Meantime, the fishing has been decent.

So what does a person do with a painful case of gout and two broken metatarsal bones? How to navigate through the days when walking is painful and running is out of the question? Never mind cycling, trail running and self-sustaining behaviors of good intent, what about getting dressed in the morning without grimacing in pain, slipping in the shower or simply keeping a job?

I got back to working, eventually, but I had to wear a removable plastic cast on my leg for a month, and then intermittently for another month. I am still not running, but have been cycling more, and riding Minnesota's NiceRide bicycles as much as wearing comfortable cork and leather sandals will allow, (they're good for the gout).

Did I mention the fishing? Since working at Target Field in the early part of this year, I had the initiative to steer away from fly fishing a little bit, in order to more simply cast on lakes the Rapalas, Mepps and poppers fly casting does not accommodate without snagging tree limbs or pedestrians on the back cast. So while it has not been particularly pleasurable or devoid of pain, I have managed to catch a nice walleye, a couple northerns, a bass or two and made it back into some Wisconsin trout streams for the more refined "single barbless hook" fly fishing I used to enjoy more readily.

If it all sounds too good to be true, consider how stadiums are cleaned.

As per Breads, Bikes and Books, I did finally get out and ride my sixth or seventh century on labor day. It started as a nice day to get out and ride, so a simple ride out to Stillwater seemed feasible. As I started I added a short loop onto the front of the ride, and after sitting with friends and relaxing in Stillwater, completing a century didn't seem impractical or even all that noteworthy.

It was however a beautiful day with a surprising lack of confrontational episodes.

Here is the link to the MapMyRide route I created.

Lake Nokomis Largemouth Bass, Minneapolis; Photo by Michael McKinney

Mississippi River Smallmouth Bass, Minneapolis; Photo by Michael McKinney

Minnesota NiceRide Selfie, Stone Arch Bridge, Minneapolis; Photo by Michael McKinney

Storm Clouds, Minneapolis; Photo by Michael McKinney

Saint Paul Sunset; photo by Michael McKinney

Removable Cast and NiceRide, Saint Paul; Photo by Michael McKinney

Goose Biot Stone Fly; Photo by Michael McKinney

Willow River Rainbow trout, Wisconsin; Photo by Michael McKinney

Stearns County, MN, Blue Moon; Photo by Michael McKinney

Minnehaha Creek walleye, Minneapolis; Photo by Michael McKinney

Pierce County, WI, Brown Trout; Photo by Michael McKinney

Minnehaha Falls, Minneapolis; Photo by Michael McKinney

Hogback toast

Minneapolis, 2014. Photo by Michael McKinney

Minneapolis, 2014. Photo by Michael McKinney

Saint Paul, 2014. Photo by Michael McKinney

Minneapolis, 2014. Photo by Michael McKinney

Lake Minnetonka, 2014. Photo by Michael McKinney

The long story is pretty complicated, so I'll shorten it to 2008, when a cousin of mine in Colorado printed out a GPS map of a fifty mile bike ride from Fort Collins to Boulder. I was riding his steel frame road bike, and though I had never ridden the route, it was easily the highlight of 2008 - I didn't get lost, it was a fairly challenging ride, and I handled it. I even enjoyed it. I surprised myself, really.

A hogback in Colorado is what the Boulder locals call a hill, and in Minnesota, it's what a lot of people would look at cross eyed and say "...that's the biggest hill I've ever seen." In a state with 55 mountain peaks over 14,000 feet high, it's pretty easy to see why misinterpretations regarding elevation are bound to happen. Take a minute to google "Number of 14,000 foot peaks in Minnesota" and reward yourself with a broad understanding of regional linguistics.

Anyway, this particular bike ride had a few good hogbacks and fifty miles at elevation, so my cousin planned it for me in advance with a map from MapMyRides and BikeRouteToaster, a fairly simple mapping program. When I got back to the level headed Midwest, I spent some time learning about MapMyRide; going on a bike ride on familiar roads, getting home, walking to a library and charting out my ride, sometimes printing out the BikeRouteToaster results for elevation and sometimes saving the work on MapMyRide.

Footnote, manually mapping a fifty mile bicycle ride on a public library computer and then having the map lost after a system wide reset is a little frustrating, almost as frustrating as the same thing happening at a coffee shop where the wi-fi is free as long as your coffee is pricey enough.

One thing led to another, and in 2013 I bought a wrist top GPS - a Garmin 210 heart rate monitor and GPS computer. No more manual mapping, but lots of statistics and Stravasshole-ism, (I had no idea "King of the Mountain" was anything but a game kids play at snowpiles while waiting for the bus), but there you go. Since then, the mapping and recording of rides has been a lot simpler. Rather than spending up to an hour manually entering turns and miles on MapMyRide, I plug in the Garmin 220, (I upgraded in 2014 after some technical issues), upload the data to Strava, MapMyRide and Garmin Connects and get on my way.

That is as uncomplicated as I can make it.

Thanks for reading, and here is my favorite bike ride from 2014, a double loop through the fairly hilly region of Cherokee Park, Kaposia Park and Mendota Heights, Minnesota.

Minnesota River Bottoms

                    Create Maps or search from 80 million at MapMyRide
               

Windy day yesterday for bike riding, the mud along the Minnesota River corridor is still very fresh, deep and akin to quick set cement.  I hit one nasty patch that stopped my wheels and required about fifty feet of pushing the bike, pulling mud out of the brake calipers, pushing the bike, pulling mud out of the brake calipers, and so on and so forth. 

Otherwise, a pretty decent ride.

               

Kinetic Linkage

I bought a Garmin Forerunner 210 in July, and have been making a consistent effort to record and track my rides on Garmin's website, Strava and MapMyRide for the past three or four months.  I selected Friday's ride into Minneapolis, a Thirty-Three mile ride along the Greenway, Cedar Trail and River Road then back to St. Paul.  There was a decent southern wind and rollerskiers were out in abundance. 
The GarminConnect, Strava and MapMyRide blog widgets allow me to post a coded link with a map and some information about the ride, as I have done here, but I'd rather be out riding.  The blog widgets will indubitably be garbled and messy, impossible to discern from somebody else's information and basically a waste of time. 
When I purchased my Felt F75X, I also bought a pair of studded winter tires from Finland.  Bring on the cold.

                    Create Maps or search from 80 million at MapMyRide
               

Footnote - this is a fantastic read.

It's All About the Bike: The Pursuit of Happiness on Two Wheels by Robert Penn

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


What can you say about a guy from Wales who rode around the world because an Irish woman inspired him?  foolish?  Naive?  Soft hearted sentimentalist? I am sure somebody has already had their say about Robert Penn's private devices, his proclamatory penchant for his own garage, his mountainous ascents, the people he hob knobs with, his own rough scrapes flying down nepalese gravel roads...it all sounds so free spirited and liberalizing a reader might be sidled with grief for their own lack of experience. 
As a journalist approaches a story though, Penn forgoes his own (admittedly infrequent, compared to an average Strava user's twitter feed) philandering, and adopts a humble, awed perspective, as if he were holding the museum curators hand after wandering into the lecture hall after closing time.  As a cyclist and as a journalist, he wants to know the long history of each component: the chain, the seat, the handlebars, the derailleur, the frame and does each piece of engineering the justice it deserves.  As a cyclist himself, Penn comes across as an individualist and nearly peerless - his attitude seems appropriate for the characters he encounters while building himself what amounts to a white elephant.
The vast majority of people who ride a bicycle would never have recourse to something like Penn's investment, but any of them could take it out for a spin. Perhaps that's what Penn would want to know he had expressed in his memoir - dream bike or not, if it's got two wheels, a drivetrain, a seat, handlebars and a sturdy frame, it'll roll.



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Half Century

This being the first week since the spring Equinox that hasn't had an unprecedented snowfall, and the Specialized Allez, with a new double crank was staring at me, taunting, almost daring me to get out and ride, I spent yesterday on a three hour tour around Lake Minnetonka, via the Geenway and the Luce Line.  The ride was great - no technicals, no flats, other riders getting out and knocking off the last of winter's grip were in good spirits and a light wind from the SouthEast emboldened me at the start and humbled me at the finish.  Like a good drink.

                    Create Maps or search from 80 million at MapMyRide
               

Since re-configuring the Allez, I've been riding it around town as I still don't own a car, and riding safely is less expensive and less restricting than buying bus passes.  That being said, I spent some time on tuesday at a sewing studio in Minneapolis patching a pair of jeans.  A friend has been bartering her skills and artistry, (trading pottery and bread for her time), in order to keep me from appearing too raggorous.  Raggedy.  Comprised of rags.  I guess the term is "Distressed".
Here are a couple of photos of that project, including the distressed jeans, before and after being patched, again.

Photo by Michael McKinney, at Sewtropolis

Photo by Michael McKinney, at Sewtropolis

Photo by Michael McKinney, Hamline Avenue bridge

Photo by Michael McKinney, Como Lake

Photo by Michael McKinney

Scratching on the Break

I thought briefly of posting a long blog entry about how many different types of vehicles I've single-handedly crashed, without injuring anybody but myself, or recounting the tale of my Big Wheel, circa 1983 or something, but after getting into an accident over the weekend, I had this thought in my head, about a guy who got stuck in an elevator not once, but twice in the same day.  It happened in Chicago, and was making the rounds on Twitter earlier in the day.  I am including some photos I've taken the past couple of months, as the Flickr Gadget has unexpectedly ceased to function....most of these were taken in and around Minneapolis / Saint Paul, while riding one bicycle or another.

Photo credit Michael McKinney

Photo credit Michael McKinney

Photo Credit Michael McKinney

Photo Credit Michael McKinney

Photo Credit Michael McKinney

Saturday afternoon ride to Trader Joe's in Saint Louis Park, followed by returning a movie at Merriam Park library and following my standard route to Summit along Fairview avenue. At Fairview and Dayton I was struck by a motorist. I'm pretty sure it could have been a lot worse, but I'm a bit disappointed with myself for not avoiding the driver. The driver presented a rolling stop while travellng West on Dayton, then gunned across Fairview and "T-Boned" me. All fingers and toes accounted for, but I am starting to deal with the inevitable fall out. My frame is a little bent, my wheels are shot and my knee is not satisfied with the situation...some groceries were also harmed in the making of this map...post...route. Or workout. Whatever it is you hipster kids call this.
The driver's stereo was blasting, and he couldn't hear me yelling at him to stop. He apologized and did stay at the accident site...I am getting the impression from bike shop personnel that his willingness to comply is commendable. For economical reasons, I haven't owned a car since August of 2009. When I did own a car, and did drive, turning on the stereo was action number two following engine ignition.  It is a small world.




Find more Bike Ride in St Paul, MN

Seems a little redundant and unnecessary to credit myself on my own photos, doesn't it?  You'd think a blog, by its very nature would be narcissism enough, let alone allowing oneself to be delusional enough to think another person would actually try to take validation or credit from or for your work, which is beyond narcissistic.   Here's a one act play about it, including the ocean - The internet is a huge ocean, this is my buoy.  Get your own...right?  Whatever.  Enjoy.

Chilly run

I've been doing some core strength workouts at the Saint Paul Skyway YMCA, trying to make sure those jumpy knee ligaments and tendons are staying in place while I'm on my bicycle. I've also started getting back on the treadmill, and tonight, I guess I got a spur in my saddle and went out for a ten mile loop. Yesterday I rode the Raleigh xxix in the snow and on some trails, and besides having a little too much air in the tires, had a good time despite myself.

The snowfall has everything looking still and feeling quiet.

"Growing up in a place that has winter, you learn to avoid self-pity. Winter is not a personal experience, everybody else is as cold as you, so you shouldn't complain about it too much. You learn this as a kid, coming home crying from the cold, and Mother looks down and says, 'It's only a little frostbite. you're okay.' And thus you learn to be okay. What's done is done. Get over it. Drink your coffee. It's not the best you'll ever get but it's good enough."
-MPR coffee cup

Playlist:

Cripple Creek, Leo Kotke
California Soul (Diplo Remix), Marlena Shaw
Who Made Who, AC/DC
Pieholden Suite, Wilco
When Doves Cry, Purple Rain
Knock Me Down, Red Hot Chili Peppers
Strawberry Swing, Coldplay
Ramble On, Led Zeppelin
Start Me Up, Rolling Stones
Voodoo Child (Slight Return), Jimi Hendrix
Basket Case, Green Day
Let's Go Crazy, Prince
Pop Song 89, REM
The Ballad of John and Yoko, The Beatles
Tears of Joy (Live), Robert Randolph and the Family Band
Purple Rain, Prince
Distance Equals Rate Times Time, The Pixies