Historic Designation and the unsafe pedestrian/bike crossings of North Broadway at Silver Lake

Tuesday September 27, 2022

Here are my comments for today's public hearing:

Hi, My name is Marty Cormack and I moved to Rochester in 1978. 

Full disclosure, I serve on the Park Board, but I will limit my comments to a specific issue that affects me personally. 

My wife and I deliberately chose to retire in Rochester, we love it here.

The one thing I do the most in retirement is to ride my bike which I do nearly every day. I ride my bike along or around Silver Lake two to three times a week all year round. 

While this discussion is about historic designation, what does not match historic levels is the amount of motor vehicle traffic on North Broadway. When Silver Lake was first built, the amount of vehicle traffic was a tiny fraction of what it is today, and with DMC and population growth it will only steadily increase.

The pedestrian and bicycle crossings of North Broadway at Silver Lake are among the most treacherous in the entire city. Most of the bicycle and pedestrian groups agree something drastic needs to change there, and make it one of their top priorities.

I personally have once been grazed by a car there and nearly hit 4 other times by cars and trucks while legally in the crosswalk trying to cross Broadway. I can’t even count the number of times drivers have failed to yield to me and others in the crosswalk, it happens so often. Just last week after I entered the crosswalk, 6, count-em, 6 turning drivers failed to yield to me as required by law. By the time they cleared the crosswalk, the light was already starting to change and I had to retreat back to the curb.

I strongly suspect that the dangerous nature of those crossings significantly depress the amount of use of and access to the park. Would parents living on the West side of Broadway let their kids go to the park unescorted? Even their teenagers? How many seniors stay away because of that?

There are several proposals for changes to the park and lake that would accommodate significant safety improvements for all who walk or roll at Silver Lake. I personally endorse the dam removal project that would allow the trails to go under North Broadway and also to allow completely safe pedestrian and bicycle circumnavigation of the lake.

I have no expertise in historic designations. But I would kindly ask this committee not to make any decision that would lock us into a designation that would preclude the changes needed to make the crossings at Silver Lake and North Broadway much safer for all. Please keep this in mind in your deliberations.

Thank you.

Should we remove golf holes at Soldiers Field?

About seven months ago I was appointed to fill out the term of a resigning Park Board member on the Rochester Minnesota Park Board. I represent Ward 1, and am one of 7 members.

The most difficult and controversial subject that I need to grapple with as a park board member is the upcoming decision on whether to alter the golf configuration at Soldiers Field Park.

There are three proposed concepts for the Soldiers Field Master Plan and the details of those concepts can be found in this document:  

https://www.rochestermn.gov/home/showpublisheddocument/35822/637902225573030000

Rochester currently has four municipal golf courses, and there needs to be some significant investments to maintain the courses at their current levels, given the input from the National Golf Foundation study and at the direction of the Rochester City Council.

The obvious options include an option of increasing revenues for golf by either raising membership prices and greens fees or increasing tax funded support.  One estimate of the tax only approach would result in an increase of the property tax levy by a full percent.

The other obvious option is to reduce the number of holes in the municipal portfolio.  The most frequent proposal put forth to reduce holes is to convert Soldiers Field from 18 to 9 holes.

The Soldiers Field 9 hole option seems to be the most contentious and controversial.

The golf community in Rochester is very well organized and very vocal. Despite that, outside of Board meetings I have only been contacted by 2 people who identified themself as being from my ward. I therefore do not have a good feel how a good cross section of my ward feels about the issue.

My observation of the golf community that has contacted me or has spoken at the board meetings is that they are almost all white, mostly near or past retirement age, and from modestly affluent to very affluent. Some of the age skew may be due to the timing of our board meetings which start at 4:30 p.m. and which may limit some working age citizen participation.  But in any case it is apparent to me that we may not yet have been hearing from a broad spectrum of the Rochester community on the issue. 

When contacted by golfers on the issue, I am almost always emphatically urged to keep the municipal golf hole portfolio as it is. But until the public hearing on September 20, not a single person had said to me  that we need to keep golf as it is and I am willing to pay a lot more for it or raise my neighbors' taxes to keep it as it is.  That some in the public hearing agreed that raising the annual passes to closer to market prices was necessary, was the most positive development from the hearing.

Several speakers at the public hearing spoke of "tradition" and keeping Soldiers Field as it was always intended. However, when it was built, it only had six holes. Later it had only 9 holes, and later was expanded to 18. Does tradition mean we should have 9 holes or 6 holes?  Change is constant, tradition is not.

What was discouraging about the public hearing process is that it was extremely hostile to those outside the golf community. The crowd was almost all white, disproportionately male, and disproportionately older, and nearly all golfers. A speaker who was there to state an alternate point of view, despite being white and male, felt clear hostility and was booed by the crowd when making a point controversial to the golfers. It would have probably been even more intimidating to a non golfer that was also not white or male. It certainly was not a welcoming environment.

What also is never mentioned is an option to privatize some of the municipal courses.  I suspect that is due to the number of local private courses that have failed and closed in the last couple decades. Folks want the city to maintain the risk instead of taking it on for themselves. Also the recent failure of private courses was likely due in part to being undercut by the far below market price of annual municipal golf fees. 

I hold some fondness for the game of golf.  I was a caddy for parts of 5 seasons when I was a youth, and as a young man first arriving in Rochester, I held a municipal golf season pass for a couple of years. The highlight of that was the time I shot a 42 for 9 holes at Northern Hills.

However, I have not golfed in over 25 years, and very few of the people I associate with are golfers. So I hear from a lot of people who have opinions different from the golf community.

My personal opinion is that golf is not a growing nor sustainable sport. The local golf community will dispute that golf is not growing given the pandemic bump, but the long term trends, especially nationwide, seem to me to be not very favorable. 

Golf also requires far more space per user than almost any other sport, and in the case of Soldiers Field, that is prime space near downtown.

With our impending climate catastrophe, the use of green space, water consumption, fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides is certainly not sustainable. Though our region is trending generally wetter as the climate warms, when we do have droughts, they are likely to be increasingly severe. It will be spotty.  For example this year Rochester has had plenty of rain, but the Twin Cities is in a severe drought. In other regions, like the Southwest U.S., the amount of water used to maintain lush green golf courses in desert areas with increasingly strict residential water regulations and increasing water scarcity seems to me to be utterly unjust and immoral.

It has been pointed out to me that though the rate of golf locally was decreasing, it has shown a rebound during the COVID-19 pandemic era. I question whether that boost will be maintained over the long term. Our decision is not a 5 year decision, it is a generational decision.

I am convinced that Rochester Park and Rec needs to reduce its municipal golf hole portfolio, but where?

When I speak to local people who are not golfers, the nearly unanimous suggestion is to reduce Soldiers Field to 9 holes and repurpose the green space for other recreational opportunities. The most popular seems to be for space that can be used year round activities, most often suggesting an arboretum, botanical garden and/or a conservatory. Como Park in Saint Paul is often cited as an example. They mention that having a green plant respite in the dead of a Minnesota winter is really desirable. Folks also mention that an arboretum would provide for skiing, snowshoeing and dog walking in winter.

Soldiers Field is often cited as the logical choice for the reduction given its close proximity to downtown, is the target of the Discovery Walk development, and due to the expected large increase of employees, patients, visitors and residents who will live, work or visit downtown Rochester in the next several decades. There is a desperate need for more park space for all activities for all of the downtown constituents.

I recently had an interesting conversation with a Rochester native who for the past several years has lived and worked in Manhattan in New York City. That person's job permanently went to remote, so they could now live anywhere, and could move out of Manhattan. But the thing that keeps them in Manhattan is Central Park and all the green space and park amenities that make living in Manhattan more desirable.  In a similar fashion, I come from Chicago, where Grant Park and Millennium Park provide that needed green space for those living and working in the heart of the city.

Rochester, however, is a bit sparce in its parkland near downtown, when you consider that Mayo Park has been consumed by the growth of the Civic Center and Art Center footprint, and with Soldiers Field being consumed mostly by a golf course. That the golf course is fenced, creates an additional barrier and an unwelcoming presence.

I have been told by neighbors near Soldier Field that the golf course cuts off access in and out of their neighborhood.  Some of the businesses near Soldier Field find no benefit to having such a large space consumed exclusively by golf, as the golfers rarely patronize those businesses as they come or leave. There is clearly a constituency that would like to see different park land use with the space at Soldier Field.

The major problem with the reduction of holes at Soldiers Field is that it is the course that most closely fits the municipal golf model.  It is short, flat, easier to walk, more accessible to citizens and visitors, and especially good for youth and seniors. If it were further away from downtown, there would be no point in reducing its holes, and it probably would not even be under consideration. Also, if the increasing need for green space near downtown was not so acute, I would be opposed to reducing holes there. But that need is there and will continue to grow, so I must strongly consider it.

Hadley Creek also more closely fits a municipal model in that it is best used for beginner instruction and is only 9 holes.  Eastwood is the least like a municipal golf course with its very hilly nature, and fits more of a private club model.  Northern Hills is much longer that most municipal courses.

If we do reduce our municipal golf hole portfolio, I am pretty much opposed to selling the space for housing or commercial development. We need housing very badly, but not so much the more expensive, sprawling single family housing that would most likely come from the sale of one of the golf courses. And once you loose green space to development, you never get it back.

As it stands today, I would place my board vote in favor of reducing Soldiers Field to 9 holes. It is my expectation that this will be a minority vote, and if so, we will be just kicking the can down the road, as it becomes even more apparent that golf is not sustainable and as the downtown population grows in the coming years. We will see this question again.

Giving up "45" for Lent

 About 8 or 9 years ago, I read a very good biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. It provided a good roadmap of what a person of faith should be doing in the face of evil and oncoming fascism.

That Bonhoeffer was a rare exception in Germany, and that too many people of faith were duped or were passively complicit in the Nazi state and its atrocities is a fate I never want to fall into.

For the last four and a half years, I have been hyper vigilant to the threat of authoritarianism and fascism and anxiously observed all the scandals, bad policies and atrocities of our 45th President. I feared the worst, and was especially anxious that a re-election and 4 more years were very possible.

The events of January 6, 2021, confirmed the need for all our vigilance and especially our votes. The second impeachment clearly documented the level of malevolence of that man and his pursuit of power at all costs.

Now that the transfer of power has been successful and the second impeachment is over, I need to take a new approach.

These last four and a half years have been very difficult for me. My church and spiritual life have taken a terrible hit. The fear and anxiety, the constant checking of the news or social media feeds to be aware of the next bad thing to happen is draining. Keeping positive, and always being kind has been much more difficult. I too often find myself falling into anger and unkindness. I have been unusually and unnecessarily confrontational in some circumstances. I have many regrets for this.

It grieves me that too many of my fellow parishioners and church members did not see the intrinsic evil in the 45th President, and voted for or supported him because of a few single issues while apparently looking the other way from the abundance of all the other evils. I was even sent from fellow parishioners links to videos of conservative priests claiming that I did not trust God if I feared COVID or that I would go to hell if I voted Democrat. These were extremely hurtful for me, because it was my faith and love of fellow man that I was fearing the spread of COVID or voting for Democratic candidates.

Last summer I had been appointed to a church position to promote the care for the poor and the rest of the church's social teachings. But that appointment had to be quickly abandoned due to the other members' embrace of the accompanying white supremacy and homophobia embraced by the party of the 45th President in their pursuit of the abortion issue and the so called protection of religious freedom. The tipping point came in the church's threat of defiance of our governor's COVID mandates that was promoted by the very commission to which I was appointed.

At that point I was so turned off by our church that I very nearly cut off our donations to our parish, and nearly wrote an angry resignation letter to our bishop. I was persuaded by the good advice of a friend to not do anything hasty, and I quietly resigned my position stating a generic "family issues" instead.

I had heard of a couple local parishes who called all parish members multiple times during the pandemic to check up with them to see how they were coping.  The only communication from our parish to us so far was the annual donation solicitation letter.

In any case I have been deeply hurt, and I am not sure of my way back. My prayer life has been utterly disrupted. Due to the pandemic, and the fact that attending church is a pretty risky activity, I have not been to Mass since February of 2020, and have not attended more than a half dozen online services since. Prior, I had attended daily mass 3 or 4 times a week.

It is clear that I long for a road back, but fear that my anger and resentment will be a barrier.

In discussing this with my wife, who has some of the same issues as I, we have not decided what to do. We have toyed with the idea of a fresh start in another parish.  Unfortunately the parish that is the most appealing is 12 miles away (an hour bike ride) while our parish is less than 2 miles or a 10 minute bike ride away.

I feel that I am owed an apology from my parish and pastor, but they likely have no clue how hurt I am, and I may come across as a crank should I explain it to them.

There is a lot of feeling tied up in all of this.

But getting back to the original premise, almost all of this is directly or indirectly caused by the 45th President.

With him gone and the impeachment trial over, it is possible to make it into a new world leaving that all behind.  I need to get him out of my mind completely. This essay is in a way a bleeding away of all the bile that has accumulated.

Lent begins in 2 days. I have decided to start by giving up "trump" for Lent as a possible way to come back. I discovered you can filter Twitter for the word "trump" and all tweets containing that word will be blocked.

I need to remove that evil and all of its affects on me.  Please pray for my success.

My experiences with winter bicycle riding

 When I was in the 6th and 7th grade (1967-1969), in Oak Park Illinois, I had a newspaper route, delivering papers for the Chicago's American which became the tabloid Chicago Today during that time. It was a year round obligation, and I would ride my bicycle in all kinds of weather to deliver papers. Only when the snow was excessively deep, would I walk my route, sometimes dragging a sled loaded with papers.

Fast forward to 2003 when I started again in earnest to more frequently ride a bicycle and record my rides, I unfortunately did not have a lot of motivation to ride in the Minnesota Winters. In fact from 2003 to 2015, I rarely recorded more than 30 miles a month in December, January and February, and in about half of those months, the total miles was zero. I did not have any bicycle gear that would keep me warm enough when the temperatures drop below 45 F, and I only had a skinny tire road bicycle, which was nearly worthless in even small amounts of snow and ice.

Things changed significantly with the purchase of my Specialized Fat Boy SE in November of 2015.

Since then I have continued to explore winter riding, and with the help and advice of several friends, especially Ed Denbow, Paul Claus and Steve Jorgenson, and bike shop owner Bob Gritman, I have continually improved my equipment and gear to make riding in all conditions more feasible and more enjoyable.

There is some truth to the statement of outdoor explorers is that there is no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing. I would agree with that about 80%. Now that I have accumulated decent cold weather bicycle clothing, I am reasonably comfortable with temperatures/windchills down to about -5 F.

The key things to remember are to keep your head, hands and feet warm, and to dress in layers.

Starting with my feet, if I am riding my road or gravel bikes with clipless pedals, I have to use my regular bicycle cleats, which are not particularly warm. But I purchased several pairs of Fox River polypropylene sock liners. Over that I wear a warmer synthetic or woolen sock, my cleats, and over the cleats I wear a waterproof bicycle shoe cover, like these from Pearl Izumi.

This combination keeps my feet reasonably warm for a couple hours down to about 20 F.  I have tried using a hand warmer over my toes between the cleats and shoe covers, but that seemed to have only worked for about an hour. If I were to attempt to road ride for longer or colder temperatures, I might experiment with battery heated socks, I know a few riders who have used them.  The other alternative would be to purchase winter bicycle boot/cleats, but they are a bit spendy. 

My Fat Boy has flat pedals, so I do not need cleats.  That gives me some flexibility and I found a pair of Columbia Boots at Fleet Farm that are waterproof and very warm, and with the Fox River sock liners and Fox River wick dry heavyweight crew socks, my feet will stay reasonably warm down to 0 F for two to three hours. They won't be toasty warm in the cooler temperatures, but warm enough to function and not to be too bothersome or uncomfortable.

For my hands I have a couple pair of good Pearl Izumi winter bicycle gloves.  I added some polypropylene glove liners that add some extra warmth. These will work well enough for road bicycling down to about 20 F for a couple hours. The problem is that my hands start off pretty cold, but if I work hard enough and raise my heart rate sufficiently, my hands will eventually warm up.

But for the colder weather, I equipped my Fat Boy with Bar Mitts.

These neoprene handlebar mittens allow you to slip your gloved hand inside and control the brakes and shifters without removing the glove from the bar mitt. These keep my hands warm enough down to -5 F.

If I were to get winter cleats. I would then probably get Bar Mitts for my gravel bike.

To keep my head warm, I have purchased several different balaclavas, with varying thicknesses and materials. I have a thick, windproof, heavy duty set for the coldest days. I've experimented with using two thinner versions together for rides that will start out cold and warm up along the way, allowing me to remove a layer as needed.  I wear these under my regular bicycle helmet.  I also have a waterproof helmet cover to allow for even more warmth by eliminating the airflow through the helmet.

But for the coldest days, I purchased an Outdoor Master ski helmet and matching goggles. For the goggles, I have three different lenses, for sunny days, cloudy days and night riding.  The ski helmet and goggles keep my head, eyes and nose much warmer.  My eyes tend to tear up in the cold and wind, which inevitably causes my nose to run.  The helmet and goggles prevent my eyes from tearing up and eliminates the constant runny nose during the cold rides.

For dressing, I have found that my Maksbikewear padded cycling tights to be a good option for me.  These work well for temperatures in the mid 40's to 50's by themselves and with Specialized Therminal Tights over the top in the colder temperatures.  The Specialized Therminal Tights can actually be used for other non-bicycle winter activities. For the coldest days I might add a pair of Polarmax acclimate base layer pants in between.

For an upper base layer I found the Polarmax long sleeve Crew to be very effective.  I usually start with a moisture wicking t-shirt, then the base layer, a fleece jacket, a bicycle jersey (for the pockets) and a windbreaker over the top.  The windbreaker is key, without it, you will still get cold quickly. The fleece layer and windbreaker could probably be replaced by a good winter bicycling jacket. As I have a couple of different thicknesses of fleece layers, it is easier for me to adjust. You can easily add or remove a layer depending on the conditions.  Moisture wicking in the lower layers is key to being comfortable, as you will work up a sweat when pedaling hard.  It is good to experiment with the various layers until you find the right mix for you.

My Fat Boy came with 4.6" knobby tires which work great in most winter snow conditions up to about 2.5" of fresh powder. How well they work can be controlled by the amount of air pressure.  If the roads and paved trails are nearly dry and clear of snow, I will inflate to 15 psi. (I weigh about 180 lbs, your own weight will influence the optimal tire pressure.)  If there are a couple of inches of powder, I will drop the pressure down to no more than 8 psi.  If fat tire biking on maintained, groomed snow trails, I will drop pressure even further, depending on specific conditions, to avoid wrecking the groomed trail (higher pressures might cause the tire to push through the groomed surface, causing ruts).

However, when the conditions get significantly icy, I found that even the best knobby fat tires at whatever pressure still do not have enough traction on glare ice. So in late 2019, I purchased a set of Cake Eater Terrene studded fat tires (26x4.6) for my Fat Boy.

When the first ice appears in late fall/early winter, I swap out my non-stud tires for the studded ones.  This makes a very significant difference in traction in a variety of packed snow and icy conditions.  The studded tires have eliminated most of the excuses for not riding on most winter days. At this point I will ride most days that are warmer than -5 F where the wind is not an issue.  You still have to be careful in icy conditions as quick turns on glare ice is still problematic even with studded tires. The best option is to maintain a constant slower speed and direction on ice.

I will leave the studded tires on until the last of the ice and snow is gone.  The icy parts can persist on the paved trails in Rochester, even during the spring melt.  There is often refreeze of the melt, especially on the north sides of all the trail underpasses in town, where there is no sunshine.

If it is a bit warmer than the minimum, but windy, one option is to ride the groomed trails at Gamehaven Park.  The trails are in heavily wooded areas for the most part, and there is very little wind, even on windier days.

I have been contemplating purchasing studded tires and Bar Mitts for my Specialized Sirrus hybrid commuter bicycle. So far this season there have been only a couple days where that would have been a better option than the Fat Boy, so I am not yet sure it is worth the investment.  If I was not retired, and was still bicycle commuting to work, I would likely make that purchase.

One of the other significant improvements to the winter riding experience is the expanded paved trail winter maintenance by the city of Rochester. As I live south of Pinewood School, I almost always use the Bear Creek Trail to go to most locations, and all of the paved trails in Rochester. Prior to 2020, the Bear Creek Trail south of the Bear Creek Park parking lot was not maintained in winter. After a couple heavy snows, it would become nearly impassible, even for a strong fat bike rider.  However, starting in late 2019, the city of Rochester has begun to maintain that trail, usually plowing it within 24 to 48 hours after a significant snowfall.  That makes the trail passable on most days, so snow depth has not been an issue on most days now, giving me good options for riding on most days of the winter.  Most of the other main paved trails are also well maintained, so on most days I can easily ride 18-20 miles on the trails.

One last item about winter riding, as a hockey player: I recently purchased a Burly Nomad trailer. My intent was to use it for grocery shopping or camping trips.  However, since several outdoor ice rinks in Rochester are adjacent to the maintained paved trails (Bear Creek Park, Soldiers Field Park, John Withers Sports Complex), I have taken to using my bicycle as the method for getting to the outdoor rinks.  My hockey mitts, skates and stick can be transported in the trailer, and so no more need to drive to the outdoor rinks.

     (I should probably get a flag for the stick hanging out the back.)

(Note that I am playing ice hockey in bicycle riding gear.)

I hope this blog is helpful for you if you are considering increasing your winter riding.  Also, if you have some suggestions for me based on your own experiences, please feel free to let me know in the comments.

Good winter riding!

How I ended up riding 11,000 miles on my bicycles in 2020

As 2020 started, I was looking forward to my first full calendar year of retirement, I had a lot of plans for bicycling, travel and camping.  Ginni and I were to take a tour of the "Ring of Kerry" in Ireland in June, and were talking about traveling to Banff in August.  I had a planned bicycle camping trip to Florida in March, and the first weekend in June was "Bike Travel Weekend" and I had reserved a group campsite at Lake Louise State Park near Leroy, Minnesota.

That was just the more firm plans.  I would try to work in some other bicycle camping trips around other commitments, and was pondering riding the Katy Trail in Missouri in September after a planned trip to St Louis near Labor Day, or even a bicycle camping adventure to Vermont later in September. 

I had set a target of maybe 8,000 miles of riding.  That was a good stretch goal, as I completed just over 7,000 miles in 2019, the most ever in a year for me.  The hardest part was not being able to ride as much when traveling, so I would have to stay focused on the goal when on the days when I could ride.

In January and February I was focused on getting as many miles in as I could, weather depending, as I needed to be in shape and able to ride 55+ miles a day for 6 days straight by March 7, when I was set to do my first Adventure Cycling Association van supported tour of the "forgotten coast" of Florida along the gulf South of Tallahassee.

I had purchased studded tires for my Specialized Fat Boy, which would allow me to ride in a variety of conditions.  In January and February I was able to ride 43 of 60 days, and covering just over 700 miles, mostly on the Rochester city trails on my Fat Boy. I did manage on three  nicer days to get some longer road rides in.

On March 2, I departed for Florida driving and hauling my Specialized Diverge Comp. Along the way I rode the Silver Comet Trail in Georgia and the Nature Coast Trail in Northern Florida.  I had planned to stay a couple days with my cousin Sue and her husband Dale near Tampa and rode some of the local Florida trails, most notably the Withlacoochee State Trail and the Good Neighbor Trail.

The tour in early March came off without a hitch, with almost perfect weather, and a lovely tour of the Florida Panhandle.  But in the final days of that tour, the COVID-19 Pandemic broke loose, and rather than wandering on my travel back home, I made a beeline and arrived home on March 16, facing a total lockdown.  All my other plans and trips in 2020 were then cancelled.

Early in the lockdown, it became apparent that one of the only safe reliable recreation available to me was solo bicycle riding. I had a stroke of luck in that I had purchased a brand new 2018 Specialized Roubaix Expert road bike, for myself and a Specialized Como e-bike for Ginni the previous autumn. Once everyone else realized that bicycling was a good, safe pandemic activity, there was a run on bicycles, and it would have been nearly impossible to purchase a new bike even a few months later than we did.

Early in the pandemic, with the Minnesota stay-at-home order, the number of cars on the road plummeted, but the number of folks walking and riding the city trails sky-rocketed. I noticed that even on a really crummy spring day, the trails were busier than they would have been on the nicest of late spring or summer days from the year before. 

With the drop in road traffic and with the increase in trail traffic, and also not knowing whether folks on the trail could pass on an infection as you rode by, I began and ended my rides on streets in Rochester, instead of the trails. Later in the year after the lockdowns ended, and it became apparent that it was very unlikely to get exposed to sufficient viral load when passing people on trails, I reverted to using the trails when heading out on rides to the Southwest, West, Northwest or North.

With the pandemic, I had to make several adjustments in riding, as I was now riding exclusively solo (except for the occasional ride with Ginni).  For one I had to be completely self sufficient, no stopping at convenience stores, restaurants or breweries along the way. I also had to assume I could not rely on the kindness of strangers to haul me home should the bike break down or get irreparable flats. Fortunately on the Florida coast tour I learned a little bit about that as we would be riding 50-60 miles with only dire emergency support. So I would need to pack any extra gear or rain gear, an extra spare tube, a pump, extra water or Gatorade and my lunch.  My normal saddle bag or jersey pockets would no longer be sufficient storage.

In the case of my 2019 Specialized Diverge Comp, I used it the way I did with it on the Florida tour; I kept the rear rack on it and used a waterproof pannier for the extra gear, tube and food.  That bike has a hand pump mounted.  However, the Roubaix would be more problematic as I did not want to install a rack.  Instead I purchased an REI Co-op Link Seat Pack and an extra hand pump. 

This worked out well, extra gear, tube, pump and lunch would all fit nicely without being too unstable.  In the end, the extra tube and pump were a nice assurance, but I never really needed them.  I suffered only four flat tires all year and each time I was pretty close to home.  The irony was that with only 4 flats all year, 2 of them actually occurred on the SAME RIDE, but I was only a mile from home when the second flat occurred, so I just walked the bike home.

The second major adjustment was where to go pee? I was avoiding all indoor situations where other people could be present, so that meant that I was going to have to pee outdoors.  During July, August and September when the corn is tall, finding an inconspicuous place to pee was not hard, but the rest of the time I had to be more creative, and especially had to plan ahead as once I hit town again, I would have to wait until I got home. On my regular routes I found some reliable spots. On the state trails I would find a long straightaway, and if no one was coming from either direction, you could easily step off to the side. On roads, wooded spots were good, and also driveways with locked gates, as it was unlikely for someone to go that way.

The vast majority of my rides would start and end at home.  I had to be creative to keep things fresh. I spent quite a lot of time on the Ride With GPS route planner to come up with interesting variations on my well used routes, and tried to extend the routes onto roads I had never ridden. As I did not want to be a burden to the overextended health care system, I was very careful in choosing routes so that they were as safe as possible, in particular avoiding busier roads that do not have wide shoulders.

For even more variety, I decided that I could also haul my bike on the car as long as I stayed within an hour's drive of Rochester, so I made several trips to surrounding trails, Root River, Preston Harmony, Cannon Valley, Sakatah Singing Hills, Shooting Star and the Wapsi-Great Western Trail in Iowa.  I had ridden all of those trails before, except the Wapsi-Great Western.  I look forward to riding that post-pandemic so I can explore the local restaurants in Riceville or Elma Iowa.

The routes that seemed to work most often included all or parts of the Douglas Trail. In the course of riding the Douglas Trail several dozen times, I came to recognize all the railroad mileposts along the route. Later when riding the Wapsi-Great Western Trail, I noticed very similar signposts but with "KC" on top instead of the "M" that the Douglas Trail mileposts had.  Obviously, "KC" was for Kansas City which was the 399 miles indicated from Elma Iowa. 

Then when riding the Cannon Valley Trail, I noticed their signposts were identical to the Douglas trail mileposts with the "M" on top.  Finally when riding the Sakatah trail past Faribault, I again saw the same mileposts with the "M."  I had always thought the "M" stood for mile, but after seeing the "KC" on the Wapsi, I began to realize the "M" represented the destination.  When I did the math, with 127 being in Pine Island on the Douglas Trail and 75 being near Cannon Falls on the Cannon Valley Trail, the distance was about right for the two trails to be a continuation of the same railroad route.  

Again the 39 just outside of Faribault on the Sakatah Singing Hills trails was the right distance for a further continuation.

  

I conjectured that the Douglas, Cannon Valley and Sakatah Singing Hills Trails were all once the same rail line, with the destination being Mankato. After doing some research, I found a Chicago and Great Western railroad route map, and it confirmed my hypothesis.

Since I was not going to be traveling out of the area after the lockdown in March, I was not going to have a lot of new and interesting places to visit and photograph.  So I decided to make the best of the local scenery. My primary subject matter was the "bike lean" where I would lean my bike at interesting local places. At first I started to document all the cities and towns I would visit and therefore my bike leans were at all the town entry/population signs. After exhausting that, I started documenting all the country churches and cemeteries I would encounter along the way. In the end I must have visited every country church and cemetery in Olmsted County, and a good number in the surrounding counties.

In June I rode my only Century ride of the year by heading from home to the Mississippi River near Minneiska. 

At the end of June I had completed more than 5000 miles to that point in 2020, so reaching 10,000 miles was very possible if I kept up the pace.

In late July I rode a virtual MS TRAM ride, with 60 mile rides from home in a different direction each of the 5 scheduled days.

Riding primarily solo was going to cost me some on average speed, and in the end I averaged about 0.8 MPH slower in 2020 compared to 2019.  That is to be expected because I would not have a group riding in front of me to break up the wind and pull me along.  Also, a group ride tends to keep a very good pace.  But when I ride alone, I tend to enjoy the view a bit more and dawdle quite a bit more often.  If I was going to sacrifice speed anyway, I could then concentrate on distance.

Because of riding solo, and having to fight the wind on my own, I was very strategic with the timing and direction of my rides.  I would usually ride as early in the day as possible, getting out there before the wind would pick up.  If the wind was strong, I might do an out and back totally perpendicular to the wind.  On the handful of occasions with very strong and gusty winds, my wife Ginni was very willing to drive me out of town to a drop off point for a full tailwind ride home.

As I started each new month, I set a goal to ride more miles in that month than I ever rode in the same month in all previous years since 2003, the year I started journaling my rides. In most of the months, I handily beat my previous record.  However, I hit a bump in September when I suffered from likely food poisoning and missed 5 full days of riding with a bit of a slow recovery.  But by mid-month I was feeling well enough to pick up the pace, and with good weather, I ended up with 1000 miles in only 24 days of riding.

By early November I was ready to cross the 10,000 mile threshold.  The next question was whether I could top it off to over 11,000 miles.  At that point it would take really good weather, good luck and good health.  The snow in late October and early November hinted at some difficulty there.  But then December started out with three straight weeks of above average temperatures and excessively dry weather. I was then able to take longer rides on my road and gravel bikes, and by December 21 I had crossed the 11,000 mile mark.  The weather finally turned cold and snowy on December 23, and I finished the year out with shorter rides on my Fat Boy with the studded tires. 

For 2021, I think I am going to set a more reasonable goal of 8,000 miles.  If the promised vaccines do end the pandemic, and travel is possible, we will likely make up for some of the missed trips in 2020, and it is entirely likely that I will have 20-40 fewer riding days than in 2020.  Given that I turn 65 at the end of 2020, the chances of matching 11,000 miles in a year again is not very likely.  I am grateful for the opportunity, the good weather, good health, good luck, good blessings and the great encouragement and support of my wife Ginni.

 

 

Radical reform of public safety

In the aftermath of the George Floyd murder by police, and after reading many articles on police reform, disbanding, defunding, etc., I have now been convinced that incremental reform of policing (or other parts of the criminal justice system) will not cut it.  Only a radical reshaping of public safety and the very definition of what is a crime is in order.

This is actually not much of a stretch for me, even though the demographics would belie that, with me being a relatively financially secure older white male in the Midwest.

A lot of my opinion is based on my volunteer assistance to and advocating for people in poverty of the past ten years.  I have been a witness to much of the brokenness of too many parts of our society.

Prior to the most recent events, I had been volunteering with a couple of community groups that address poverty and affordable housing.  I've listened to many of the stories of people in need, where their jobs fail to provide for a livable wage, or where folks too often precipitously fall behind on rent as the result of losing income or a job due to an illness or accident, or even caring for a sick child.

Our systems are terribly broken if you are not a person of privilege.

Even before the most recent events I had commented to friends and family that when a society fails to do the hard but necessary work to ensure equitable and adequate education, equitable affordable access to health care, livable wages, affordable housing, paid time off for family illnesses, adequate mental health care, etc. and then washes their hands of it all and expect the police and criminal justice systems to take care of it, why would you expect that the results would be good?  See the old analogy of "if your only tool is a hammer, then all your problems will look like a nail."

COVID19 revealed that people of color are disproportionately affected.  Black and brown people are disproportionately affected by climate change.  The whole socio-economic system is rigged.

Decade after decade of incremental changes still give us this horrible result.

I used to think that the fall of the Berlin Wall and the election of an African-American president were the hopeful signs of real progress.  And yet 2020 looks too familiar to 1933 and 1968, and I now question whether ANY progress has been made.

So I, in my old age, have been radicalized.  We need radical reforms, and as soon as possible.

As a very frequent bicyclist, I see on a daily basis where motor vehicle drivers disobey traffic laws and put other people at risk.  More compliance and enforcement is my wish.  But having had negative encounters with police on a traffic stop, I don't want the police to do the enforcement.  We have the technology to enforce many or most traffic violations without the involvement of police. We should be doing it.

What "Stay-at-home" may reveal about school transportation: my own observations

I have loved riding a bicycle from the day I was given my first tricycle as a tot, and first learned to ride on just two wheels a couple years later.  For the past 18 years I have steadily increased my bicycle riding to the point that I logged just over 7,000 miles in 2019.

One of my favorite times to ride had been very early on Saturday mornings in the nice weather months.  The air was crisp and clean, the lighting was exceptional and the motor vehicle traffic was low making most road or street routes especially safe and enjoyable.

For some reason, as I was preparing to retire early in 2019, I was looking forward to riding early every day since to a retiree, "every day is Saturday."  Boy was I wrong.  The very first thing I learned first hand as a retiree was that road bicycling during the early morning commute was especially dangerous.  The motor vehicle drivers appeared to be the most aggressive in the mornings.  If you don't take my word for that, please sit at any intersection with traffic signals or stop signs and count the number of vehicles making a right turn that fail to stop for the red light or stop sign.  A majority fail to come to a complete stop, and a percentage do not even slow down much.

I soon learned that it was best to stick to recreational trails on weekday mornings or postpone road riding until at least 9:30 a.m.

I should have known this, but my last few years of commuting to work was either bicycling almost exclusively on recreational trails, or driving in before the morning rush started in earnest.  I was not observing as much on my commutes.

But I had been working in education, and had been observing the number of students coming to the high school in their own cars, or at the elementary schools the number of children being driven by their parents to school.  In fact the rules for the parking lots and approaches to the schools seemed extraordinary, and the motor vehicle traffic at the beginning of the school day phenomenal.  I would wager that the number of students arriving at school who walked, rode a bicycle or took a school bus was less than half at the schools where I worked. And in fact at the private schools that I worked, there were a few school days scheduled each year when bus transportation from the public school district was not available, and yet that was not seen as a major inconvenience.

I soon learned that if I had to travel from one school building to another, I should avoid the start of school day or the end of the school day, or face aggressive motor vehicle traffic.

I once recently had to go to an early clinic appointment, the timing and distance was not conducive to riding my bicycle there from work, so I had to drive.  While on my way, I was stopped at the main intersection in front of one of the public high schools here.  I started to count the number of cars making the left turn into the high school student lot, and could not believe the number, and more importantly the high percentage of single occupant vehicles.  I couldn't help thinking, do students walk, bicycle or bus to school any more?

I now personally attribute some of the cause of the crowded, unsafe and aggressive motor vehicle traffic in the morning commute specifically to school transportation.  How much of that is due to less experienced high school drivers driving alone?  How much of that is due to harried parents running late driving their students to school and then rushing off to work?  I would like to see some academic studies on that.  In fact the local newspaper just published an article on how a new proposed school location would significantly affect traffic and require significant road changes.

I also wonder if the parent's decision to drive their students to school is just a snowballing effect?  "I need to drive MY student to school because there is too much traffic nearby for my student to walk or bicycle safely there." As more parents drive, even more parents may feel forced to drive.

Then came COVID-19, school closures and stay-at-home orders.  Guess what?  Early morning road bicycle riding is now safe and enjoyable nearly every day as if they were all Saturdays.  In fact, I do a lot more road and street riding, and almost no recreational trail riding.  The lower volume of traffic devoid of inexperienced student drivers and harried parents is much more tolerable for bicycle traffic. And the recreational trails are significantly busier now that folks have fewer available exercise and recreation options.  A recent study showed that recreational trail use these last couple months was meeting or exceeding the volumes found during the best weather and the summer vacation months.

At some point the schools will re-open.  Will we as a society come to the realization that school transportation is something worth changing?   Or will we go back to a situation that will spiral out of control.

At the very least our school districts should make their new school location planning with consideration for walkable, bikeable locations, and build infrastructure to make that happen.  We should be working for a society where the majority of students arrive at school on foot, on bicycles or on a bus.