a midway bikelog

Having an incredibly rare chance at an entire afternoon with no commitments, i set aside the house todo list, blew off mowing the lawn and hooked up with the second edition of the Minneapolis Freeride.

One count had about 285 riders, though some came and went during the day at various stops. It was a great time, good music at the stops, lots of fun hanging out with bikey people and to be part of a huge mass of cyclists rolling through town. I’m really glad i went.

Some photos are being collected here on Flikr. I wore open sandals and i’d already bashed my toes once earlier so i didn’t jump in on the derby at 1 on 1, though i had the right bike for it and was very tempted.

I realized as i just now posted about the smartass luggage tags that i’ve not been writing much and hadn’t mentioned that i was gone for a few days at the end of last month. I made a long-overdue trip to visit my dad in Oregon. I had hoped to make a family vacation of it to get the girls out there, but just haven’t been able to save the money to get everyone there. His mother is still there, 94 years old, and dad has had his own health problems over the last couple of years, so i just didn’t want to wait any longer for a visit.

Here’s my dad in his (and my, for that matter) natural element, the work shop… well, one of his workshops:

I learned to build and fix a lot of things from my dad, but he’s gotten downright crafty in his retirement. He built this for their driveway, both the wood and the ceramic tiles for it:

There’s a matching structure to hold up their kiwi tree:

He and his wife Sandy moved to a new house since i was last out there, a beautiful place near a lake and state park. I went kayaking, rode his recumbent bike through the mountains, shot a few guns, collected about 20lbs of tools that followed me home, and spent an afternoon out in the dunes with dad driving the ‘48 Willys Jeep:

A fine trip, can’t wait to get back out there.

Having recently flown on a short trip, i found this photo of luggage tags hilarious, but particularly so because they were found at Target. Who knew that Target could be such a hotbed of malcontents?

Two days in a row up the hill on the way home from work. Yesterday, 1:11, not bad for an impromptu run, and no particular extra riding lately. That was on the Surly in about a 64″ gear (i don’t remember which cog exactly now). I wasn’t racing it, and it wasn’t too hard a climb.

Thursdays i pick up the CSA produce on the way home, so i usually ride the fixed Lotus MTB with panniers. What the hell, i hadn’t tried Ramsey fixed yet, so today i did, and in 1:23. The gearing was higher than yesterday, but again i wasn’t trying for record, and i was able to make it up without a dab or any sort of zig zag tomfoolery.

For reference, here’s the Lotus pre-fixed (now a 46/16, 68.4 gear inches):

Wow, it’s still hard to believe we had a bridge collapse in Minneapolis. I didn’t ride around that area very often, but it’s a huge bridge and a main traffic artery – 120,000 cars every day, apparently. My last trip was actually under the bridge, riding my bike home from a dinner out with friends a couple of weeks ago.

I heard about it between hospital stops unrelated to this. My youngest daughter had a very odd vasovagal-style reaction to a playground injury yesterday (hit her hip on a park bench), and we ran her over to the ER for an ECG test (she’s fine). I heard only bits and pieces of the bridge story until i could get to the TV around 10, after the kids were asleep.

Here’s the Strib story on it, hope it doesn’t disappear into the archives too soon. Note that as of last night, it had increased to 7 dead, more injured and some 20 missing, according to the late TV news. More WCCO coverage.

Excellent photo set and commentary here from someone who probably lives in the same apartment building i lived in for one summer while at university.

I just heard that the brother of a co-worker died on the bridge.

Thank you to everyone who was nearby to pitch in to help. Thank you to all the bloggers for the first-hand coverage and photos.

update: the two best links i’ve found so far – a Flickr page with a great ‘before’ picture of the bridge, and the wikipedia entry, which is naturally evolving as the story unfolds.

update #2: a guy on my cycling team saw the bridge collapse right in front of him as he was commuting home from work. He went right up there and started helping people out of cars, about 10 of them in 20 minutes until the emergency crews were there. There’s a great photo essay and audio of his story on the Stib site. He’s a darn good road and track bike racer too.