My son has been pestering me for the better part of the year about this box which he keenly spotted in the garage:
I hesitated because I didn’t know if there’s any sort of indoor track near Minneapolis that we could go to and race.
I had at many times contemplated selling it all since it had been boxed up since I moved back to Minnesota in 2008. Back then I inquired lightly at the hobby shop about racing outlets but didn’t get much traction. Besides with a baby on the way, who’s got time for hobbies?
In the summer of 2014 I became a member of Strong Towns, an organization that increasingly aligns with how I feel about the places we create, and the money we spend to do so. At the National Gathering, another member asked me what drew me to Strong Towns. The best way I could describe it was that it let’s me “Have my cake and eat it too.”
The Strong Towns message dispenses with the political polarization to get to the heart of the matter. Too long I’ve felt that discussions about walk-ability and bike-ability assume the role of the democrat, while prudent spending rhetoric aligns only with republicans. But taking sides politically, is not useful – especially in regards to local politics which center mostly around land use. In the same vein, it’s better that we get to know our neighbors, so when we disagree on civic issues, we can agree to disagree in a courteous way.
My neighbor on one side is darling elderly woman that has lived in Fridley since 1963. She witnessed first hand the tornado of 1965. She agrees with me on our latest civic uproar – the potential for trash hauling consolidation. We agree that 9 trucks coming through every Wednesday is a little ridiculous. She still drives her car (which scares me to death), but only during daylight hours. She tells tales of how she used to take her kids to Fridley’s old one-room schoolhouse on the handlebar of her bicycle.
My other neighbor is a musician, a fantastically talented one at that. I’ve seen him play piano in a song he’s never heard by following the guitarist’s chord changes. He’d claim he fumbled through it, but I’d be none the wiser. He thinks consolidating garbage collection will become “crony capitalism” between the city and their favorite hauler – which I also hold concerns about. He disagrees with my plan to build a garden path through my yard to the empty lot behind my house:
That’s OK, we can agree to disagree. Even if the path is not a truly public amenity, I think it will be fun for the neighborhood kids to cut through to go sledding, or to fly kites or to generally run around.
Getting to know your neighbors
I’ve lived in 2 apartments, 2 duplexes, and 3 single family homes since I graduated from college in 1999. I’ve never known my neighbors as well as I do here. They’re a great group of people that I try to know better than the typical one-day-a-year “night to unite” – although we have a pretty good party that night too 🙂
I don’t know why I know my neighbors now more than in the past, but I can tell you it makes life much more pleasant. Here are some tips and tools I can offer to those seeking better neighborhood communion.
For the facebook lovers out there, there is nextdoor.com. It’s a low barrier way to reach out to neighbors without leaving your own home. In Fridley the police are using it for public notices, so that has spurred faster adoption.
But neighborhoods are best when experienced in meat space. One of the high-ups on my list of books to read is The Art of Neighboring. It has advice from civic leaders and clergymen who offer several tips on how to be a good neighbor without coming off as a weirdo. I have more than two neighbors (duh) and I intend to put this book into action to meet them.
Go Forth, Bring Goodies
So I’m going to send my neighbors a batch of my dad’s famous caramel corn.
Pop your corn and set aside in a large plastic bowl.
In a 13″ x 9″ glass dish place sugar, corn syrup, butter and salt. Cook in microwave 1 minute and stir, do this at 1 minute intervals until it boils. After it boils, stir and cook 1.5 minutes. Immediately remove dish, add baking soda, and stir. This will cause the mixture to foam.
Add hot caramel mixture over popcorn and stir in. Stir until mixture starts to stiffen. Place bowl in microwave and cook 20 seconds then stir. Do this at 20 second intervals until fully coated (3x or 1 minute total is normal).
If you’re a Vikings fan, the time to get into the new stadium is now. I have been a season ticket owner since 2011, and a fan for most of my youth. I’ve always been one of those “root for the home team” type of guys. So when it was time for me to decide on buying seats in the new stadium, my wife wondered why I had cold feet.
Truth-be-told I had a moment of enlightenment when the new stadium proceedings began – especially when owner Zygi Wilf said that the team could move if a new stadium is not approved. A life-long fan and friend of mine was against the stadium build. I asked for an explanation and he sent me to a deadspin article that basically likened NFL teams to strippers. They do not love you, they go where the money is. Falling in love with a stripper is stupid.
But with the stadium deal inked, all that was left was to do a cost/benefit analysis…
Let’s do the numbers
Stadium Total Cost: $1.024 Billion
State of MN: $348 Million
City of Minneapolis: $150 Million
Private contributions: $526 Million
Awesome, the Wilfs are coming to the table with a lion’s share of the money? Let’s take a closer look at the private contributions:
Stadium Builders Licenses: $125 Million
NFL Loan: $200 Million
Remaining: $201 Million
The remainder will come from the team and the owners, but I doubt much more than $50 million (<5% total cost) will shake out of the Wilf’s pockets, especially when things like naming rights are still on the table.
The fact remains that the stadium is being built on the backs of the fans, as they are forced to the table bringing over 23% of the private contribution, and over 12% of the total cost.
It’s not that I disagree with private contribution. I think it’s wise to have the private sector bear most of the burden. But all along the song that was sung is that the poor Wilfs are coming to the table with more than any other franchise has, which is misleading.
For comparison Jerry World, which opened in 2009 to the tune of $1.3B, was funded mostly by $933M in city bonds (ouch!). Jerry Jones got an assist from the NFL for $150M, leaving the remaining $217M to him and the team.
When you compartmentalize these huge numbers they can seem rather deceiving to the public.
Stadium Builders License – What do I get?
Some say it’s an investment. You can sell it at anytime! Well, it’s only worth what it’s worth, and if everyone wised up it’s really worth nothing. Sadly, the actual license costs aren’t known to the fans until long after the whole deal has been inked with the city and the state.
I asked my new stadium sales rep what the additional benefits were since it’s called a Stadium Builders License and not a Vikings Ticket License.
If monster trucks come to town do I get to sit in my seats that I paid to build? Do I at least get a discount on tickets to other events?
The salesman remarked that the stadium will be a draw for promoters (he cited Paul McCartney at Target Field). If the promoters choose, they could email us pre-sale ticket deals before they go public.
Really it gets me subscribed to a promoters email list. In reality, the stadium will likely sell my email address to an event promoter that is not in any way required to honor my “license.”
It’s not technically winter yet, but let’s face it. By the time this is published, most of Minneapolis/St. Paul and the surrounding area will be covered in a blanket of snow. Judging by the single digit temperatures in the forecast, I think that winter has officially arrived and will be here to stay.
It was nice to see several people out yesterday (Sunday) on what was possibly the last nice day to ride. For those that want to forge ahead through ice and snow, I suggest studded tires.
This photo was taken in April of this year. If you’ve ever wondered why Minnesotans are so jazzed about summer, it’s because we only get 7 snow-free months. Relish every minute!
I must admit that I have sort of a thing for wheels and tires. Maybe it’s the smell of fresh rubber. For my car, road bike and mountain bike I have at least two sets of wheels and tires: summer and winter. In some cases I have 3 🙁 I like to have both wheels and tires because it makes it less of a hassle to switch them out. It’s a ritual I perform with the changing seasons: off with the summer tires, on with the winter tires. And winter is here…
Riding your bike in snow can be fun. It is at least fun until the first time you take a digger. It was likely due to ice, and the ice that made you fall is probably hard as concrete. At least that’s what happened to me. That’s when I seriously considered getting studded tires.
Non-studded setup
Before I had studded tires, I used some simple Bontrager mud tires.
They are no-frills knobby tires. I really like them because the tread is simple and non-directional – it can be mounted in either direction. I have a flip-flop hub on my back wheel, so if I want to turn it around, I can do so without having to re-mount the tire in the “correct” direction.
These work great in snow, especially with the tire pressure lowered. If you have a set of knobby tires and want to try riding in snow, I suggest you just lower the pressure (go with the low number listed on the tire) and try it out.
If you want to experiment with even lower pressures to get more contact area (grip), tread lightly and maybe use slime or something to prevent pinch-flats if your tires use tubes.
Studly Studded Studs
Let me start with a disclaimer that studded tires often are not cheap. I am a fan of Schwalbe Tires – I run Big Apples on my bike in the summer. Their studded tires are highly regarded and some have non-directional treads so I can use it easily on my flip-flop hub. But they are not cheap. Per tire, they cost me more than the snow tires currently on my Subaru.
I would expect to pay at least $50 per tire. If you’ve found something cheaper that looks legit and will fit your bike, you’re in luck.
If you can’t afford studded tires, there are tons of creative ways to make your own with a regular tire, a drill and some screws. This is a particularly over-the-top example:
If you have seen a particularly awesome DIY studded tires, I’d love to see them!
You can run just one studded tire, but I’d recommend two. Where studded tires really shine above regular knobbies is on hard-pack snow and ice. You really don’t want to run the studs on pavement as they’ll wear faster that way, and the studs actually provide much worse grip than rubber when it’s on concrete or asphalt. Some studded tires get around this conundrum by only putting studs out towards the edge. Talk to your local bike shop and they can help you decide on a brand/type that suits your riding.
Riding in snow can be sort of nerve wracking at times, especially when the snow becomes hard and rutted. I’m still wrestling with this myself. I tend to white-knuckle the handlebar when loosening my grip and going with the flow would be a much more pleasant experience. If I were a better mountain biker, I probably wouldn’t have this problem 😎
So here’s to winter. Hopefully it’s just the beginning of a different type of riding season.
What the heck is an S24O? It’s an acronym invented by famed Rivendell Bicycle builder Grant Peterson. It stands for Sub-24 Hour Overnight and he writes about it in his book “Just Ride”. Put simply, it’s a bike overnight where you’re gone for less than 24 hours. Since it’s short and you travel by bike, it limits the amount of “crap” you can bring.
I (possibly foolishly) convinced my family to embark on a 16 mile bike ride to the nearest campground, at Rice Creek Chain of Lakes Park Preserve. It wasn’t foolish because we lacked the muscle or equipment to undertake this endeavor, it was foolish for other reasons… Continue reading →
Getting There
A month before we embarked, I scoped out the route. This was good because the trails in Anoka County are extremely poorly marked. I got lost no less than 5 times. Plus I found two shortcuts that weren’t offered by Google Maps which would shorten the distance.
I made a time-lapse of my scouting trip using my GoPro:
We chose to actually go from Friday to Saturday – so we could have a full day of recovery before work on Monday. One thing about leaving early afternoon Friday that I didn’t anticipate was rush hour traffic – I work from home so I’ve purposely forgotten most of the drudgery of “regular” daily life. Traffic wasn’t especially bad, but it felt like everyone behind the wheel had some pent up angst.
An old bike-commuting coworker once told me that morning traffic is much more agreeable than afternoon traffic. People can use you as an excuse to be late to work. They’ll drive politely, and then can twist the blame if their boss asks. “I was late because of bicyclists.” But in the afternoon they need to get home, or else.
So we got buzzed by a couple of jerks that needed to get on the freeway ASAP, only to crawl along the interstate at the beginning of rush hour. Meanwhile, crossing the interstate meant we were onto the trail, so long suckers!
What to Bring
With the route set, I knew to allot around 2 hours for riding (plus breaks) so we could schedule accordingly. But what to bring? Some things were obvious, but what do you omit and what are must-haves? Here is what our packing list looked like:
Shelter, clothes & bedding
1 Tent
3 Sleeping bags
3 Small pillows
Toothbrushes & toothpaste
Minimal clothes for the next day
Fire & food
Lighter & newspaper
Firewood purchased at campground
Grill grate at campsite
Picnic table at campsite
1 Cooking pot
1 Skewer for hot dogs and marshmallows
4-person tableware set
Hot dogs & s’mores for dinner
Bacon & eggs, with instant coffee for breakfast
Other
Flashlight (bike light)
Multi-tool (knife/scissors)
Paper towels and/or baby wipes
Bug spray
We identified a couple of things that we need to better the trip next time. One was a lantern for hanging out at the picnic table. My bike light is bright, almost too bright. It was sort of like being in the interrogation room with it shining right at you.
Also, a camp-dedicated cooking pot would be nice. Our normal kitchen one went home looking like it had endured the worst, now scorched and soot-covered.
But that’s the best part of the S24O – if you forgot something, you’ll live. You can remember it for next time and not worry because you’re there for less than a day.
Our S24O looks a lot like car camping, minus the car:
The Romper Room
My wife warned me about camping with a 16 month old. We had just come off a month-long stint of Jessi’s mom staying with us and helping out with the kids. Grandma had been sharing a room with our 16 month old Marlo, and they had gotten into a good nighttime routine with minimal interruptions.
I assumed her sleeping habit had gotten to a point where Marlo would go to sleep when tired, and she’d respect everyone else in the tent, just like she did when she was in her crib and grandma was in her bed in the same room.
Boy was I wrong.
Jessi went to bed with the baby around 8PM. But Marlo had no intentions of sleeping. The sheer thought of everyone in this nylon fabric box sent her into a frenzy. She scooted and climbed all over everyone with laughter and cheers. At several points no one could contain their own laughter because she was laughing and clapping joyously. This lasted for 3 HOURS. 11PM was the magic hour when laughter turned to tears, and a few minutes being held by mom turned into everyone finally getting some rest.
But the sleep was not good, because I have a 2-man tent and we were 4 – two adults and two of the wildest, tossing-est, turning-est children ever. Then once we did fall asleep we were awoken by the sounds of a meddling raccoon. That bastard stole the last of the s’mores! Judging by his heft, he didn’t need any more s’mores 🙂
Turns out both my parents and Jessi’s parents have similar horror stories of going camping with children of a similar age. Some of those children may have been me. But we didn’t hear these stories until we returned and told how our own trip unraveled. I guess the next generation is doomed to repeat the same mistakes.
Even though some parts weren’t “fun,” we’ll surely remember it forever, and always tell the tale. As Grant Peterson put it:
If they hate it, it’s only a night, and they’ll still be proud as they brag to their friends how much they hated it, and they’ll be secretly glad they did it.
