seldom ridden of late northern lakes.

This complaint is probably getting old to some others but it is still relevant to me.  It is hard to get anywhere going north without bumping into a massive chip and seal project in the city of Shoreview.

But I have figured out a way around it using not very often ridden Roseville city streets and today bobbed and weaved my way out to Lake Vadnais.

Usually by this time of year I have a couple of dozen photos of the lake based on having been there multiple dozens of times.  This year there is a, to me, noticeable lack of photos from out there but I think I got a nice one today.  The trees on the far shore are not exactly in full fall colors but the green is very definitely not up to July intensity.  The entire world is starting to turn just a tiny bit more yellow.

I made it all the way up to Highway 96 today, my usual northern turnback point.  I was way east, in Vadnais Heights, not Shoreview but I felt pretty good about getting all the way to the normal northern limit.  This is a shot of the northern edge of Sucker Lake where the creek enters the lake just south of 96.

Here's the spot where the beavers ruled for most of last summer.  Clearly the rule of beavers has been terminated.

No sign of the dam and a water level about a foot and a half to two feet lower than when the colony was out there.

It's a pretty spot even if it is a swamp.

Turn around at the pump

I had a guest rider today and atmospheric conditions which yet again favored a ride to the south.

Darn, it is hard to get to the south without riding on new chip and seal.  We made our move by detouring quite a bit to the west using the UofM transitway and the Franklin Avenue bridge.

Shortly after crossing the bridge into Minneapolis we were riding on believe it or not Minneapolis Avenue when signs of fall started to pop up.

We didn't ride much farther after that, choosing to stay near the river.  We came upon this unique public water source on the river road parkway.

I went ahead and pumped it a few times but was getting mostly some squeaky handle action.  I tired of the exercise but the GRider jumped in and gave it a few more pumps and voila, water.

A passing Minneapolis resident offered the information that the pump worked fine but the water has to come from a fair distance down and more pumping than I (but not a combination of I and the GRider) had been willing to do is required to get wet.

He also stated that the water is quite good, which the GRider confirmed.

Extremes

The last couple of weeks have reinforced in me the notion that I don't really ride in extremes.  For example, I missed some time in July because high temperatures were 15 or so degrees below average for those dates.  An early September run of temperatures a tiny bit more than that below the average has induced another run of, no, sorry, I guess I won't be riding today.

Of course of the last four days there were also a couple of those days when it WAS RAINING.  I hate riding in the rain but I, of course, hate even more riding in the rain when it is TOO COLD.

But today's high temperatures promised to be within less than 15 degrees of the average high.  The sun was out, it never feels quite as cold when the sun is beating down.  I stalled and stalled and didn't really want to drag all of that end of October gear out of storage but eventually I did.

It was 56 at the Cattle Barn at 2:40.

Which turns out to be totally acceptable for a guy who can judge conditions correctly.  I am 100 percent positive that there will be multiple hundreds of miles ridden between now and snowmegaddon, quite often with temperatures in the 50s.  I believe this because without having ridden for a couple of days I today totally nailed the gear necessary to ride in today's conditons, those same 50s.  Well, not quite, I did have to return home at 1.88 miles to add the long fingered liners under my bicycle gloves but other than that I looked out the window and predicted what gear would suit the conditions and went and rode in total comfort.

Tights, long fingered gloves, three layers on my torso, two layers on my arms.

Late in today's ride I arrived at a place where I may not ever be again.  And in an upset of major proportions I have finally figured out how to get this photo into focus even with my pocket camera.

I have a setting on my bicycle computer that records miles ridden total in 1/100ths of a mile.  The trip up function only goes up to 999.99 before resetting at zero but today I reached 11, 111.11 miles ridden on this bicycle.  Here's what that looks like on the "trip up" function.

But then, of course, there is total odometer function.  Which at the exact same spot where I took the above photograph I with only a single click of the change display button arrived at this display.

I say I may never be at this place again.  In truth, I still own one more bicycle with more than 10,000 miles ridden cumulative but less than 11,111.

So who knows?

The most interesting thing about those photos to me is that after several years of not being able to get that shot into focus with the pocket camera I have apparently EUREKA figured it out.

Corn reports have been at a minimum this growing season but here's what is probably a last one.

Most of the corn is down although there is still some over there in the distance frame right center.  Most of the corn is down.

Lastly, even a luddite loves it when after abandoning some old school really no longer relevant technology he discovers that there is a luddite more lud that I.

I caved to modernism this year and got the giant HD TV.  I gave up a giant and still functioning cathode ray SD TV.  It worked just fine, sorta like this one.  I did not have a tape measure along but that looks suspiciously like the 42 inch Sony I had dragged out of our TV room by the guys who delivered the new really BIG TV.

But, and I don't think this is totally insignificant, mine was a Trinitron.  That thing at its best was an off brand.  I promise to keep checking back but honest to gosh I cannot imagine anyone wanting to have that 200 pound behemoth inside their house when a giant HD TV weighing in at about 30 pounds is available.

Great day for a ride even if the temperature was a bit on the lower extreme of what is acceptable.

No one there

I keep trying slightly different routes down towards the south and so far not much is very promising.  The chip and seal project in that part of the big city is quite pervasive.  But south it had to be again today.  Another spectacular early September day made the exploration plenty enjoyable even if the pathfinding continues to be unsuccessful.

Today's swing through the Fairgrounds produced this new experience.  That guy is power washing the sidewalk in front of one of the Fair's most successful businesses.  There are two of these stands on the grounds and at this one, for instance, we walked on the near side of that mid street grassy boulevard to avoid the teeming masses lined up to purchase fresh out of the oven cookies from helpful young minimum wage persons on the other side of the counters at those windows.

I didn't realize previously that the cookie stand creates a mess that while not as significant as the french fries places grease spot, is still major enough to require a power wash clean up.  I rode over and got a better look and indeed there is a fairly significant amount of grease on the sidewalk there too.  But mostly it seemed like he was washing cookie debris out of the cracks.

As I say something new.  And so is this.

The young people have kept us informed about the appearance of a new car share service which has been established here.  You pay a fee and join the group and then you can use one of these cars anytime you have the need for a car.  Here's a surprise, it is mostly done with a phone app.  You log on and your phone gives you the location of the nearest Car2Go.

It was a circuitous route, for instance I discovered that you can ride your bicycle through the parking lot at Minnehaha Academy and cut a couple of blocks off the route I have used in the past when I have to get around that campus.  Eventually I found myself down at the Falls which again today were putting on a routinely gorgeous display.

But it felt like it must feel on the beach the week after Labor Day.

No one there.

No one at all except me.

Yet another flat tire story

At a retirement party for her brother yesterday TOPWLH was able to recount for interested friends and family what she has done each and every day since SHE retired.  I am now engaged in doing the same thing which has caused me to miss an entire night's sleep and develop a severe case of laryngitis.  I am all the way up to . . .

Obviously I am doing no such thing.

We had a tiny bit of excitement on our ride today.  The Saint Paul Classic group ride was held today.  That is actually a morning thing but when we reached Como Avenue shortly past noon the traffic control cones were still up and traffic control provided by the ride organizers was still present at major intersections to stop the cross traffic and wave us through.

Even though we were not registered riders we mostly went along with the well intentioned police volunteers until at last we reached a fork in the road where a volunteer tried to wave us onto a left turn when our actual intention was to continue straight ahead and leave the ride route.

It was a beautiful day for a ride, I hope each and every one of those riders enjoyed the experience and will take from it the lasting message and direction given by the great Eddy Merckx, "Ride lots."

Our destination today was influenced strongly by chip and seal street maintenance all over the northwestern part of Saint Paul and by, of course, the wind direction.  We crossed the big river at Franklin and started filtering our way through Seward towards the Greenway.  Once we reached that major transit way, however, I experienced severe second thoughts about the advisability of riding on that MUT on a Sunday afternoon which was also one of the nicest Sunday afternoons in the history of Sunday afternoons.  People like this were out in profusion on the bike path.

So we stayed on the street and kept on all the way to Lake Street.  This seemed like a good place to turn around.

Just looking at All Wheels it would be my guess that although they may have once spoken Spanish there that most days now there are zero human beings on the premises and no languages at all are spoken.

We had just crossed back over the Greenway thing on our return voyage to the river crossing when the GRider gave a big oh-oh.

Flat tire.

Well, this time it WAS a rear tire but at least this time it wasn't me.  But this time it was 10 miles from home.  We found a patch of shade and I started to work.  Before even removing the wheel I gave the tire a squeeze to convince myself that we WERE having this bad luck and immediately noticed a big chunk of something embedded in the tire quite near to the valve stem.  Eventually we dug four big pieces of glass out of the outside of the tire.  Really bad luck.

I was getting down to the actual task when a really nice thing happened.  The fellow living across the street from the shady spot where we had stopped came out and asked if we had everything we needed to fix the tire.  We thanked him but also assured him that we had the items that were necessary for the repair.  He had some clippers with him and was soon putzing away at something in the boulevard in front of his house.  After having spent a little time getting the tube out it occurred to me that we had everything we NEEDED but actually as long as he was there and was offering there was something that we WANTED.  I dispatched the GRider over to where the fellow was clipping and had her ask him if he happened to have a pump.

Well, indeed he did.  In fact he not only had a pump, he had a really nice Specialized pump.  I had a mini-pump and a CO2 pump with me but there just isn't anything to get you confidently back on the road to compare with a really nice floor pump.

Back on the road we passed the tulip patch near our home.

This guy is serious.  All that work he did there last fall was apparently a double planting, the tulip bulbs to bloom in the spring and black eyed Susans to bloom in the fall.

I dropped the GRider off at home when she had completed her requested number of miles and headed off for a small loop completely west of Snelling to get my mileage up to what I wanted.  This is extremely odd looking to me.

I kinda resembles a soccer goal but it is too large for that and further more it doesn't have the characteristics of a goal.  It is a pipe frame with white netting strung tightly.  It appears to be at the approximate property line between those two houses but whatever can be its purpose?

Possibly it is one side or the other hoping to settle some grievous neighbor problem.

There are about to be a lot of these.

That's the neighborhood gives up way too early maple.  Right now the colorful display outlined against an absolutely not a cloud in that blue sky helps to show what a gorgeous day it was today in Minnesota.

60 at the Cattle Barn

Well, that was abrupt.  Even the coolish days of mid-July had nothing to offer to compare to today's first day of fall.  60 at the Cattle Barn at about 2pm.

There hasn't been much bicycle content here for a while.  There almost was some content yesterday though.  It was about 15 degrees warmer yesterday than it was today and the usual ride time featured an outdoors that invited me to resume the season.  I got my full costume on and headed out to the garage to discover a flat front tire.

Well . . .

Particularly nasty weather.  That's part of an extremely old joke I used to tell long, long ago.

This time I went full contact, no holds barred, this has got to stop tire repair.  I removed the tube, located the tiny, tiny hole.  To do this I had to inflate the tube (it seemed to hold air just fine), and then pass the entire tube underneath the surface of the pan full of water I had drawn in the laundry tubs.  You might not be able to feel or hear the air escaping from a tube but it is nearly impossible to miss the tell tale trail of bubbles coming from underneath the water.

Now knowing where approximately on the tire the flat had occurred and considering that it was similarly enough situated on the tube to indicate that this was likely a recurrence, not a new problem, I went to defcon about 2.  I completely removed the tire from the rim.  I turned the tire inside out and started running my finger along the area where the flat HAD to be.  Soon enough, bingo, small sharp thing.  I worked on it with thumbnail and fingernail and soon enough was unable to feel anything sharp above the inside surface of the tire.

Not good enough, this is exactly where I was the last time the front tire flatted and at which time I declared the problem solved.  I couldn't feel anything but I hadn't actually seen the piece of whatever it was that had caused the flat.

I turned the tire right side out and examined the same area looking for some evidence of something on the outside.  I could find nothing.

Back to the inside I started working with my pocket knife and then eventually with GRider's tweezers to try and find something that could be pulled up to that inner surface.  Eventually I changed strategy and pushed the point of the tweezers down into the area where the sharp thing had been and at last felt something like a tiny bit of resistance.  Back on the outside I now had a protrusion.  Tweezers already at the ready I grasped and removed a 1.5mm or so piece of wire of about the size or a bit smaller than a paper staple.  A tiny, tiny piece of metal, so small as to be nearly invisible when I placed it down on the kitchen counter thinking to try to get a photograph (which proved to be outside the capabilities of my photographic equipment).

Count this as an hour well spent.

I now have a tube on my front wheel with TWO patches.  Unprecedented in my bicycling history.

Outdoors, the front passed through overnight.

Today was jacket weather.

60 at the Cattle Barn.

We know this because that's where we went, our third trip in the last week and a half or so to the State Fair.

This is one of my annual favorites, the view of the sidewalk in front of one the heavy duty greasy food establishments, in this case the Fresh French Fries stand visible in the above photo.  Keep in mind that there was heavy rain one of the final days of the Fair and that it has rained a couple of times (at least one time a hard rain) since the completion of the 12 days of fun.

So probably a lot of grease has already been washed away but that still seems to me to be a pretty impressive grease spot.

My last post includes a shot of Andy's Grille from fairly close to the same angle as this.  Life has changed at the Fairgrounds.

An example of just how radically life has changed is this picture of the intersection by the DNR building, looking uphill towards Martha's Cookies and at the end of the block the Food Building.

Our gang of three passed through there on the day that a new single day attendance record was set and any of us will attest that it was an absolute chore to work your way through the teeming mass of humanity.  The cookie place up there on the right greatly contributes to the traffic problem there.  People waiting to purchase a bucket of chocolate chip cookies are backed up 20 or 30 deep in front of the stand effectively blocking off at least half of the street.

Our collective view is that the cookies are not even that good.  We do not dispute, however, that they are popular.

So, up at the Food Building here is the location of one of our absolutely top of the list must have concessions, the Danielson and Daughters Onion Rings stand.

You can almost exactly pinpoint the location of the stand by noting the grease stains.  That corner of grease slightly left of frame center is the location of the pick up window.  You order and pay over here closer to the camera (you know, the no grease area), and then move down to that other location to receive your greasy onion rings.

We were mostly on a fact finding expedition but a once in a life time opportunity became available.  Well actually for me it was the second time I have had this opportunity so maybe . . .

Usually any opportunity to get inside the Cattle Barn occurs when the floor is covered with straw and . . . well . . . manure.  Today the clean up was nearly complete.

Wanna guess what we did next?  We rode our bicycles through the barn, exiting at the far end in front of the Swine Barn.

The temperature report at the CB was as I have said 60.  We tried to get a report from the EG or the AOWG but those message boards have not been set back to time and temperature.  Instead you get what we found today at the west end.

The next slide in the display said see you next year.

Probably true, we love the Fair.  We will probably be there again for the 12 days of fun ending September 7, 2015, Labor Day.  This year had the earliest possible Labor Day and therefore the earliest possible last day of the Fair.  Next year will be the latest possible, as I write the end of next year's Fair is still 367 days, more than a year, away.