Ride report

There hasn't been much bicycling around here lately but today I had the time and for a change it was NOT raining.

It was cool, only about 52 when I set out but as noted many times previously, I have the gear.  Mostly east wind with a hint of north led me out towards the northern lakes.

The greening up that has occurred here really shows up at Lake Vadnais.

Pretty blue sky with only a few clouds.

I believe it is about to be Tulip Time in Holland.  This is the local tulip enthusiast's streetside tulip bed.

Careful examination might reveal that those tulips are just slightly, like a day or two past peak, particularly the yellow ones.  On the other hand the bright red and the pinks look pretty close to peak.

I didn't accumulate many miles in April but it was more than in March.  Today it just felt really good to be out there riding around.

First time going to work

I was honored to be present for the very first appearance at work of tBGR.  She is six weeks old today and was the prime attraction at lunch for her mother and her mother's co-workers.  We got a group photo at the baby girl's mommy's cubicle.

I enjoyed meeting all of the Toro folks and I must say they were all quite taken with tBGR.  Most of the people in the photo took a turn at "baby time" and held the mostly pretty sleepy but definitely quite adorable Norah.  I suggest that every person should occasionally avail themselves of the opportunity to touch a baby's cheek.  Baby soft.

I also could not help but notice that several things that I had at my desk the last time I appeared at the plant are still in the rotation at this work place.

Here is a photo I took last week when my sister was in town.  We visited the other family baby and her proud parents and got a photo opportunity at a spectacular spring floral location.

Sometimes the best photos are when the subjects are posing for someone else's camera.

They were looking at great auntie.

It was such a spectacularly photogenic spot that we eventually had to move away so that professional wedding photographs could be taken in that exact spot.

We got there first.

Feels like June

After snow flurries comes several days of sunny skies, mid-70s, and very strong winds.

Two of those three make for ideal bicycling weather and I have gotten in a couple of rides despite the extreme negative effect of the third.

I have pictured this exact plant at least three times in years past.  It is the plant if I am on my regular route to the south when this species first produces blossoms is the first of this species that I come to.  So here it is, the first flowering shrub.

It was my first opportunity for a destination ride in the other direction.

I crossed over into the really big city and was proceeding south along my preferred route (which is NOT the path along the river road) when I came across something I don't like to see.

That's what happens EVERYWHERE when the price of your real estate including what was at its moment in time a pretty nice little house in a nice neighborhood but now the price of the real estate is just barely more than the price of the unimproved lot.

You go from pretty nice little house in a nice neighborhood all the way back to unimproved lot.  In an afternoon.

The people who own that bit of real estate have a right which I support to do whatever they like with what THEY own.  I hope it doesn't ruin the neighborhood.

Never enough photos of the falls.

Very pretty day out there although the water level seems kinda low for the spring melt.

The photos are from Thursday.  I was over there again today but there were way too many of my fellow citizens in attendance to allow for a decent photograph.

Spring time.

Daylight savings time begins

Early season rides are almost always loops somewhere near home.  The real season doesn't really begin until I actually go somewhere.  This one happened now almost a week and a half ago, on the day when DST began under the old rules.  I went somewhere.

It was a nice day for a ride.  The only problem was that the destination for the ride wasn't quite ready for me.

Even so, that one definitely counts, the first ride of the season out to Vadnais.  The road being closed wasn't really a problem for a bicyclist.  Visible frame right is what the municipal authorities refer to as a multiple use trail, what bicyclists refer to as a sidewalk.

The gate on the sidewalk was open and I easily found a gap to dodge the pedestrians to get past the road closed sign.

I thought that yellow bark bush was pretty attractive.

In other bicycle related news the GRider had some shifting issues towards the end of last season.  I think I narrowed it down to something with the rear derailer but I was not able to resolve the issue on my own.  The barrel adjuster for the rear derailer moved in only one direction and it wasn't the direction I needed to resolve the problem

I figured out the bike rack and hauled her Bianchi over to the bike shop.

They did something, we shall see.

Here is the bicycle returning home.  I went ahead and angle parked in front of my house to get a photo of the Bianchi on the rack including a backdrop of the Big New Tree.

The Big New Tree looks great, we think.

This one wasn't taken today either.  It is from last Thursday I think.  Conditions were not very bikey, conditions are seldom very bikey when water forms into one of its solid forms in a puddle on the street in front of our house.

Upon further consideration that is clearly last Friday.  Trash and recycling are on Friday.

So today I did get in a pretty excellent ride.  It was 46 and overcast but the wind was less than it has been for any ride I have taken so far this year.  There was a 10 percent chance of precipitation but I went ahead and gambled on 90 percent.

46 is just fine in the fall, 46 in the spring is usually a little bit too cold.  Today was a little bit too cold.  As everyone knows, however, I have the gear.

I rode the last two miles in the 10 percent zone.  Over near Snelling and B the precipitation was rain, enough rain to wet the pavement.  46 and raining is pretty unpleasant.  Fortunately it was very light rain and fortunately it didn't really last long enough for anything to actually get very wet.  Nearer to home the pavement was mostly dry as I rode in what was unmistakably snow flurries.

It had been a long time since the last time I rode in flurries.

Nice bike

There is lots going on around here.

*Norah*

And then the weather has not been the greatest.

But I did get out for a ride and even took a picture.  I think I will just back date the thing and pretend that I posted this the day I actually took the ride.

So here goes.

I had a nice ride that day but when you ride in March on even the nicest of days you are riding without many other bicyclists out there.  My bike log says 60s and sunny, nice but windy.  It was my first ride of the year on my nice bike which was good but I did not get even a single nice bike from anyone else out there. 

So when I got home I stood my bicycle up against the garage door and took a picture.

"Nice bike," I said to myself.

Spring snow

We are getting a couple of inches here today into tonight ending by mid-morning tomorrow.  This will tend to retard the season slightly.  However I have fairly significant progress concerning the season to report as indicated by the view out my window yesterday morning.

With that task having been completed by the municipality's public works department it can only be another ride or two before I get my nice bicycle out.  I need clean streets for the skinny, high air pressure tires, don't you know.

Of course I now also need to get past that whole snow thing.

The other item of interest today is mostly as reported elsewhere on the internet.  To introduce, I had had a really nice digital SLR for several years.  In a perhaps shocking display of lack of appreciation for that really nice camera, I went out late last fall and upgraded.  The old camera, an excellent camera, was old enough that it was photography only.  The new camera, also an excellent camera, can take video.

I told everyone who would listen including the saleswoman at National Camera that I needed video capability because it appeared that I would shortly be in NEED of the capability of shooting really important video.

See elsewhere on the internet for some really important video.

Baby gets dressed and goes home

At the age of 2 (days that is) Norah Opal Rinderknecht made the first big move of her destined to be hugely celebrated life by getting dressed for the first time in her own clothes and going home.  Here mother and daughter pause at the main entrance of the hospital while we wait for Dad to bring the car around.  Norah sports a stunning someone else is going to have to name that color hoodie and socks.

Socks are a new experience for the 2 day old and for sure, that's her first hoodie.

In her own house in the chair in the corner.

I took lots of pictures today but it seems that most of the pictures I took I took with their camera.  I did get this one which may be the one that TOPWLH has been looking for.

Grandma Barbara with Norah, still in the hospital, still while Norah was getting ready to make her first excursion out into the big world.

Welcome Norah.