Summer Biking: Week 3

Look a happy little turtle!

I have a new resolve to bike as much as I can without driving myself crazy. I am still hoping to see 1500 miles, but I am taking the pressure off myself. I will do what I can do as long as I am enjoying it. I might even start taking a day off here and there!

This week I took pictures of gas stations. I was surprised when I realized how many Holiday stations are nearby. There is at least one more I could have ridden to on a week with more time to ride. So below you see three different Holiday stations, two Marathons, a Super America, a BP and a Go For It Gas. 

Here is something else that I found interesting:

Remember this from April 26th?

And how on May 5th that area looked like this? 

Well now it looks like this.

Miles This Week:  37.87

Total Miles June:  98.41

Total Miles 2013: 566.01

Total Miles/Points for National Bike Challenge:  404.92/1342

Miles Needed for 1500 Mile Goal:  933.99

Days in a row of biking: 77

Days in a row of yoga: 77

Summer Biking: Week 2

Oh what a pitiful riding week I have had. I expected my rides to be shorter since I was working, but the cool wet weather has not helped at all either. I only succeeded in 31.1 miles this week. Oh well, there is always next week. I did break 500 miles this week though! Yay me!!

Since I did not ride very far on Monday, I was a bit limited on subjects to take pictures of this week. All I came across that seemed interesting was a For Sale sign. I though I might see something else on Tuesday, but I did not. So I decided to go with For Sale signs. In the end I sort of like how the collage turned out. Sadly, some of the pictures are very blurry and I was not able to pull all of the data off them. Thus I was not able to link to their websites.  I will be a bit more careful taking pictures next week

CU Companies Realty

Bridge Realty - This is the realator for the Hmong Church I had a picture of last week. 

Exit Realty Nexus

Weichert Realtors

Vandeveer Realty – I find it odd that this guy has a Wikipedia entry.

Counselor Realty

 – Larry & Mary Lauer

– Duane & Larysa Matzek

ReMax

Real Estate Properties – MnHomeSpot.com

ReMaxx Results – Jerry Clifford

Grace Realty – This one needs a much better web presence.  Though, I would use them before the creepy guy with a Wikipedia entry.

Edina Realty

– Wm (Bill) Haroldson

Prudential Sundial Realty

Side note:  mapping is not working the way I had intended. If I can get it to work I will update this post with a map.

Miles This Week:  31.1

Total Miles June:  60.54

Total Miles 2013: 528.14

Total Miles/Points for National Bike Challenge: 367.05/1164

Miles Needed for 1500 Mile Goal:  971.86

Days in a row of biking: 70

Days in a row of yoga: 70

Summer Biking: Week 1 - And the biking continues.

National Bike Month may be over, but I am still riding my bike. The National Bike Challenge is still going strong and I still need to meet my goal of 1500 miles by October 31. Instead of logging miles on the blog everyday, however, I am only going to post an update of my rides on Sundays. I will only update a single day’s ride if something extremely interesting happens.

I will continue to take photos of interesting sights, but I am also going to have a theme each week. This Sunday, since it only covers two days, I chose religious buildings as a theme. I knew that even in just two days I could manage to pass several. I say “religious buildings” instead of “churches” because I have two Buddhist buildings and a Chapel to include and they do not technically fall under the “church” category.

From left to right starting at the upper left we have: 

Presbyterian Church of the Master

Chapel at Morningside Memorial Gardens

Chùa Thièn Àn – This appears to be a Vietnamese Buddhist Youth Organization

King of Glory Lutheran Church

Cross of Christ Evangelical Lutheran Church

Minnesota Meditation Center – They do not have a website for this location. Here is a link to the main body.

Peace Lutheran Church

Blaine United Methodist

Blaine Baptist Church

Hmong Alliance Church – They do not seem to have a website for this location. Here is a link for the main church body.  This might be because their building at this location is for sale. I was quite sad to see this, because this church is quite close to us and has always been a very good neighbor.

I haven't decided what I will take pictures of next week. I suspect there will be several more weeks of churches to come, though probably not for next week. It might be slides, tennis courts, funky mail boxes or gas stations. We will just have to see.

6-1 is in red and 6-2 is in black. 29.22 miles. 

Miles This Week:  29.44

Total Miles June:  29.44

Total Miles 2013: 497.04

Total Miles/Points for National Bike Challenge: 335.95/993

Miles Needed for 1500 Mile Goal:  1002.96

Days in a row of biking: 63

Days in a row of yoga: 63

National Bike Month: Day 31

3.2 Miles

And so ends National Bike Month. 306.51 miles is not too shabby! I had hoped to have several more miles banked towards my 1500 mile goal, but what can you do?

Today will be the last day I use the Strava app to map my ride. I think that my cell phone is not up-to-date enough to run it properly. I may look for a standalone GPS device. I think it would get a better lock on the GPS signal and save my cell battery to boot.

Well National Bike Month might be over, but I do have some ideas for nest month and beyond. Stay tuned for updates!

Miles Today: 3.2
Total Miles 2013: 467.6
Total Miles National Bike Month: 306.51
Total Miles for National Bike Challenge: 306.51
Days in a row: 61

National Bike Month: Day 30

4.4 Miles

Yay! I made it to my 300 mile goal! Now tomorrow I can just take a leisurely ride. Today's ride was really quite wet. I had thought that I would ride to Walgreen's to get a card for Rodney (it is our anniversary tomorrow), but it started to rain on my way. So I changed course and rode to Jensen's. The rain stopped by the time I got there, so when I came out I thought I would take the long way home. Well, that was a mistake. It was pouring rain by the time I got home! Oh well, I got my miles in so I am happy...if a little wet!

Miles Today: 4.4
Total Miles 2013: 464.4
Total Miles National Bike Month: 303.31
Total Miles for National Bike Challenge: 303.31
Days in a row: 60

National Bike Month: Day 29

6.1 Miles

Drat! Look how close I am to 300 miles! I wish I had realized how close I was to making it, I would have ridden another mile or so. But now that I look at that map I see that the GPS did not hold its route very well.

Miles Today: 6.1
Total Miles 2013: 460
Total Miles National Bike Month: 298.91
Total Miles for National Bike Challenge: 298.91
Days in a row: 59

National Bike Month: Day 28

3.9 Miles

A short ride today. I am hoping to get a longer ride in tomorrow night. I am so close to my 300 mile goal for the month!

Miles Today: 3.9
Total Miles 2013: 453.9
Total Miles National Bike Month: 292.81
Total Miles for National Bike Challenge: 292.81
Days in a row: 58

National Bike Month: Day 27

Happy Memorial Day! 

I hope everybody is having a great Memorial Day. I took a nice ride today up to the Veterans Memorial in Bunker Hills Regional Park. Along the way I rode across the floating wood bridge trail. I find it freaky to ride on, but I was the only one on it today so it was okay. I then stopped for a short yoga session along the trail. The maps at Bunker Hill do not mark the Veterans Memorial, so I had to search for it a bit. When I got closer to it there where signs pointing to it, so that was helpful. I did not mean to ride past the tank, but it turns out the trail I set out on just went in a loop around it! 

Miles Today: 9.5
Total Miles 2013: 450
Total Miles National Bike Month: 288.91
Total Miles for National Bike Challenge: 288.91
Days in a row: 57

National Bike Month: Day 26

I saw a small flock of turkeys on my ride today. 

Hmmm.... I am not pleased with Strava today. Again, it is probably not the app's fault, it is probably my phone. Still the GPS did not read correctly and says that I rode 11.2 miles, but if you look at the Strava map below you will see that it did some funky things to my route. I remapped the route in Google Maps and it was really around 9 miles. I am going to give Strava another chance on a sunny day, since my GPS works better without clouds, but if it does not work that way I am going to let it go. 

Strava was wrong again today it says 11.2 miles.

9 Miles when mapped in Google Maps. 

Miles Today: 9
Total Miles 2013: 440.5
Total Miles National Bike Month: 279.41
Total Miles for National Bike Challenge: 279.41
Days in a row: 56

National Bike Month: Day 25

9.5 Miles

The Strava app seems to be working today. I would have rode longer but my right hip was killing me with a horrible cramp. Maybe I will ride some more later today.

Miles Today: 9.5
Total Miles 2013: 431.5
Total Miles National Bike Month: 270.41
Total Miles for National Bike Challenge: 270.41
Days in a row: 55

National Bike Month: Day 24

10.5 Miles

Dang. I tried to use a new mapping app today, but I ended up losing the map. Very frustrating. I have remade the map as well as I can in Google Maps. It is annoying because Google does not recognize that I can ride through some places, so it is hard to remake routes. I will have to try again tomorrow to get the app to work.


Miles Today: 10.5
Total Miles 2013: 422
Total Miles National Bike Month: 260.91
Total Miles for National Bike Challenge: 260.91
Days in a row: 54

National Bike Month: Day 23

Lilacs everywhere!

I saw so many lilacs on my 20 mile ride today! It was a beautiful day to ride; not too hot and not to cold. Perfect. I managed to get lost once or twice, but I found more lilacs that way! I also found this great eagle carving:

Isn't he great!

He looks so real too!

20.16

Miles Today: 20.16
Total Miles 2013: 411.5
Total Miles National Bike Month: 250.41
Total Miles for National Bike Challenge: 250.41
Days in a row: 53

National Bike Month: Day 22

It was only in the 40s when I got up this morning. After our warm spell it feels especially cold. I took a short sweet ride again today. Tomorrow I feel a long lilac-filled ride coming on...

Only 2 Miles today and no GPS. 

Also, somewhere along the line my totals became wonky. Below are the corrected totals. (Happily the numbers went up!)


Miles Today: 2
Total Miles 2013: 391.34
Total Miles National Bike Month: 230.25
Total Miles for National Bike Challenge: 230.25
Days in a row: 52

National Bike Month: Day 21

Another day for a ride between raindrops. Actually, it was a ride through raindrops! In order to get credit for  riding each day on the National Biking Challenge you have to ride at least one mile. So I. set off today with the goal of getting at least a mile in. In the end it I succeeded in 1.33 miles. Nothing much fun to write about, but enough to get my daily points. I fear that tomorrow will be a short ride too, but maybe on Thursday I will be able to get a nice long ride in. 

1.33 Miles

Miles Today: 1.33

Total Miles 2013: 382.39

Total Miles National Bike Month: 225.2

Total Miles for National Bike Challenge: 225.2

Days in a row: 51

National Bike Month: Day 20

Nothing exciting about my ride today. It was hard to gauge the weather, but I was able to get in a short 2.97 miles between storms.

2.97 Miles

Miles Today: 2.97
Total Miles 2013: 381.06
Total Miles National Bike Month: 223.06
Total Miles for National Bike Challenge: 223.06
Days in a row: 50

National Bike Month: Day 19

10/59 Miles

 Miles Today: 10.59

Total Miles 2013: 378.09

Total Miles National Bike Month: 220.9

Total Miles for National Bike Challenge: 220.9

Days in a row: 49

National Bike Challenge Local Position: 17^th * (out of 499 riders.)

      ~ I am in 3^rd place for women riders in Minnesota!*~

National Bike Challenge National Position: 1071^th* (out of 20791 riders)

      ~I am in 136^th place for women Nationally.*~

*This number will change as people enter mileage. It is my position at the time I entered my miles for the day. 

National Bike Month: Day 17

There is rain in the forecast for the next several days, but I was able to get out for my ride between rain showers. I saw a few interesting sights today:

Birdhouse along trial.

Close-up of flowers by birdhouse. 

A trail bridge in the Coon Rapids Dam Park.

Deer.

Deer close-up.

15.07 Miles

 Miles Today: 15.07

Total Miles 2013: 355.49

Total Miles National Bike Month: 198.3

Total Miles for National Bike Challenge: 198.3

Days in a row: 47

National Bike Month: Day 16

I woke up grumpy and out of sorts after a bad night's sleep. A ride in the afternoon made me feel much better. And I saw a road sign I had never seen before:

There was another one like it further down the road.
Strange. 

11.63 Miles

Miles Today: 11.63

Total Miles 2013: 340.42

Total Miles National Bike Month: 183.23

Total Miles for National Bike Challenge: 183.23

Days in a row: 46

National Bike Month: Day 15

A nice ride today and I got to see some deer!

11.49 Miles

Miles Today: 11.49

Total Miles 2013: 328.79

Total Miles National Bike Month: 171.6

Total Miles for National Bike Challenge: 171.6

Days in a row: 45

National Bike Month: Day 14

5.83 Miles

Due to a job interview I just took a short ride today. My goal was to just warm up my legs a bit and try to work off some tension. I had thought I might ride in the afternoon, but it is 95 degrees outside! Crazy! 

Miles Today: 5.83

Total Miles 2013: 317.3

Total Miles National Bike Month: 160.11

Total Miles for National Bike Challenge: 160.11

Days in a row: 44