30 Days of Biking, Fulton Fondo and Non-Exceptionalism

I got into a discussion with some friends a while back about Lance Armstrong. This was in 2011, and I was convinced a sports figure of such high regard would not have to face litigation, public humiliation and a stunning reversal of fortune considering much of his allegiances were based on a non-profit organization that successfully marketed something as ubiquitous as a yellow rubberized bracelet into a multi-million dollar campaign for cancer research.

I was still on the fence. My friends were well past the first few stages of anger, denial and resignation, while I was still thinking a great American success story had emerged from cancer recovery and won the most difficult sporting event there is, seven times in a row, all while demonstrating a resiliency and determination that maybe survivors have, or maybe that is just the stereotype I bought into.

Personally it wasn't too heartbreaking for me because I spent a lot of time as a kid watching TV and established a long list of sports heroes that is probably not altogether healthy. Sure, he's a guy in lycra who won some bike races, but did he nail a game winning sky hook in game four of the NBA Finals like Magic Johnson? Did he walk on as a pinch hitter in the World Series with gelatin in his knees and pain killers in his blood stream and smack a game winning home run to win game one like Kurt Gibson? Did he overcome racial disparities like Jackie Robinson or Tiger Woods? I mean frankly, as far as sports go, it's a wash. Compare him to the other winningest cyclists of his era, most of whom were doping too, and he is still a significant indicator of what he stood for, an era of sports replete with Sammy Sosas, Mark McGuires and fewer Carl Lewises.

So there I was, in 2011, watching the Armstrong case unravel, and remembering that I had debated strongly for the guy, and I was dead wrong. It is maybe a lesson on remembering not to judge people solely on the extremes of their personality or career; like admonishing a priest who does not decry evolution, or a yoga instructor who displays vehement anger towards something he or she is strongly opposed to, it is simple to take a malleable interpretation of a person's occupation into an extreme state of idolatry.

I do like riding a bicycle though, and for the most part find myself enjoying being around other cyclists. I met Greg Lemond in 2012 and told him what I thought about him beating Laurent Fignon, and Greg, champion that he is, just smiled and made me feel like I had some relevance back then, watching him race down the Champs Elysees, tucked behind those aero bars and cranking for every second...as exciting a sporting event as any I have witnessed before or since.

So...I enjoyed another round of the Minneapolis #30DaysOfBiking challenge in April, and made 30 consecutive days count for a little over 730 miles and 17,000 feet of climbing. I jumped at the chance to apply for an entrance into the Fulton Gran Fondo, and won a prize drawing for the entry fee. Getting in a few hundred miles of riding really must have helped me prepare for the Fondo, because even though the day was windy, and occasionally I found myself bucking a twenty mile an hour headwind without a domestique, it was a great day and a fun afternoon.

During 30 Days of Biking I got a few flats, mostly from having my tires under inflated, the frequent demarcation of trails, sidewalks and urban city streets broken into the occasional rutted gravel road strewn with haphazardly arrayed potholes; during the Fondo at least one large farm truck hurled profanity as they drove past going 60 miles an hour on a two lane farm road...so nothing is perfect.

Nothing is perfect. It's worth remembering that even the purest element is only 99.994% perfect, so how much you strive for that last second, fraction of a second or specific benchmark that defines excellence, nothing is flawless. Learning how to appreciate your own non-exceptionalism is a skill, all the more challenging when so much of expecting yourself to achieve greatness takes away from what is truly great.

I put together a few decent loaves of bread in the past few weeks. I still haven't gotten back to a reliable sourdough starter, so a lot of cranberry walnut breads made with RedStar yeast.

4-22-2016, Minneapolis turns purple. Photo by Michael McKinney

Honey Cranberry Bread, photo by Michael McKinney

Lake Nokomis, Minneapolis. April 2016. Photo by Michael McKinney

Minnehaha Creek, Minneapolis. April 2016. Photo by Michael McKinney

Felt F75X, at Lake Harriet, Minneapolis. April 2016. Photo by Michael McKinney

At the end of the Fulton Fondo, May 2016. 

Image by Sisu, My 30DaysOfBiking, April 2016. 

Baking update

Believe it or not, I have worked as baker. I did some time over the deep fat fryers you might find in fast food restaurants, dropping raised doughnuts in by the dozen, for hours at a time, day after day; I picked cake doughnuts off of a conveyor belt; admired the mechanizations of industry that made it possible to produce maximum quantities with minimum effort, mixed fifty pound bags of flour together by the ton before 8 AM and also once made a créme brûlée recipe with Tablespoons of sugar, rather than Teaspoons.

Hundreds of dozens of finished product, being carried out double doors, box by box, started at six in the morning, being escorted to urban businesses by vans and trucks...the sort of mass produced quality gas stations and hospital cafeterias are famous for, but there you have it. Four years of frying, sheeting, baking, cutting, mixing, picking, packing and watching the cake decorators painfully constructing magnificently complicated works of art, while I and three or four other bakers hammered out chocolate coated biscuits by the thousands.

Other experience, if you needed to know, came from three or four other bakeries, where I learned about cutting butter into scones, shaping boules, making croissants, the relevance of salt in bread, the amount of time it takes different flours to become active starters in a sourdough recipe and how to listen to bread to make sure it is done. It takes less time to blink though, to trace down a wealth of information on the internet. The thing I draw on more and more, is those days working over a fryer making the lowest common denominator, than the few months I spent in a kitchen making chocolate croissants from scratch.

So, if anybody I ever worked with reads this, thanks for the help. I'm no expert, as you probably recall.

Here are some pictures of the bread I have been baking lately, almost all made with honey, nuts and cranberries, high quality flour from my local Co-op and dry active yeast. I haven't tried making a sourdough recipe since 2009, a Thom Leonard recipe I found in Artisan Baking Across America by Maggie Glezer, which I highly recommend.

Nut and Berry bread, photo by michael McKinney

Cedar Lake Minneapolis balancing act, photo by Michael McKinney

Nut and Berry bread, photo by Michael McKinney

Nut and berry bread, photo by Michael McKinney

A sourdough variation

Rye flour and water starter, photo by Michael McKinney

 I have been following the Thom Leonard sourdough recipe from Artisan Baking Across America.  The recipe begins with a simple rye flour, mixed into a levain, and builds off of three or four subsequent mixtures of General Purpose flour and Bread Flour.  The recipe is notable in its lack of yeast, which I added, as well as raisins and walnuts.

Sourdough Levain, Photo by Michael McKinney

Risen Sourdough Raisin Walnut dough.  Photo by Michael McKinney

 

Finished bread.  Photo by Michael McKinney

Rhubarb

I am not a huge fan of debate.  Discussions pertaining to issues that do not affect me, or have some far reaching epistemological, rhetorical, esoteric purpose behind them seems redundant.  Not having an interest in argument does not provide a warranty against disagreements, and I often find myself being drawn into a discussion on one side or another, which brings me back to debate.  When to debate, when not to debate, how to debate, how to speak clearly, how to support your stand...all things I do not understand well enough to not feel a difference of opinion is anything more than a personal accord on my person.

John Mcenroe has always been a standard bearer for my understanding of how adults resolve disagreements.  "You've got to be kidding me!" seems a fairly reliable way of informing another person that he or she is wrong.  Obviously pejorative terminology is peppered in depending on the importance of the objection.

To deal with this obviously far reaching and naive view of the world, I sometimes think about British Parliament, and have taken the advice of a friend who likened the murmuring of dissent behind every statement made by Tony Blair as "rhubarb...rhubarb...rhubarb..." more likely parliament is uttering "...rubbish, rubbish, rubbish..." but often times it can be helpful to at least paint the Greek Chorus a Lighter Shade of Pale.

Last week's Tri-Loppet went very well, I placed in the top twenty and had a good day.  I rented an Hourcar to transport a rental kayak from Midwest Mountaineering.  Both Hourcar and Midwest were faultless in their customer service - demonstrating capability and patience with my questions and concerns.  My first transition was pretty rough and I almost incurred a scene from the 3 Stooges by turning to look behind me while carrying a kayak and hitting at least one or two spectators with the bow...nevertheless, nowhere in the planning process or during the event was my thinking concerned with rhubarb, tennis or John Mcenroe.

I brought up rhubarb as a means to an end though, and while surely there is some greater purpose involved, as far as my agenda is concerned, rhubarb is in season and my last two batches of bread have incorporated walnuts, rhubarb and honey.

2nd leg of the 2013 Tri-Loppet, photo property of Skinnyski.com

Rhubarb walnut bread, photo by Michael McKinney

Wilderness Systems Eclipse, Hourcar.  Photo by Michael McKinney

2nd Transition area, Tri-Loppet.  Photo by Michael McKinney

Queueing for the start, 2013 Tri-Loppet.  Photo by Michael McKinney.

Rhubarb walnut bread.  Photo by Michael McKinney.

Wednesday, May 15th

DIY Pizza, photo by Michael McKinney

With Farmers Markets opening and spring already turning into summer, (yesterday the temperature spiked to over ninety degrees), the Minneapolis lakes have opened, the winds have become more formidable and the lack of mild weather has changed to more severe and unpredictable patterns.  Last Saturday I bicycled to the Saint Paul Lowertown Farmer's Market and spoke with another cyclist who had just been caught out in a brief hailstorm, though I later saw MPR news reported the brief hail was more of a Graupel.  Whatever, ice cubes from the sky, I say hail.
I made a pizza with some asparagus, Feta cheese, brocoli, and tried to discern the difference between tomato paste and tomato

Cranberry / Walnut Bread, Photo by Michael McKinney

Lake Calhoun, Photo by Michael McKinney

 sauce, but they seemed both to be palatable.  I followed that up with making bread on monday night, two yeast-risen loaves made with organic flour, walnuts and cranberries.  I lacked a sweetener though, so I used a cup and a half of confectioners sugar, some almond extract and a teaspoon of cardamom.

After riding and blogging about the half-century last week, a ride out to Stillwater seemed appropriate.  The route I took utilized half of the Gateway trail, then wound past Lake Jane to County Road 12, then a rapid descent on Myrtle street to downtown, and a rapid ascent up Chilkoot hill to Chestnut street.

I stopped in at Chilkoot Cafe, a bicycle shop and bakery / cafe located across the street from The Bikery, another bike shop and bakery / cafe.  Although I worked at The Bikery in 2008-2009, I don't frequent either establishment enough to have become cynical of their products or their clientele.  The lemon bread tasted like it had been made with Meyers lemons grown from the tears of unicorns.  Simply that good.

Red Earthen Ware, Green and Bisqued, Photo by Michael McKinney

I am including a review from Goodreads I wrote about a book called The Imperfectionists, concerning a failing English newspaper in Rome, Italy.  It's not a bad book, and doesn't have any limiting factor to its success other than being a bit esoteric.  If you really enjoy the thought of living by a deadline, and being pursued by editors for some jingoistic malaise on the human condition, it might be right up your alley.

The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The newspaper industry is dangerous to Basset Hounds.  Because the internet is dangerous to the newspaper industry.  Therefore, Basset Hounds invented the internet.

I didn't get much from this novel, just some anecdotes about journalism, the vainglorious lifestyles of foreign correspondents, some mild hedonism and a blatant disregard for reporting accuracy in favor of manipulating the public at their won expense.  Does a certain politician pose a threat to your industry?  Why not punish that person with disreputable articles?  Punish them first with fallacy, and again with the truth.  Make their honest and best work seem underhanded and duplicitous by misinterpreting their words and actions.
That is what journalism is about, selling copy.
Making money.
Creating furor in order to pull back the layers of deception and reveal...journalism.


View all my reviews

Finally - I don't want to speak too soon, but if it's one thing I've learned about cycling the Minneapolis Lakes, don't go the wrong way.  Folks are really serious about the unidirectional signals for each lake.  A couple of years ago I almost got clotheslined by an irate Rollerblader.

Triple to Double, DIY part three

Photo by Michael McKinney

I've been waiting to convert the factory drivetrain on my Specialized Allez Sport for a few months now.  After consulting a few different sources, including an estimate for a comprehensive overhaul from my nearest Specialized dealer, I decided to take it upon myself and consult the Park Tools Blue Book and Minneapolis's own Freewheel Midtown Bike Center for a DIY appointment.

Photo by Michael McKinney

Photo by Michael McKinney

The long story is I had to buy two bus passes, walk a few miles, buy lunch, dinner and snacks throughout the day, rode without a helmet, traveled through Saint Paul, Minneapolis and Roseville, and finally parodied my lack of integrity.  Deja Vu.

The short story is, "Hey, I took a picture!"

Photo by Michael McKinney

I also recently enrolled in another pottery session through Saint Paul's Community Education program, and have been learning the differences between an electric wheel and a more primitive kick wheel, and made some loaves of a walnut and cranberry bread I'd like to share with ya'll.

Take care.

Photo by Michael McKinney

Photo by Michael McKinney

Edgar Allen Poe

12-21-2012, bread.  Photo by Michael McKinney.

1-17-2013, bread.  Photo by Michael McKinney.

12-29-2012, bread.  Photo by Michael McKinney.

Man I love Edgar Allen Poe.  I think he's a fantastic American writer.  The first really vital writer of pulp fiction, the first to immerse himself in the language of fantasy, without any recourse to comparisons, metaphors and literary allusions.  Classic macabre tales of fright.  The kind of literature that makes B-Movies and comic books, somehow translated to craftsmanship and excellence sufficient to be studied throughout the world for decades. 
The whole of American Literature could be said to have formed from the writings of seven or eight pivotal writers around Poe's era, including Poe himself.  From Thoreau's writings against government intervention and discourse on our nation's ecological responsibilities to Emerson's demand for self sufficiency, the major literary genres could be elucidated from their contributions.  Surely throughout the nation there were other writers employed at the time, through various means, but those writers one must certainly study in their education can definitively be described as foundations of American writing.
That being said, I can't say strongly enough how certain I was that despite having absolutely no interest in the Lance Armstrong affair, upon hearing that his crime of advanced doping was enabled through the master of macabre, Edgar Allen Poe, I knew that my disinterest had flared from passing contempt to one of misappropriated indignity.  How dare the anal retentive jocks of lycra and aero helmets adopt the writer of such classics as The Raven in order to more successfully cheat?  How incredibly indulgent and pedantic of them.  Truth to be told, I would quaver in fear of daring to upset the ghost of Edgar Allen Poe for one's own ends, despite the sickness one struggles with on their own time.  Which reminds me of my bread recipe.
The cranberry cinnamon wheat oat honey organic flour loaf I've been working on has revealed one sure secret, one proof, that needs more analysis.  After utilizing Red Star Yeast as the rising agent, I've noticed that this recipe has a tendency to just be too heavy to properly rise.  In the future I will attempt to use fewer ingredients and allow a more thorough rise.  As certain as I am that cycling will somehow bypass the convergence of Edgar Allen Poe's influence and competition, I'm certain this bread recipe will pull through with a little work on the rough edges.

Recommended reading, A Dog in A Hat, Joe Parkin.

Sourdough

Last week, I made a batch of sourdough, using some rye flour as a starter - although the recipe I used for the ratios of water and flour called for second, third and fourth starters to be mixed from the original starter, the 24 hour levain worked well and a small batch of bread was produced. I used organic flour, honey and kosher salt. After working my way through that batch, I put together another batch of cranberry wheat bread, and used almond meal in the recipe. Came out pretty well. Here are some pictures of the sourdough levain, dough and finished product, as well as the cranberry loaves.

24 hour Rye Starter, Photo by Michael McKinney

Sourdough, 1st rise, Photo by Michael McKinney

Sourdough, final rise, Photo by Michael McKinney

Honey Wheat Sourdough, Photo by Michael McKinney

Cranberry Almond Wheat Bread, Photo by Michael McKinney

Another thing - I got royally stumped on a sudoku puzzle in the newspaper - the five star Friday puzzle had me riding out at 11:00 PM to find the last copy of the paper and gently setting it aside until I felt ready to attempt it again.  The next day, it took me an hour in the morning, followed by the exact same thing happening on the Saturday five star puzzle, leading to three hours of puzzling and at least ten wrong answers before getting the right numbers in the right places, here's a photo of the finished result -

10-6-2012 Five Star Sudoku, Photo by Michael McKinney

Oatmeal Cranberry Bread

I threw together some disparaging elements in my kitchen today - a little ground oatmeal, some Almond meal, honey, Organic Wheat Flour, Organic Bread Flour, Kosher salt, dried cranberries and voila.  Bread, good enough to eat.

Sourdough cinnamon wheat bread

After a spectacular, near epic fail on my last couple batches of bread, (somewhere between cardboard and rotting vegetation), two nice loaves of bread emerged from the oven.  I used an overnight levain, mixed the dry blended oats, wheat flour, sugar, honey, water, scant yeast and a bit of cinnamon into a batter-like dough, then added the remaining bread flour and kneaded in the salt last.

Here's the recipe, as much as I can recall:

Cinnamon oat wheat

Levain - pinch of yeast, 1 cup warm water, 1 cup bread flour.

Starter - levain, (fermented 24 hours), 3 cups warm water, 1/4 cup honey, 1/2 Tablespoon yeast, 2 cups blended dry oats, 1 Tablespoon organic sugar, 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon, 1 cup organic wheat flour.

Whisk.

Add 4 cups general purpose flour.

Knead 3 teaspoons salt into dough.

(first rise)

Cut, braid, loaf.

Bake @ 350 for 36 minutes.

I make no claim to the veracity of this recipe, the quality or the value, though I ran it past my team of volunteer taste enthusiasts and got a thumbs up.  Life is good.

Sourdough bread, part 1

A while back, I was given a book of recipes from Artisan bakeries in America - one of these was operated by Thom Leonard, who included a recipe for a country sourdough loaf.  What intimidated me about the recipe was the week and half it took to make the starter / levain and learning how to rely on a little water and rye flour, allowed to ferment for 24 hours, to rise the loaves once they had been shaped and placed into their loaf pans.   

"Professional bakers refresh their starters every eight hours"  - Artisan Baking, Maggie Glezer

http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/3934/thom-leonards-country-french

This blog looks like they've already worked it over once or twice already, so I'll spare the carpal tunnel and add a couple of photos of my own Thom Leonard adaptation. 
Turned out pretty good...water, flour, salt and a pinch of yeast. 

Bread, part 2

Mixed up another batch of bread, this time with

Organic white bread flour
Organic Wheat bread flour
All Purpose Flour
oil, egg, salt, honey, sugar
Ground dry Oatmeal
yeast
Levain

After resting a levain of water, pinch of yeast and flour for 24 hours, I mixed the levain in with Water, egg, honey, sugar, oatmeal, oil and wheat flour.

After mixing this into a smooth consistency with a whisk, I added the remaining organic white flour and some All purpose flour.

After the dough had been shaped, I rolled in the salt.