Tan Candle Fitness Regime

The way to make coaches think you're in shape in the spring is to get a tan. - Whitey Ford

When we were kids up at the cabin, my mom took us into town one day and we got to dip candles into wax. This was the best photo I could find online that shows how you can dip them to get bands of progressively darker colors (it's similar to the technique you'd use to make striped Easter eggs). 

Anyhow, this time of year, particularly this weekend, this is what my legs look like (although they're a slightly lighter hue). The top band is the light part that rarely makes a public appearance, due to the infrequency that I wear a swimsuit as an adult (when you're a kid you'll swim in ANY weather). The lighter brown color is from when I wear my shorter shorts (like on yesterday's nearly 50-mile ride with Kim in Scott County), the darker color is from my longer shorts down to the ankle (like from today's nearly 60-mile ride to meet Matt and go to scenic Grey Cloud Island).

It was good to get out two days in a row since I'm doing a 100-mile ride next Saturday and I suspect that my work trip to the mothership in ATL this week will involve a fair amount of sitting in addition to the inevitable eating out for most meals. (This time, I packed breakfast foods in my luggage. We'll see how it goes.) 

Looking at a ton of unsuitable candle photos on Google made me realize that the candle dipping tourism industry is faltering, unfortunately.

Some Time to Think Over a Piece of Humble Pie

As you may recall, the flooding of the Minnesota River has impacted some of the routes that my friend Matt and I ride, but not our creativity. Ahem. Today, to mix it up, we drove to Prior Lake to ride the Great Scott route. I did nearly this exact route on July 4, 2017, and have been wanting to go back. The first thirteen miles went quickly. This likely was due to a tailwind; I mistakenly thought that perhaps I got more fit while doing the 5-day BikeMS ride last week.

When we arrived in Jordan, Matt announced that his shifter cable had snapped and he was stuck in one gear. While he removed the broken cable, I took this photo of the little river running near the cute downtown area.

We looked online for any bike shops (other than Michael's Cycles, in Prior Lake, which wouldn't open until noon). Google apparently thinks that this meat market down the road would be able to help fix Matt's bike.

Anyhow, Matt decided that he could do the remaining hilly and headwindy 37 miles in one gear. Yeah. So he did. And he rode super duper fast. I had all 22 gears available to me, rode as fast as my back would allow, and could not keep up. 

This gave me some time to think about some highlights from the past week that did not already make it into my typo-ridden phone dispatches from the various Ride Across Minnesota camping areas.

In no particular order, although apparently mostly chronological:

• I really would like to go back to Northfield. The one brewery (and its food) was really good, the town is quaint. I don't know that I need to see the Jesse James reenactment thing again, but wouldn't go out of my way to avoid it.
• Owatonna has a free county fair. Their old-timey Village of Yesteryear or whatever it is called was really interesting. I wouldn't make a special trip, but I wouldn't go out of my way to avoid it. 
• Kellie and Gregg provided some good intel on the Impossible Burger, which is a vegan burger offered at a few restaurants I've visited. (It was delicious, and Lavaburger's lava sauce was deliciously spicy.)
• I am SO GLAD I asked the fairgrounds workers in Owatonna about the schedule for the sprinkler system and they turned off the sprinklers so that roughly 300 of the riders wouldn't get sprayed at midnight! 
• The pizza farm near Waseca served as a good reminder that the summers are short and a pizza farm (not to be confused with Dave's Brew Farm) needs to be a priority. 
• The Cycleops team still has tons of creativity for the team poems and team songs. I have a team crush on them. Not a teen crush.
• Not many cities have campgrounds and, if it hadn't been so rainy, I would have liked to have spent more time in Mankato's Land of Memories Park. It might be worth checking out again sometime, just to see what it is like when the river levels are normal. If I was a kayaker/canoer, I think I'd be all over it. 
• I suspect I was among the small percentage of BikeMS cyclists who really liked the hills/river valleys between Mankato and Rapidan on Friday. We were warned that there'd be some hills, but even I was surprised. We weren't warned that it would be 20 miles to the first rest stop, which is probably what made most riders grumpy (20 miles is far, even in flat spaces, for a stretch of a BikeMS ride), in addition to a second day of rain. The pie at the Dam Store was a great ROI.
• I stayed at a hotel Thursday night, and am really glad I did it. I thought I might feel wimpy. I felt great in the hot tub after riding in the rain all day and was glad not to camp with damp gear.
• Peter, a volunteer for the MS Society who was a photojournalist for 40 years in NYC and was taking team photos for the event is the main volunteer for advocacy work in Minnesota. While all the rest stop and traffic control volunteers who have MS are very inspiring, he is amazing. He was working hard to convince me to help do some Minnesota-based advocacy in my *free* time. I am going to give him a call. 
• It was great to see our new teammate, Mike, who has never done a multi-day ride, power through the 3-day route. I love all the smiles and laughs of my teammates Kim, Alicia, and Danaca, and the finish line surprise offered by birthday girl Stacy, Keisha, and Kelly. I loved spending 5 days with my friend Deb, who is a powerhouse and did this ride for the second year in a row. I hope I will stay as strong as she is as time marches on. 
• I also got to spend time with our new friends Gregg and Kellie who rode for the first time this year and camped and hotel-ed with us. I was missing them today on my bike ride. They are funny and sweet. They don't have a car, so they don't really ride recreationally (just like I don't go for a Sunday drive in my car). I will need to find some other way to make them hang out with me. 

Quick Day 5 Debrief

As I take a break from sorting through duffel bag detritus, I offer today's brief recap:

- Great Lyft driver from hotel to starting line. He drove us to the luggage truck and to our bikes.
- Deb rode 10 feet and discovered she had a flat. So we turned back and had a bike shop fix it (staple in the tire).
- Unexpectedly, rest stop one was 20 miles from the start, given some adjustments made due to Thursday's rain.  They weren't joking when they said (at Mankato brewery on Thurs night) that there were a number of hills before rest stop one.
- I ate pie ala mode at rest stop one, in Rapidan, where there's a big dam. It drizzled to Rapidan, and rained more steadily for a while afterwards.
- Leaving rest stop three in Nicollet (after we reconvened with the team) was a little hairy - no shoulder; fast, big trucks. Deb got run off the road by a semi. Another rider required an ambulance.
- We had a number of visitors at the finish line and it was such a great surprise! Thanks, Stacy, Keisha, and Kelly! 💞
- Deb and I stayed at the finish to cheer on our camping and dining companions from the week - Kelli and Gregg, whose team is appropriately named, "MS is BS."

The Ride Across Minnesota (formerly known as TRAM) week is my favorite week of the year. I'm so grateful for the opportunity to do a great ride and to raise awareness and funds for this cause. I had such meaningful conversations this week with people affected by MS, reminding me why we ride.

Sog-a-licious

We got up earlier than normal, earlier than the sun, to try to get riding before the rain hit. (See photo of the lake - the view from my tent this a.m., after I took off my headlamp.)

We were riding by 6:15, the earliest I've ever ridden for TRAM, and we still were some of the last riders to leave camp. The rain started 10 minutes later. The rain was still light by the time I hit the first of the many churches that served as rest stops today (I declined the coffee, cinnamon rolls, and scrambled eggs, tried taking a selfie, and got some help.)

At 7:40, I thought the reasonable rain hitting my jacket sounded like rain on the tin roof of the old family cabin, and thought cocoa would be yummy. By 7:50, it was pretty torrential, and sounded like it. The rest stop #2 volunteers offered homemade brownies. When the rain slowed, we headed out into a pretty windy storm. We mostly had a tailwind, but the sidewinds and headwinds were crazy.

Rest stop #3 featured scalding hot church lady coffee, homemade cookies, and a boatload of adults who apparently do not know how to throw away their cups. My parents taught me better, and would have been proud of my cleanup skills.

Rest stop number four, also at a church, was where we learned that rest stop #5 would be the last stop of the day, due to a washout on the trail leading into Mankato. (See photo of Deb as we waited for the van to take is and our bikes to Mankato.)

I am warmed up from the hot tub at the hotel I impromptually (I know) booked the other night. I think it was a good decision, especially seeing the sodden grass at the camping area and the rain outside.

We'll be singing bye bye to MS, you and I

My favorite night of TRAM: the team song competition. The safety crew even participated this year! They moved team song and team poem to tonight because tomorrow will be icky.

Four members of our team joined Deb and me today, for the remainder of the week. Alicia took the photo of me. I rode with a guy today who has asked me if I'd be willing to be a mentor-like person for his daughter, which is an interesting story.

Anyhow, the team poems and songs were pretty funny this year, which helped provide some levity before we head into a day of rain tomorrow. I still can't believe we booked a hotel room, but I am really glad.

Day 2 Life Goals

Last night, we went to downtown Northfield and watched the reenactment of the defeat of the Younger-James gang. I snapped a pic of Kelli, Gregg, and Deb along the Cannon River.

Today, we were the last people to get on the road. I saw a huge hawk and some sandhill cranes early on, and took a picture of the church at rest stop 2.

Shortly after that, I rode a stretch with a man who said he was going slower than he'd prefer - usually no one passes him. But, this year, he's only ridden a total of 75 miles in addition to his weekly spinning class. Oh, and he's 80 years old. So, he decided to cut himself some slack. I hope I'll be riding when I'm 80.

When I pulled into rest stop 1, I saw a woman on the ground. She is a slight woman with limited mobility due to MS, who rides a recumbent bike. She's hearty - I've seen her on hills in lightning storms over the past couple of years. She apparently arrived and was throwing up and sort of collapsed. The theory, after an ambulance picked her up, was that she was too hot and possibly dehydrated. This is why we ride.

58, 43, potatoe potahtoe

1. I thought today would be super easy riding because the website said it was a 42-mile ride. It actually was a 58-mile day. It still was fine!

2. I didn't wear my padded shorts (not unusual), but forgot to put on my wicking, seamless undies. Hmm.

3. I realized at mile 18 that I was kind of tired because my brakes were on. I adjusted the levers and was fine for the remaining 40.

4. I ate the Le Center HS band pancake breakfast across from the Le Sueur County Courthouse (see photo).

5. There was a lot of roadkill killed in what we've deemed to be heroic positions.

6. One lady who has waved cyclists through intersections for years, with a little dance, now uses a scooter, rather than standing. This is why we ride.

Stillwater Still Life

A still life (plural: still lifes) is a work of art depicting mostly inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which are either natural (food, flowers, dead animals, plants, rocks, shells, etc.) or man-made (drinking glasses, books, vases, jewelry, coins, pipes, etc.).

I wasn't still yesterday. Although I didn't ride as much as intended, I still rode around Stillwater. And, like every other place around here, it is full of water. After that, I flitted around the house and yard for hours, tying up all the loose ends before I head to St. Peter today for this week's bike ride. (In between, there was a nice respite - my friend Matt and I tried lunch at my local book store cafe. I'd never had a sunny side up egg on pizza. It's good.)

Here are some photos of most inanimate, typically commonplace, or man-made objects from the ride.

Commonplace signs, these days. I like the look on my face.
It's almost like a dare.

Mostly, but not quite, inanimate: Matt told me to look natural.
That's impossible. I like how these photos show my attempts
at stifling a laugh.

Commonplace, lately. I wanted proof that we didn't go
through the water, although I broke the day's resolution
to not ride past any "path closed" signs.

Man-made, seemingly inanimate: The new bridge between MN and WI.
The old one is not yet open as a pedestrian bridge.
This one is pedestrian-friendly, though.

Man-made, less inanimate when a lot of other
curious cyclists and walkers have the same idea. Also,
the cars are very animated, but on the other side of a barrier.

Might not be a still life, technically, but this is Stillwater.
I can't vouch for the current.

http://main.nationalmssociety.org/goto/Maggie2018TourDeMN

For whom the bell tolls, but in a good way

Every time I pass a young girl learning to master the art of riding a bike, when I'm riding my own bike, I wave or shout a compliment ("I like your bike!" "Cool helmet!" "You're so fast!"). I sometimes do it for the boys, but always do it for the girls. Before June, when on this bike, I used to ring the teapot-shaped bell that Mary and Jane gave me. 

I want to encourage them. I didn't learn how to ride a bike until second or third grade, and I never was athletic. I want them to feel as happy riding their bikes as I feel riding my bike.

Which bike is whose?

This little red bike was locked up next to mine at the grocery store on Friday. As I loaded my bags on my bike, a little girl and her mom came out of the store and unlocked the bike. The girl and I talked about our bikes. It was a highlight of the afternoon.

So, the teapot bell got knocked off this bike when it was loaded on a semi on the way to the MS150. I believe the event that wrecked my bell is also the event that broke my left shifter. Decision point: Am I still keeping this bike? Am I replacing both shifters, or just the broken one? Am I doing anything else while the cables are detached, rim tape is removed, and derailleurs are getting messed with? Yes; yes, both; uhm, yes, finally. 

Using this bike as my backup on Sunday when the other bike was disassembled and all of its innards were drying out, and riding it today (with a pannier on the rack) to A Very Nice Happy Hour on the lovely WA Frost patio while the other bike was still(!) disassembled with its new rim tape and hopefully appropriately-tightened seat post makes me really appreciative to have this old thing around. Whoa, that was a long sentence.

I'll get the other one put together and cross my fingers that the seat post clamp is adjusted appropriately before next week's 5-day ride, and then drop this bike off for repairs when I'm traveling for work. The parts are on order now. But maybe I should also get a new bell.

http://main.nationalmssociety.org/goto/Maggie2018TourDeMN

The USS Minnow

Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale,

A tale of a fateful trip,

That started from Minneapolis,
Without even a ship.

The mate was a mighty cycling man,

Matt making his phone was above water

The skipper dumb and sure.

The current got too strong for pedaling. We
were surrounded by minnows and saw ducklings.

Five hours set aside that day,
For what coulda been a three-hour tour, a three-hour tour

The sign said the trail was closed,
We looked at it with doubt,
Because of the stupidity of the fearless crew,
Minnows swam around the bikes, minnows swam around

We biked across the bridge to the shore across the flooded ri-ver,
And hit a fence,
T'was really high,
We handed the bikes over,
Hung off the bridge,
To get around the fence
Here on the Minn'sota River.

We crossed the fence by climbing on the outside of the bridge.
Surely unadvisable.

So this is the tale of our bike riders,
They should know better than this.
Wanting to take this route
Cycling with some fish.

The first mate and the skipper too,

Will do their very best,

To drain the water from the bikes,

Which were put to the test.

The frame, the tires, the whole dang thing!

Full of water, caked with mud.

Like a sunken canoe,

It's dirty and full of crud.

So join us here each week my friend,

You're sure to get a smile.

From two people with poor judgment,

Who'll learn better in a while.

She went down to the river on a warm summer day; the air was thick with... humidity

Apologies to Bob Mould for the crummy post title, but this is where my brain went today while out for a ride. The air was definitely thick.

At the end of the workday yesterday (Tuesday, I guess, even though it felt like Friday), I snuck in a ride to St. Paul and back. The road was closed, but I saw a guy who accurately described the existing water on the road as passable. 

Lilydale Road on Tues night

It rained all day Tuesday despite the forecast being clear. I figured I lucked out and that the water would be higher today, especially downstream from the Mississippi/Minnesota confluence. So, I decided to ride upriver today and see what happened.

It was supposed to be 90 with the heat index at 100-something, and the rain wasn't expected to hit until 1:30 p.m.

Well, I got to the Coon Rapids Dam at about 9:15 and was greeted by storm clouds that quickly turned into a 45-minute downpour, lightning, and thunder, and then drizzle afterwards. (And then more of a downpour once I was back home.) 

The Mississippi River,
looking north from the Coon Rapids Dam

The ride to the dam smelled of barbequed meats and was very philosophical in nature (e.g., people on fat tire bikes on shared ski and bike trails in the winter are probably as annoying as people on those fake ski things on the bike trail in the summer) and rather sweaty. The ride home was remarkably cooler, drenched, and largely isolated.

I stopped for a latte at a coffee shop close to home, which I drank on the outdoor patio due to my soggy gritty nature and planned out my process for cleaning up at home without getting wet grit all over the house. It was good training for the Ride Across Minnesota - hot and unpredictable. 

Last year at this time, I'd ridden 700 miles more than I have ridden this year. This might explain why my clothes are a little more form fitting this year. I'll be fine for the upcoming week-long ride and I'm pretty okay with this more slacker-y year (see my last post), but I suspect - considering how fun my rides were the past two days - I'd be a little more content if I rode more frequently in 2018. I am really looking to riding for 5 days straight the week of July 16!  

http://main.nationalmssociety.org/goto/Maggie2018TourDeMN 

Shoulda, Coulda, Woulda

I suspect that I'm not unique in my battle against myself.

Although I'm happy, my brain nags me: You didn't get that work thing done. You didn't get the yard work done. You didn't pay the bills. (Oh, shit! The bills! Whoops.) You ate more cookies than needed. You should've skipped the beer. For the love of god, you trimmed the grapevines and did laundry instead of riding your bike??

Well, today, after delaying our ride from 8 til noon, and then eating lunch to kill one more hour, some teammates and I went on a lovely ride. That's when my brain settles down (so I probably *should* ride instead of trimming grapevines). And you know what? I'm doing pretty well, you dumb brain.

And, as I saw this photo of me walking over one of the many trees that fell in the storm, I realized I have nice strong calves. I'm glad this was a photo that didn't cause me to judge my posture, my belly, or arms.  Instead it offered me a view I don't normally see, my strength. I'm doing pretty well, you dumb brain.

http://main.nationalmssociety.org/goto/Maggie2018TourDeMN