Nice biked by a small person

We rode some pavement that we don't ride very often.  A south wind made us want to head out in that direction but a complete reconstruction of Raymond Avenue and the Raymond Avenue bridge OVER the railroad tracks on the other side of Deadman's Curve (where Raymond goes UNDER another set of tracks) means that there is a severe shortage of routes that get us more than about two miles south.

We crossed the tracks (under at McMurray and then over at Pierce Butler) using the MUT along Lexington.  This led us to an ash tree for which we have great affection.  The ash trees are just starting to go yellow, the Emily Tree was today starting to show some yellow against another beautiful blue sky.

That maple tree in Kathy and Larrie's yard (they don't live there anymore either) is starting to show some interesting red.

On the way home we passed through a family bicycling on the sidewalk along Hoyt.  In this case bicycling on the sidewalk is totally acceptable as the two members of the family actually on bicycles where about 6 and 4 years old respectively.  The smaller of the two, on one of those tiny kid purple bikes with training wheels remarked to her father (who was on foot) that "that's a pretty cool bike".

So I got "Nice Biked" by a four year old.

I think it is the new tires.  Green, don't you know.

On FirstLOOK I palp tires in a green colorway.

Further Gino saith not.

More bicycle content

This actually occurred yesterday when morning showers convinced me to keep my bicycle in the garage and perform some necessary maintenance tasks.

I am halfway done, one orange tire and one green tire.

Today was the first long pants day of the fall season.  The high for the day was actually pretty close to average for the day but I started my ride at a temperature about 20 degrees F below the tempeature at which I finished my last ride two days ago.

There was also a nice fresh north wind, perfect conditions to make it chilly.

Long pants and full fingered gloves, long sleeve jersey and a jacket.

But at the water level at Lake Vadnais has rebounded about two feet of the three or so that it was down the last time I was out there.  That shallow area just off shore was dry land on Sunday.

FirstLOOK for scale.

On FirstLOOK I palp tires in a green colorway.

Signs of Fall

These trees do not look very healthy, I suspect that might be part of the reason why parts of the trees are fully changed colors and have even lost most of the leaves.  But it was a pretty day and the juxtaposition of the wonderful fall lighting with the green and the orange and the blue sky appealed to me.

Here's an irritating sign of Fall, the first of the year but almost certainly not the last, a leaf that got caught in my brake creating an unpleasant scratching miscellaneous noise.

And as is often the case it turned out to be not quite that easy to remove it as it seems like pulling a leaf off the front fork should be.  I had to reach around on the inside to get a hold on the stem before the thing would relent and leave my bicycle alone.

Chapeau to my geology friends for teaching me to include an ordinary object from daily life to establish scale.  That's my foot.  It was a small leaf.

Lake Mead

Two days of rain and a dreary morning had us as late as 12:15 thinking that no ride was the order of the day.  But I had lunch, checked the radar one last time, went out the front door and stood on the driveway for a bit . . .

Pretty soon we were on our bicycles heading north.

Today was my first ride this year on this bicycle.  I have over 20,000 miles on FirstLOOK, I know that it fits.  I also have over 14,000 miles on the bicycle that I have ridden the most over the past five years.

So . . .

The fit is slightly different.  I felt slightly more upright today but I also noticed that I have a KOP (knee over pedal) position that is more in line with what is recommended.  I don't know for sure (and won't for at least a few hundred miles) exactly what this means but I do know that today we were (for us) fast.

We repeated the hybrid 8 lakes tour route that I rode for my last ride.  Three days later something has happened out there.  We have been riding to Lake Vadnais for several years and this is the first time we have seen this bit of lake bed.

The lake is very significantly down from ordinary water levels.  Usually the water beings right beyond the bushes.  A fairly important side effect is that it smells pretty bad.

Just a bicycle note here, an orange colorway in the tires that I am palping.

 I love this bicycle.  I cannot imagine from my current perspective any good reason for not having ridden it very much recently.

We were trying to leave the area when this very Lake Mead-like photo opportunity presented itself.

Checking the water marks on the side of that structure it looks to me to be fairly evident that Lake Vadnais is down about three feet from its ordinary high water mark.  It may not be quite time for the Lake Mead panic but on the other hand Lake Vadnais IS the source of water for the Saint Paul water works, the source of water for the water we drink.

I think Nevada and California have bigger problems than the problems we have.

In unrelated completely non-bicycle content, hockey returned to our lives today as the Gophers won an exhibition game against a non-NCAA team featuring 13 former Gophers.  A team with that many former Gophers should be expected to be a formidable opponent and they were.  Minnesota won by a score of 5-4.  And we had fun.

Today's bicycle content

We are experiencing our second consecutive day of rain.  The evidence that I have been able to compile indicates that it now rains EVERY day after the autumnal equinox.

But I got one bicycle moved down into the basement and one bicycle moved out to the garage.  I looked at the orange tires and they don't actually seem THAT bad so I am going to try to ride them for a while.  I like palping tires in an orange colorway.  They pumped up just fine.

In the passage of bicycles I noticed some rusty thumb screws on the water bottle holders.  So tire pumping and water bottle screw replacement is all I got done today.  At least it is something.

And yes, the water bottle holders look a little crusty too but they are just plastic.  I cleaned them up a tiny bit but the truth is most of the time the unsightly parts will be covered up by a water bottle.

And to answer the question in the comments.  Yes indeed, I have ridden 14,014 miles on the bicycle I just put into the basement.  Most years I put more miles on my bicycle than I put on my car.

I ride a lot, it adds up.

But . . . Here is the odometer on the bicycle I moved out to the garage.

I originally retired that one because I just thought 20,000 miles was ENOUGH on any bicycle.

I have changed my mind, I assembled this bicycle from parts, this is the bicycle I should be riding.

And after a few more rides I will be palping tires in a shocking chartreuse green colorway.  I promise.

Retirement ride

No, not me, silly.  I am already retired.

No, today was a ride to mark the retirement from primary equipment of NewLOOK.

It rained this morning and I was pretty sure there wouldn't be a ride.  As I was having lunch I noticed that the sun was out and by golly the street looked dry, there just wasn't any reason at all NOT to ride.

By about 4pm it was starting to cloud up again, the forecast says 60 percent chance of thunderstorms tonight and tomorrow (and tomorrow night).  So today's ride was a bonus and also a thing of beauty during a small window of the day when it was really quite nice out there.  I rode north out to the many lakes, mostly the traditional Vadnais ride (I had'nt been there for a while) although I did hybridize the thing by trying to ride on the way back the reverse of the new route which we have been riding this summer.  I wanted to ride that bit to see if it was flatter.  It wasn't.

A person who rides with me frequently might well recognize this location, this is where I was when the mandatory retirement mileage was reached.

I had reached mandatory retirement mileage but I was quite a ways from home.  I had to ride a few more miles (sort of like working a couple of months beyond retirement age, something I also did).  That's Snail  Lake Road approaching the intersection with Rice Street.  That business straight ahead is the Sucker Lake portion of the Vadnais/Sucker Lake park complex.  You know, the frequent destination for the northern many lakes ride.

It was very, very pretty there for a while.  This was taken while I was riding the entry road into Sucker Lake.

We are still very early in the process but the trees are starting to show some yellow.  This is a look at the north end of Lake Vadnais.

So here you go, a look at my bicycle odometer taken after I arrived back at my garage.

Note that I have gone with the double 14s meaning that that least favored number has been jumped past in two separate ways.  A twofer.

Also note that that really unsightly bar tape problem has now been reduced to an off-season (aka winter) project.

I really like that bike and I am going to miss it.  But I have a bicycle in the basement that I personally assembled.  I have reached a point where that now seems to me to be the most appropriate bicycle for me to be riding.  I am going to have to pump some tires as a minimum but that (and carrying it out of the basement) is all that is required before I can put FirstLOOK back on the road.

If you check that info area over on the left you can reaffirm that on FirstLOOK I palp tires in an orange colorway.  Unfortunately, the orange tires currently on the bicycle are beyond mandatory retirement mileage so at the first opportunity I will be changing them.  At that time I will also be changing the blog description to indicate that on FirstLOOK I will be palping tires in a really shocking chartreuse green colorway.

Stay tuned.

What? No equinox?

It says elsewhere on the internet that TOMORROW is the official sun crosses the equator day.  I didn't know that and sort of thought it was a big day for a ride.

Well, 77 at the Cattle Barn on the day that usually is the equinox IS a big day for a ride.  There won't be many more of these before June.

I tried to find an alternative route down to the Capitol.  The direct route features heavier traffic than a like and as is always the case on streets with heavier traffic, too much broken glass.

I found a way down into the city and tried the new Charles Avenue bicycle boulevard.  I found couple of really large brick churches, a Lutheran and a Catholic, pavement (always a good thing on a road bike), but not a very satisfying route.

The big building looks a lot cleaner to me but note that the sign says that it is still closed.

I am fully aware that it is remodeling but there is something vaguely troublesome to me to find the seat of government closed.  I sometimes agree, I sometimes disagree with what they are doing down there but in either case it seems better for all concerned if they are open for business.

It was a very pretty day at the Capitol grounds.

Here is another bench and some more mystery ice at the Fairgrounds. 

That ice isn't as mysterious as the last bit.  Lots of people might dump a cooler into the gutter there, especially if they had been, for example, sitting on that bench.

That's the Cattle Barn in the background.  As noted, 77 at about 2:45.

Warm for the unequinox.