a midway bikelog

Ella has had a hard time falling asleep some recent nights, and while counting sheep worked ok the first night, i’ve been mixing it up. The setting is a big pasture, climatically appropriate, with a barrier dividing it into two sections. Of course, the section containing the animal is nearly barren of food, while the other is lush and ripe. Close your eyes (after reading the whole thing, silly) and imagine this next time you need a little help falling asleep:

Fairly athletic hippos, taking a running start and bounding over a fence to land (in a belly-flop, natch) in a giant mudhole. When they’re done wallowing, they relax in lounge chairs and eat heads of lettuce.

Reasonably limber giraffe, limboing their way beneath a tall fence to reach the trees on the other side.

Timidly hydrophobic monkeys on stilts, crossing a river of pirahna to the banana plantation on the other side.

Determinedly thrill-seeking sloths on a zip line, crossing a highway. It takes them each an hour to get up to the handle, 10 seconds to make the crossing, and another hour to figure out what just happened.

(uncredited photo from If Charlie Parker Was a Gunslinger)

It’s too late/to fall in love with Sharon Tate/and it’s too soon/to ask me for the words i want carved on my tomb.

I don’t remember how i first found Jim Carroll, whether it was a copy of the Basketball Diaries or the Catholic Boy album. I discovered him early in college, which was the late ’80s for me, and it’s just as likely that i would have found his album while flipping through the bins at Cheapo as finding the book at some little shop somewhere. Either way, whichever one i had first, it wasn’t long before i bought the other.

I read The Basketball Diaries at a good time. I was way into punk rock, even though i was just on the young side to see the 2nd wave of SST-generation bands play live before they all dissolved, i was a big fan. Unlike the psychadelic world-traveling stories of William Burroughs, reading Carroll’s story was immediately relatable for a half-irish, writing-oriented, music-loving (thought not as drug-prone) kid just a couple of years older than Carroll was at the end of the book. That book took the romance of the wild street life, of drug use and freedom and pulled it askew, like moving a refrigerator to see the layers of crap hiding beneath. It fascinated me but also snapped me out of the idea that there’s any sort of romance to a junkie’s lifestyle.

As much as i loved the music, it always seemed like a sort of hidden gem to me. Even among my fellow musician friends, few listened to them or even heard of the Jim Carroll band, by that point 10 years past their last album. His band was killer, putting interesting twists on pretty straight-ahead garage rock albums that spoiled me for the more common metronome-sounding punk bands. Any comparisons to Lou Reed of Carroll as frontman are good ones, both in the (high) quality of the lyrics and the (low) quality of the singing. In this way though, he was totally punk rock in the best DIY/Minutemen sense of it: he was just a regular person with something to say, doing his damndest to say it. It’s not the kind of musical package that’s going to move units, but rather spawn a thousand bands, and that it did.

I don’t know where my copy of Catholic Boy went, but i still have Dry Dreams on vinyl, just nothing to play it on. Likewise, i don’t know where my copy of Book of Nods is, or if it’s even on my shelves at the moment, i haven’t read him for several years now. But in the recent list of celebrity deaths (MJ, Walter Kronkite, Ted Kennedy, etc), i have to say that i feel this loss the most this year.

Credit where credit is due: the St. Paul city street patching crew did a kick-ass job on the northbound stretch of Hamline between Ayd Mill and 94. What looked like a blown-out minefield now rides almost as nicely as a repaved street. Really, I should have taken a picture, it’s that good. Looking forward to having the southbound lane fixed too!

This trail has been several years in the works, and has been on and off the table more often than a cat at breakfast. Finally, it appears, we have a solid GO for it, and I’m looking forward to it, though i might be the only one using it.

PioneerPress article | Strib article

The Strib article is a little incomplete, inferring (to at least one paranoid commenter) that the city will be taking away road or rails to build the trail, which isn’t true. You have only to drive down Ayd Mill road to see the wide expanse of right-of-way betwixt road and rail to see where it’ll go. The space in question isn’t even usable by the railroad in most places, as it’s behind a line of trees.

I’m the first to admit that it’s an odd duck of a trail. It doesn’t seem to go anywhere important, it’s not replacing a widely-used bike route, and no matter the mode of transportation, there aren’t that many people traveling between the Midway and southern West 7th neighborhoods (besides me). The big benefit to this trail will be the connections it allows.

When you look at a map of the area, you can see that Ayd Mill crosses or is near Marshall and Summit, both well-used east-west bike routes. At the south end there is an easy connection to the Shephard road trail. It will also serve as a great inter-neighborhood trail, with easy connections to shopping at several points. Way to go, St. Paul.

To celebrate the end of summer riding (not that it’s the end of the cycling season by any means), 4 friends and i took a leisurely ride from St. Paul to Prescott, Wisconsin for a little lunch, then home again, a 65-mile beer-and-burger run. Priorities!

Here’s the route (thanks to @truetone for entering this!)

I know, i’m not a huge fan of mapmyride either, what with all the ads. I would much rather use Bikely, but alas they seem to be pretty much inaccessible nowadays. Sad to lose a good site like that. Anyway. Moving along.

A few route notes, mostly for my own reference later. It’s not a good singlespeed route, with 3 good climbs and rolling hills that work best with gearing. We headed out along Summit Ave, then through downtown to Shepherd/Warner road and Pt. Douglas road. It’s a good thoroughfare for getting out of town to the south/east, a mix of low traffic roads and trails. Just before 494, turn off to Bailey road for the first big climb. At the top, we went straight on Bailey, which is long and straight and not all that scenic, but otherwise pleasant to ride.

At the town of Afton, we are undeterred by the offerings of pie and rest and forge on to the 3 climbs of St. Croix trail. It’s a pretty route, but practically no shoulders, best ridden on low-traffic times. Today, with the holiday weekend and spectacular weather, it was full of Harleys and Corvettes out for a spin.

In Prescott, we’re all sweaty and hungry and thirsty and seek out the Boxcar (cafe? pub?) downtown. It’s a really nice little spot there, great sandwiches and beer selection. A Rush River ale and New Glarus Fat Squirrel and juicy bluecy. Yum. It’s also Wisconsin, which reminds me that there are still places where people smoke in bars. Bleah.

After lunch, a short stint along hwy 61, which is busy but with wide shoulders, and we’re soon on Manning then Lehigh Road. Lehigh to Military road is a lovely and rural stretch of road; scenic, with nice rideable shoulders. Back down the big hill after rejoining Bailey, we head across the 494 bridge and hook up with the new-to-me South St. Paul Regional trail. That trail connects nicely with Concord Ave, which is probably the best tour of mexican culture in South St. Paul, (El Burrito Mercado! etc.) and on through downtown to home.