Har Mar Ride

I got up at 6:30 a.m. to go on a bike ride today. I was a little worried, as the TCBC Har Mar ride is usually a little longer, and I had already ridden to my sister's house in Minneapolis last night for her "congratulations, you're a Nurse Practitioner" bbq.

We left St. Paul (Snelling, across from the Har Mar Mall) at 7:30, and were done with 39 miles by 10:45. Excluding the break, the speed was very close to 15 mph. That was a little rough for me with the wind, not much riding with the group so far this year, and a hybrid. But I finished. And I didn't finish miles behind everyone else. Which is good. Some fun facts:

It's absolutely amazing that biking from St. Paul to Hopkins and back is only 39 miles. You'd really expect it to be much further. Seriously...it would take forever to drive from St. Paul to Hopkins, it shouldn't take an hour and a half biking up and down hills and all over back roads to get there on a bike.

Sticking your pedal in someone else's spokes is not safe. It requires an ambulance. We had a rider go down and gouge his knee and twist his ankle. The consensus seemed to be that it was not a simple sprain. If you ever do something similar, if you call the police, they will come and pick up your bike and take it to the station so that you can go find it later. However, they might not come right away, so it's good to have someone watch it, lock it up, or send someone back to the start who has a bus pass.

Dr. Lenz the Dentist missed his calling. Or was so pissed at classmates asking him if he was going to be an optometrist that he rebelled. I'm not sure which.

There's something really strange about the middle of May and women joggers who look emaciated. I really worry that there's some specific day that all the people with eating disorders finally decide that it's time to exercise off even their muscle weight - probably as soon as they're not cold from not having any body fat. About 70 degrees? Ick.

Unrelated - afterwards I took my Dad shopping at Freewheel for a new bike so we can do RAGBRAI (we didn't make the lottery, but we made the post-lottery, lots of people quit, so you can go now, drawing) in style. He bought the same bike I have, a Trek 7300, but 5" shorter in the frame and red.