Good to See an Old Friend Back

Well, I’ve had two pretty good training days—yesterday’s Cedar River Trail ride with Cate and an even longer ride today.

I rode the Sac and Fox trail today. I think it’s one of the crown jewels of trails in Cedar Rapids. Sadly, it’s isolated—does not tie into anything or go from any useful place to any other useful place—and it’s a slightly iffy biking trail, a soft limestone surface that can be sandy or muddy in places, so you have to watch it.

But the trail winds along Indian Creek and the Cedar River, and provides the most “wild” trail ride in Cedar Rapids.

In 2008, when devastating floods carved the heart out the city, the trail was basically destroyed. A year after that epic flood, I wrote a post on my other blog about how tragic it was that, a year later, the trail was still totally wiped out.

Well, today it’s back. The only part that I saw closed was the bridge to the Indian Creek Nature Center—not sure what the issue is there, but the Sac and Fox trail itself was glorious. It was a cool day today and sprinkles fell in Cedar Rapids, so the trail was very web and mushy—I had to watch it.

In addition, horses use the trail, and I had to watch for their marks, too.

It was an interesting ride. I saw six deer-only one pair, the rest all as individuals. Could not get any photos as they moved too fast. I also saw two kayakers on Indian Creek, something that I’ve not seen before. We had a brief conversation as they floated by while I photographed them—they said the creek was shallow in spots and they had to portage their kayaks a couple of times, but were having a good trip.

Anyway, as I slowly rode the trail, I stopped now and then to take some pictures. Some flowers that I saw are on my other blog.

The most treacherous part of the trail was where Indian Creek flows into the Cedar River. The trial was very soft and muddy, and obviously had flooded recently. It was still passable, however, and I did do the entire 7.2-mile trail.

Combining those 14.4 miles with my ride to and from the trail, and I figure it was close to a 30-mile ride. The ride featured the ascent of Cottage Grove hill—excellent RAGBRAI training.

See this blog post for pictures of some of the flowers I saw today.

Well, people of Cedar Rapids, of all the trails I’ve been on lately, the Sac and Fox was the least crowded, but most deserved more use. Get out there and walk and ride!