Mpls Bikey Blogosphere Bar Outing - more

It's shaping up to be a fun night, and plans are coming together, as they always do. We'll get the party started 'round 8pm Saturday night. We know where we'll start - who knows where we'll end up.

You can ride around all night looking for us, or just send an email to
email removed for security purposes for location details. I'd post the location here, but gotta at least make an effort to keep the crazies at arms length.

Mpls Bikey Blogosphere Bar Outing

I just got an email from a friend saying "So, uh, are you privvy to this weekend's plans? Sounds like there's a little function that needs crashing..."

So the word is out, and apparently it's traveling like wildfire. My sis from Chicago is visiting Mpls this weekend, and she thought it would be cool to meet some of the bikey folks out here.

So, consider yourselves invited :-)

Mark your calendars, this Saturday night, Nov 12th, at a bar near you. Location currently TBD ... feel free to recommend your fave watering hole, and check back for details.

What a gorgeous night. Any night in November when you can ride without mittens wearing just a long-sleeved Tshirt is a night to cherish. It's been weeks and weeks since I last rode the Cervelo, and since it's the one bike I know I won't need this weekend, I rode it over to Gilby's and exchanged it for her Bianchi fixie so Jojo could ride it this weekend.

A couple things I learned while riding Spencer from Nordeast to Uptown:

• I really should explore Northest more - the area has real character.
  
• I didn't bother to adjust her seat to the correct height, and it's really tough to apply backward force to the pedals with the seat set several inches too low. Really tough.
  
• Gilby's Brooks saddle (which I'm sure is incredibly comfortable to her since it's been molded to her specific ass shape) is quite uncomfortable for my specific ass shape. Then again, if it were comfortable for me, I might be worried that I had a woman's ass.

With that, I'm off the Amtrak station to pick up Jojo. Really looking forward to the weekend.

Birthday pedaling

It's been a long time since I've pedaled around town, recreationally, with no specific aim in mind. My rides usually fall into one of three varieties: Training, commuting, or errand running.

So today was a treat. My friend Joe suggested that we go for a recreational ride out St Paul way, before autumn lapses into winter, so I took him up on the offer. Joe and I have never really hung out together (outside of the occasional guys monthly happy hour outing) so I was looking forward to it.

I had no idea how many miles we'd ride, so I opted to ride the bus out to downtown St Paul Sunday morning, then ride the remainder of the way up to Joe's place at Lake Phalen. Joe had given me directions on how to get to his place by car, so I followed the same route on my bike. I didn't think anything of the traffic, but Joe was more than a little surprised that I'd ride "those streets" on my bike. I'm sure the fact that it was 10am on Sunday made traffic a little more reasonable.

Joe's girlfriend joined us, and we rode a big loop - Lake Phalen to downtown, past the cathedral, Summit to the river, south along the river and back up to downtown. There wasn't anything super eventful about the ride, it was just ... fun. And relaxing. I'm embarassed by how I really don't know my way around St Paul very well at all. Stopped at some of the scenic overlooks along the river, and passed by a lot of the same spots as the Dead Brewery Tour passed by earlier this summer - it was nice to be able to get my bearings and recognize some landmarks along the way.

Chowed down on steak and eggs when we got back to his place - when's the last time I had steak? I usually stick to just chicken and fish. An incredibly simple, but satisfying post-ride meal.

The sun came out later in the afternoon, and I rode back to uptown instead of taking the bus - probably took about the same amount of time ... the 21 bus route takes a good hour, and I think it takes me about that long by bike.

Two messages on my answering machine when I got home, wishing me happy birthday - I had totally forgotten it was birthday until then.