In Which I See Many Monarchs

Parked off of Cedar River Trail north of 42nd Street. Trying to get butterfly pictures in flower field, and failing. One showed up and flitted away quickly.

The ride today was short, due to heat. I rode for a while in the morning, and because I was only doing a few miles (around 15), I did go to campus and did complete four climbs up the Hill at MMU.

Now, I’m at home enjoying AC. The heat index was over 100 by the time I got here, so those few miles were good “heat” practice, but I’ll take that in limited doses, please.

The final few rides this week have been a bit short, but good. I rode south on Wednesday, intending to go to Ely, but turned back and I got a message that my daughter and grandson were coming over for supper. After the meal, we rode our bikes around a bit, stopping at a city park on Council Street to play for a while.

When we started, the grandson was excited to see several pickup trucks pulling trailers go by us on C Avenue. He loves trucks and trailers are even more exciting. The trailers were clearly balloon trailers—they each had a gondola.

After we circled the duck pond and rode for a while, we did the park stop, and then on the way home, saw four hot tail balloons moving east away from us. It looked to me like they launched from a park in Marion, although I can’t be sure.

Wednesday, headed home on 74th Street bike trail, wife and daughter are ahead of me, grandson is on my bike with me. You probably have to click image to see them, but there are balloons in the eastern sky.

Thursday, I picked up my road bike. Clarence had been in the shop, primarily for the worn rear tyre, but I ended up with two tyres and tubes, a new back wheel (they said the old one was cracked), new brake shoes (not a surprise) and new chain. Well, with the new pedals, equipment and tune up, the bike should be RAGBRAI ready now.

I then did a quick ride up to Center Point before heading to campus for a meeting.

So, there has not been another 60-mile ride, but I’ve gotten some good miles in during the past few days. The Japanese beetles are starting to appear, which is annoying, but I hope they have peaked and waned before RAGBRAI.

I haven’t taken my good camera on a ride for a while, and I want to because I want to make more Monarch butterfly images. It’s just my impression, but the Cedar River and Cedar Valley Nature trails have been hotbeds of butterflies lately. The city has planted a lot of flowers along the trail in Cedar Rapids, and this plethora of insect color is a pleasant result.

Images of flower plot near 42nd Street.

Cedar Lake is a good place to look for Monarchs. Another hot spot is the large flower patch that is just a little north of 42nd Street on the east side of the trail. And I always spot some along the Cedar Valley Nature Trail north of town, although I don’t have a particular hot spot to recommend.

There have been plenty of years where Monarchs have been more scarce and hard to spot. Get out there soon and enjoy them! And do it very soon if you plan to go north of Center Point—I saw a note online that the trail there will be closed soon for a bridge replacement.

Final biking note: In Wednesday’s paper, an elderly gentleman wrote one of those biking rant letters. You know the kind—how terrible bikers are, how they should get off the streets, etc.

Well, this one was a bit different. This guy didn’t want to get rid of bikers—he simply wants a verbal warning before he is passed.

I found myself in total agreement with him. It’s not often that I am so comfortable with a bike rant letter—but he’s totally right. As a slow biker, I also appreciate it when passers sound a warning.

And I’ve written before about the importance of “bike on your left” or “passing on your left.” Speak it loudly, without shouting, and just a few seconds before you get to the walker—give them a bit of reaction time.

It’s the polite thing to do, and makes the trail safer for bikers and walkers alike.

In Which We See Life Sprawled on the Trail

Turtle on the trail in Robins with my bike in background. He or she is smaller than (s)he looks, maybe 2 inches wide or so.

Map My Ride says I rode 65 miles or so yesterday—a 6-mile morning ride, and a 59 mile ride in the afternoon with my sister. Because my phone was dying when we stopped in Hiawatha for supper, I shut the app down before the long ride was completely over, so I think I approached 70 miles in total on Monday.

It was an interesting journey. My sister, on her note on her Map My Ride record of the journey (her phone says she went 60.12 miles—I rode to and from her house so my ride would be slightly longer) wrote that the ride featured “turtles, hitchhikers and the edge of the known universe. Just another day on the bike.”

Indeed. When we met a bit after noon, our shared goal was merely to get in a substantial number of miles before the rain, which was forecast for later Monday. Because I was riding Clarence, my hybrid bike, and because she had not been north of Lafayette on the Cedar Valley Nature Trail yet this year, we jointly decided it would be a good day to push past the paved trail heading north.

When we got to Robins, we decided to take the little trail loop around the city park (my sister noted she often does so just so the picture of trail rides on Map My Ride will have a feature beyond a squiggly line). As we approached the loop part of the trail, my sister noted that what she thought was a leaf was actually a turtle—and I said we would stop and take its picture if it was still there when we circled back.

Well, it’s a turtle that was warming itself on pavement—it didn’t move in the time we circled the park, so I stopped and made some images. We were commenting on the slowness of turtles and the comparative slowness of old bikers, when said young turtle (you may not be able to tell from the image, but it was leaf sized) vigorously jogged off. I am not an old, slow biker, I thought I heard it say.

Well, we may have thought that was the strange encounter with life on the trail of the day, and if we did, we were mistaken.

The ride continued north, to Center Point, to Urbana and beyond. In an earlier long ride, I had ridden maybe three miles or so beyond Urbana, and on Monday, we pushed beyond where I had gone. As we entered a pleasantly forested part of the trail, I noted that the unknown universe looked a lot like the known universe.

It was getting past 4, and there was rain in the forecast. The sky was gray, so we decided on the better part of valor and began to look for a point to turn around. At about 26 miles or so into the trail, we came to a road, marked with signs for the Black Hawk County Conservation Board, so we knew we had gone beyond the known universe in to the mysterious land of Black Hawk, and it was time to turn around.

Crossing Bear Creek into parts unknown. Linn County goes on for a long ways north, and we might be crossing the county line. Unsure--but we know we ended the ride in Black Hawk County.

Because the whole trail is supposed to be 51 miles long and because we were beyond 26 miles in, it occurred to us that we could just push on to Waterloo—but then we would have to appeal to one of our spouses for a return ride, and we were unsure of the reaction that would get. So, we decided it was a scouting ride that would prove, once we were done, that we could do the distance to Waterloo if we wanted to, and we turned back south.

Not sure what random Black Hawk County gravel road we are at, but this is a sign at our turnaround point.

A few miles north of Urbana, the trail left the shade of trees and entered an area of open fields. Ahead, it had a close to 90 degree turn, and when we went around the corner, we encountered something odder than a turtle on the sidewalk.

There was a young man and a bicycle—both of them prone on the trail. As we approached, we hailed the youth (or yute as they would say in “My Cousin Vinny”). He was simply reclined on the ground, smoking a Marlboro, although a small, odd looking bottle by his other hand made us think possibly other substances were being used for stimulation besides nicotine.

Looking a little like the dragon Smaug (small pebbles from the trail stuck to his sweaty arms), he slowly stood and faced us. “Do you have any water or food?” he asked.

My sister kindly have him her half-eaten bag of wasabi-flavored nuts. We both took out our water bottles, and he took her bottle and poured some water into the travel cup he had with him.

He picked up a small backpack, stuffed with a bundle of fake roses. He told us he had started his ride in Waverly, and was going south to visit what he described alternately as an ex-fiancé and girlfriend in Cedar Rapids.

“Where are you from?” he asked. Well, Cedar Rapids, and we were headed that way. “Do you ride fast or slow—can I ride with you?”

Well, we are old. We ride slow. So we resumed our ride south, slightly scary looking spent young man in tow.

Both of us heard banjo music in our mind. My sister bravely took to lead, strategically placing CR Biker between herself and the hitchhiker. To be fair, she took the lead for most of this bicycle ride—she was on a much better, faster bike than I was (and as I say about my sons when I ride with one of them, it's not just that her bike is better but so is her motor), but later she told me she was particularly grateful that I let her take the lead during this stretch of the ride.

We stopped in Urbana, where we encouraged the young man to fill his travel cup with water using a sink in the city restroom.

Then we continued. We were thrilled to get to Center Point because it meant both pavement and other bikers. We stopped at the depot, and I asked our hitchhiker if he had “enough gas” to ride 13 miles to Hiawatha. I meant energy, but he acted confused. So I asked if he was hungry and needed to eat now, or if he would make it if we rode on.

“I’m hungry,” he said. “I’m also broke.”

I handed him $5, and my sister and I gave him suggestions for local places he could buy a sandwich at. And so we parted ways, we to continue riding south, him to, presumably, get a bite to eat before continuing his Waverly-to-Cedar Rapids epic quest for love.

We could only hope that we were not aiding the violation of a no-contact order.

But wait, there’s more. As we rode south, my bike bag began banging in my rear spokes. It happens now and then, and simply means I have to stop and bend out the edge of the bag to keep it away from the wheel. I made an unannounced stop, and my sister, sensing that I had suddenly stopped, suddenly stopped. And fell over. She wears clips, but it was not an unclipping issue—she just simply was tired and didn’t put her feet down right and slowly tumbled to the trail.

A turtle, a hitchhiker and my sister—the long ride was filled with unusual sights of life hugging the road.

Fortunately, she was unscathed—but we decided that Scary Hitchhiker Yute was not the only biker who needed refreshing that day, and we made a pact that if we made it back to Hiawatha, we would stop at Culver’s.

It was a pretty safe pact. We were less than 10 miles from Hiawatha and even if we were both tired, we are also both experienced enough distance bikers to know we would easily make Hiawatha. When we got there we wolfed down our food there like ravenous bikers can, and my sister noted it was a good RAGBRAI analogy day—a long ride followed by unhealthy food.

Well, I hope all went well with Waverly boy, and I hope there aren’t more unsavory aspects of that saga. Rain fell last night, but didn’t start until late, so wherever he was going he had time to reach there before it got wet and added to his misery.

So, we learned several things from the ride. We could, if we wanted to, ride to Waterloo—we both confirmed that we can ride that distance on the trail and confirmed, via an unexpected scout, that the trail is open all the way to Waterloo. We both learned it’s good to do a long ride with a buddy, because you never know who you will encounter or when you might fall. We know now that Culver’s food tastes even better after a long ride—although that’s not particularly surprising. We also learned that my sister can survive a fall, but it’s an experiment we both hope we don’t repeat.

And there are things we don’t know. Every little piece of the biography we learned from Hitchhiker boy made his life story seem more complex, interesting and a little scary. He has been on his own since age 14. He has an 18-year-old ex he is encouraging to leave her family because “you’re not running away if you’re 18,” although he also assured us that she knew he was on his way. He lives with six other people, more or less.

Well, I don’t know the rest of the story. And I don’t want my assumptions to run amok. Perhaps he is a harmless soul simply seeking his way in this confusing universe. And we just helped him along the road, with water, wasabi nuts and a $5 sandwich.

In Which We Ride Half the Trail

June 23--Nice Saturday on the High Trestle Trail. Heading towards Madrid from Slater, on return journey late Saturday afternoon.

Plans for a Team Joe pre-RAGBRAI summit-ride are on the works. We’ve done it before, but I wouldn’t mind a tour of the High Trestle Trail. I went there Saturday with my wife and son—we parked at the west end of the trail and rode about half of it to Slater, where we rested in a park for a few minutes and headed back.

My son and I considered pressing on to the end, while my wife rode back to the start and read a book while she waited for us. But, we decided to stick with her and head west instead.

It may be a good thing we didn’t insist on going those extra 24 miles (12 out and 12 back) or so. I noticed on the ride back that Ben’s back tyre was pretty soft. We paused for ice cream in Madrid, and the tyre was noticeably mushy. And a big bald spot popped out on my worn rear tyre—before I get more miles on the RAGBRAI bike, I will have to swap out that tyre.

Rear tyre on Argent. No more shoe clip practice until this gets fixed.

The day had been cloudy, but before our ride had turned to a warmer mix of clouds and sun. We didn’t ride late enough to see the lights on the bridge, but the high water in the river and the mixed sun and clouds made for a pretty day.

We rode about 26 miles in all, 13 miles to Slater and back. It was my longest ride with the new pedals on Argent, and I am happy to report that none of the stops caused me trouble. Starting can still be a bit rough at times, but I’m gaining experience. Images of the ride:

Slater park, bikes parked during rest.

Sun and clouds.

Filling Station in Madrid. My Sundae is the Jack and Jill.

Approaching bridge.

Pretty sky on bridge.

My wife on the bridge.

Biking group.

View of bridge from lookout deck.

The 26 miles Saturday were fun. On Sunday, I rode twice, about 14 miles each time. The first ride was a park-supper ride with my wife, daughter and grandson. The second ride was a solo ride, starting about 8, with lights on. I rode the hybrid bike, which has decent tyres.

I’ll have to do some serious miles this week, weather willing, so I hope to get the new tyre Monday. I hate putting a tyre on a road bike, so I’m hoping it won’t take too long. With new tyres, brake shoes and the already new pedals, the road bike should at least be in RAGBRAI shape, this week, I hope.

All in all, I would have liked to get more miles this weekend, but the rides I went on were quite nice. It was a good weekend. May the new week bring more biking miles!

Flowers beside the Cedar River Trail, followed by two evening views of Cedar Lake from Sunday ride.

In Which I Click My Way to 10 Miles

New shoes on, ready for ride.

Thursday was hill day, but not so many miles. Friday, as it turned out, was more of the same, but something also very different.

I clicked it today—I took out the road bike Argent, donned my new biking shoes. As you can see from the video, I then spent several minutes practicing clipping in and getting out.

A friend on Facebook expressed the idea that clipping in would be easy, but getting my shoes out when stopping would prove to be more difficult. My experience was the opposite—I was a bit afraid of getting my foot out of the clip in time and avoiding a fall, but on this first ride, that turned out not to be an issue at all. It’s a reverse Dorothy move, she clicks her heels together and says “there is no place like home,” while I click a heal away from the bike and say “there’s no stop like a no-fall stop.” The exciting shoe practice movie:



Starting was a little trickier. I have to practice where to place my foot and what motion to use to clip in.

There are plusses and minuses to this whole clip thing. I did the hill ride again because I wanted to practice hills with the new (to me) system, and discovered it did seem to give me a bit more power—I could delay getting into granny gear a bit (although, as a grandfather, I’m not ashamed or embarrassed about my skill at biking up hills slowly in that grandfather-friendly gear).

My legs did feel a bit worn, but that could be because this was day two of hillfest 2018.

Anyway, the shoes were fine. They aren’t terrible to walk in—they are bit like wearing those “earth shoes” that were popular 30 years ago, the ones with the low heels and high toes. The rubber part on my new shoes is so thick that I don’t actually clip-clop like a horse, at least not yet until I wear down the rubber a bit.

And the bike was silent. My old pedals made distinctive snaps and crackling sounds they made, and it was a distinct pleasure to ride 10 miles on a silent bike.

The one downside is that I discovered I fidget quite a bit while I ride—I shift my hands, my butt and my feet. Or I used to. With clips, my feet are locked in place, and honestly, that will take a bit of getting used to.

I only rode 10 miles on the road bike. Later, I took out Clarence to attach the Tag-A-Long and ride with grandchildren—I did four short rides that totaled somewhere around 15 (I tracked it with Map My Ride but feel too lazy to grab my phone and check).

Granddaughter, one of four who rode with CR Biker late this afternoon/early evening.

Those late afternoon rides were cool and sometimes damp. I got sprinkled on, but was otherwise fine.

It was a good day of biking, but I need to get some serious distance rides done. The week was not so great, but here's hoping I'll get many more miles soon.

Cloudy skies on evening rides.

In Which I’m Blinging in the Rain

Checked on rain garden at MMU during today's bike ride.

I did not take the first ride with the new pedals, so I don’t have any reports yet on the number of falls or resulting injuries. I hope there are no falls, but I also recognize that may not be the most likely outcome.

But, I am joining the horse walkers.

On RAGBRAI, one of the distinctive signs that you’re entering a town, besides the distance appearance of a steeple, elevator or water tower, is the distinctive clack-clack-clack of bikers tottering around on their special shoes that have clips in them as they reach that busy point where riding becomes impossible.

I have not been a member of that horse walker crowd. Until now—because the pedals on my road bike were “crunchy,” the bearings wearing out, this week I purchased new pedals at the bike shop. I bought double-sided ones—one side is regular pedals that I can ride with regular shoes, the other is the clips for special biking shoes.

And, of course, I bought the bike shoes.

New pedals and new shoes. Will use them tomorrow, I think.

I have not gotten many miles in this week—weather is a factor and the week began with a rather fun non-biking interlude. My daughter had a conference in Des Moines, and my wife and I were taking care of our 2-year-old grandson. It turned into a two-day stay-catoin, and included a music program at the Hiawatha Public Library Monday and a trip to the Natural History Museum at the University of Iowa Tuesday. The grandson loves bike rides, and we managed to sneak a late one in on Tuesday, but mostly I didn’t bike much the first part of the week.

The weather didn’t cooperate much today. It had rained overnight and the street was very wet this morning, but I thought I might go for a ride on The Fancy Beast, the mountain bike I treat as my “winter beater” bike. Before I rode, I changed the pedals on Argent, my road bike.

I think Friday will bring the first clipped ride for CR Biker, and assuming I survive, I’ll update you on how it goes.

Anyway, I had been dreading the pedal change—in the past, at times, I’ve had a lot of trouble getting old pedals off of a bike. It turned out to be pretty quick and easy, so I was ready to ride by 9 a.m.

My plan was, because I knew it was supposed to rain again in the afternoon, to do a hill ride rather than a longer miles ride. I started by doing the hill tour of my neighborhood, climbing Bowman Woods Hill five times in five miles. But as I finished the final climb, rain pelted down, so I headed for home rather than campus.

Today's ride, The Fancy Beast, casting a shadow (a rare thing) before the first ride, and parked at MMU in the middle of the second ride.

And, half an hour later, the sun came out. I decided to gamble and did end up cycling to campus, where I did four climbs of the MMU Hill.

Besides the new pedals on Argent, I added a bell to The Fancy Beast, and was all set to ring it cheerily to warn pedestrians. Unfortunately, with the wet weather I didn’t do much trail riding today, and thus did not get much use out of the bell.

But I did manage about to bike about 15 miles between two rides, and although there was a clothing set change due to getting soaked in the morning, I still enjoyed the day.

And I look forward to the first “click it” ride tomorrow!

Tuesday afternoon ride with grandson--clouds reflected in C Avenue pond.

New bell on the Fancy Beast.

Top of Bowman Woods Hill, during second of several trips of the hill this morning.

Home after first ride--rain on the bell.

Two  views of C Avenue Pond and sky. Looking east at patch of blue and west at rain clouds that have just passed over.

Climbing MMU Hill, took a break for a few minutes.

In Which I Contemplate Shifting Iowa Skies

June isn’t the cruelest month, but it can be the most interesting. Almost exactly 10 years ago—June 13, 2008—the Cedar River crested after it spend days rampaging out of its banks and destroyed a chunk of Cedar Rapids. We were aghast at the power of our usually calm stream, and the whole city came within on functioning well of losing its water supply.

Whole neighborhoods were destroyed and lives upended.

Well, here we are, 10 years later. A slightly short and dry spring has given way to a volatile and rather damp early June—and there are starting to be some flood watches posted for the Cedar River due to heavy rains up north. Let’s hope history does not repeat.

Anyway, while much of yesterday was sunshine, there were also thunderstorms. Today was the day after. I attended church in the morning and then went on a late morning-lunch-park ride with my wife, daughter and grandson.

And then it was nap time. I woke up about 3. My wife had urged me to get out of the house and get on one of my bikes, because I need the training rides. The sky looked a little ominous, but I checked radar and it said I was good to go.

So , by about 3:30, I went. All in all, in a rather leisurely 37-mile ride, I got sprinkled on just a tiny bit, but was mostly dry, and the sky was an interesting kaleidoscope of change. Here is a gallery, in the order shot, of some sky images from the ride today:

Lowe Park trail in Marion, headed west to ball park area.

Nearing Tower Terrace Road in loop in neighborhood east of Lowe Park.

Boyson Road, heading into my neighborhood, before turning down Boyson Trail.

C Avenue headed north from Lindale Trail area.

Emmons and Center Point in Hiawatha. More blue appearing slowly in sky.

Nearing Cedar Lake from the north.

On the shores of Cedar Lake.

View of sun from south end of Cedar Lake.

Northeast edge of lake, looking west.

Noelridge Park at about 7:45 p.m.

On C Avenue bike lane. Lots of  large birds--buzzards or hawks--congregate near broadcast tower in this area.

At Corner of C and Old Marion Road.

Final two images--both looking west over C Avenue pond t Rockwell-Collins.

My ride was in two parts. In part 1, because I had not “Map My Ride” recorded it, I followed the same route my wife and I had ridden last night on our tandem bike. I went out to Lowe Park, rode the trail there, did a loop through some neighborhood streets that led back to Tower Terrace Road, and then returned home via the Boyson and Lindale trails.

The ride, it turns out, was about 14 miles.

I knew I wasn’t done for today—I needed more miles. So I decided the hill challenge was next. I rode up the Bowman Woods Hill on Brentwood Drive from one direction, looped around to the other side of the hill, did it again, and then looped back up another route, going down into a valley neighborhood and climbing back out. All in all, I tackled the hill four times.

That was enough. I next headed west to the Cedar River Trail, stopped at the Boyson Road trail parking lot for water and to eat the nuts I had brought with me, and then headed south to Cedar Lake.

On the way home, I took the shorter route that leads through Noelridge Park, but backtracked a bit to come into my neighborhood via the C Avenue bike lane.

Besides watching a shifting sky, I was impressed by the number of bikes and walkers out on the trail today. It was definitely the “day after,” as a large tree had split in the previous day’s storm, and clearly a city crew had already been at work to clear the trail.

Down by Cedar Lake, I encountered a young couple ripping leaves off of a milkweed plant. Hmmm. Turns out, they are “caterpillar hunters.” They find milkweed leaves with monarch eggs on them, and take them home to shelter and raise the future butterflies. “I have more than 60 chrysalis right now,” the woman noted.

Well, good luck, egg hunters. I don’t think they were hurting the plants—they were clearly only taking a part of a leaf when they found an egg—and it seems they are doing some good.

Between the 8-mile park ride in the morning and the 37-mile sky scene ride in the evening, it ended up as a 45-mile day. My wife told me to break 50, which I did not quite do, but I’ll make that a goal this week, weather willing. One day of 60 miles? OK, 50 is the “hard” goal, 60 is the “stretch” goal, and we’ll see.

Milkweed in bloom near Cedar Lake.

Big limb off of tree north of J Avenue on Cedar River Trail. Clearly, city crews were at work today.