I don't have too much to account of my time here, really. It's been fairly rainy and Brad and Sheena, being normal, not vagabonding folk, have still have had to go to work, so I've spent a lot of the time hanging out the house, reading, binge watching the most recent season of House of Cards on Netflix, taking little walks around the neighborhood, and then playing some Elder Sign and Munchkin with the family in the evenings. I can't say I've disliked the change of pace.
I have done a few things while here though. Sunday I went for a little ride with Brad through Coon Rapids Dam Regional Park. It was crazily busy on the weekend. Getting over the dam both ways was a matter of slow weaving around pedestrians and snail-paced bicycling families. It reminded me a lot of crossing the Golden Gate Bridge. The dam is gorgeous though, and so it's no surprise it draws such big crowds. And the park itself has some fun trails, with a few even funner "trails" blazed by other bicyclists through the grass (likely in part to get around all the people).
Then on Monday Sheena took me on a ride around Elm Creek Park Reserve. It was a fun ride. Sheena is my favorite person to ride with, always consienscous of who she's with. I would race to keep up with her on every downhill, and then be able to catch up on the climbs. It was windy and threatening rain, but as Sheena reminded me, I actually like that kind of ride when I'm not laden down and fighting those conditions for hour after hour without end, without certainty of some place to get dry and into clean clothes. When it did start raining, lightly, I was able to just enjoy it, soak it in, in a way I just don't get to do while touring. I told my sister yesterday that I realized what I miss most while riding my bike day in and day out while touring is...well, riding my bike. There's no carefree, unloaded riding while on the road; touring is its own kind of biking.
Tuesday I did a lot of the aforementioned, "not much". Wednesday I got to see the machine shop where Brad works, which was quite a learning experience for me. While I have no doubt that running one of those machines for 8 hours a day, every day, it would quickly become awfully tedious, getting to see the full process through just once was definitely interesting. He showed me the process step by step to make a (rather large) Wolf's Tooth chainring (as his shop manufactures a number of their components). The machine does a lot of the work, very fast, very precise, but the operator still handles some of the details, especially the removal of any burrs left by the machining, as in the case of the chainring Brad was working on it all has to be accurate to within 4/1000 of an inch. We're talking human hair width here. Brad has primarily been working as a machine operator at this shop because they don't take on enough new parts to facilitate him working as a programmer full time, but actually designing the code for the machines to run is what he's most good at and most interested in doing. And he showed me a little bit of that side of things too, what the software to build that code looks like and a little of what's involved in using it, as well as some of the parts that he's made the code to produce. It's all way beyond me, but I enjoyed getting to see it.
Wednesday I also got my warm weather balaclava (a uvx buff) in the mail, so I hopefully shouldn't have any more sunburning on my face. ...Though cold and cloudy as it is now, I might not be needing it for awhile, and might actually be wearing my thermal balaclava instead these next few days.
Thursday, since it finally wasn't raining, I decided to take a little ride along the river toward Minneapolis proper. It was a lovely, cloudy day, and it was good to get off the couch again and start ramping back up for adventure. I stopped just short of downtown because the road I was taking with a nice bike lane was closed and I really wasn't too keen on needing to do any navigating. I had also been assuming that I was going to get to see downtown anyways because Brad had an event to attend that evening. Sadly he ended up having a killer headache and it ended up being another night in. But that's alright with me. As far as I'm concerned, most big city downtowns are all the same. What makes Minneapolis special is its bike trails, and while I only saw the tiniest fraction of them, I got enough of a taste I think I can say I saw something of the city in my time here.
And speaking of which, the riding I did since coming here has officially put me at more miles traveled on this bike frame since starting this trip than I had in the months before it; the odometer is at over 1200. Of course, that's only for the frame, tires, and chain, as everything else got swapped over from my original, defective frame that got warrantied. I have no clue how many miles were put on it; didn't have the bike computer before then.
And today? Again, not much. I got my shit together. I enjoyed my last shower for a couple days. I watched some Daredevil. And now I'm going to hopefully hang out with Sheena and family for a little while here before bed. Because morning will be coming, bright and early, and I actually have to get around when it does.
No comments:
Post a Comment