In Which We Ride The Frosty Mornings

Tuesday (above) and Monday (below) views of the pond at Rockwell-Colllins on C Avenue. I was leaving a bit earlier on Tuesday--the sun was not up yet and I had to ride with lights. In the pre-sun cool morning, the water was like a mirror. I like both images, but I guess pre-dawn pond wins.

October is getting beyond its third week, and fall in this part of Iowa is probably at its peak or just beyond it. Some trees still have plenty of leaves, but many have changed colors and dropped leaves, and we’ve had a few freezes, so the lush, green look of summer is only a memory.

More and more trees are bare. After my bike ride home today, I was walking with a 2-year-old grandson to the park, and he remarked repeatedly how leaves were “everywhere.”

Still, this time of year, when I have wear a jacket and gloves for the morning rides and have to run with lights on if I get out of the house on time is probably my favorite biking time of year. There are just a lot fewer insects—no annoying cloud of gnats, no reason to apply the lemon-pie perfume of summer insect repellant.

And the still, frosty mornings are very pretty to see from the seat of a bicycle.

On Monday, I arrived at work to find the bike rack buried under 3 feet of leaves. With hands and feet, I briefly became a human rake and cleared one side of the rack.

Clarence in the bike rack Monday at Warde Hall. Raking of pile of leaves so I can get bike to rack done by CR Biker.

I didn’t really mind it. Fall! As long as there is no cold rain falling, it’s a great time of year to be a bicycle commuter.

Another view of Dr. Cross' cool electric-human tricycle. I walked by it Monday and could not resist taking it's picture again.

In Which We Love a Missouri Trail

MKT Trail near Columbia on a pretty fall evening.

Iowa bikers—if you have not tried the Katy Trail in Missouri, you should.

This fall break, my wife and I went down to central Missouri for a quick two-day visit. We brought our bicycles with us, planning some short rides along the long trail.

We stayed in Columbia, where we both went to graduate school. We arrived late in the afternoon on a Tuesday, and after checking in to our motel, we drove down by the MMU campus to catch the MKT Trail.

Bikes on Katy Trail as we rest before returning to town.

Our first trail ride in Missouri was on a pleasant fall evening, cool but not cold. The MKT moves through the city and quickly gets out into rocky, forested countryside. It was a gorgeous ride. If we had gone far enough, we would have made it to the Katy Trail, but it was getting late, light was fading, and we headed back to Columbia and Shakespeare’s Pizza for a Mizzou-style dinner.

On Wednesday, we drove over to Boonville, where we had lived for eight years in the 1980s. We parked and walked around for a while, starting at the house we had owned. Then, we unpacked our bikes and headed west and south on the Katy Trail.

An elderly man walking on the trail gave us a friendly warning that we were headed uphill, and he was right. For miles out of Boonville, the trail has a fairly steady upgrade, although it’s a rail grade, which means you can go uphill for miles but it never gets steep. Despite the climb, we were enjoying ourselves.

We crossed Interstate 70, and were starting to feel hunger pangs. After a while, we decided it was time to head back for lunch at the Palace in downtown Boonville. Along the way, we passed a yard where the resident had decorated the yard with skeletons riding bikes, and it was fun to see.

Decoration on Katy Trail.

If you ride the Katy Trail, making a lunch stop at the Palace in Boonville would be a good move. It was great. I had a french dip sandwich and Greek salad, and would like to try more food there except the sandwich and salad were so good I would also like to have them again.

In the afternoon, we were heading back to Columbia to meet my old friends and colleagues from my Missouri newspaper days. Along the way, we decided to stop in Rocheport and ride on the Katy Trail there. We only had an hour or so, so the ride was not long. But, wow. It was a fantastic ride. Trees along the Missouri River, bluffs on the other side, a tunnel through a hill—the afternoon was sunny, the weather perfect and the trail beautiful.

View of bluffs and Missouri River from Katy Trail near Rocheport, Missouri.

In all, we only rode a few miles along two stretches of the Katy Trail and the MKT Trail. I can’t vouch for it all. The trail is limestone and has some hazards—holes, branches, rock and such—along the way. You probably want a hybrid or mountain bike for this ride. But it’s a very pretty ride. I’d like to go back sometime and ride more of the Katy Trail.

And eat a good biking lunch at the Palace again, too.

My wife's shadow as we ride the Katy Trail near Boonville. Hope to cast our shadow there again before too long.

In Which Cool Fall Rides Are the Norm

Mount Mercy bikes in the bike rack as students put away bicycles from a recent Friday ride.

I did not see the snow Sunday—relatives living in central Iowa posted images on social media, so the fact that flakes were in the air later in the day here is not a surprise, but I was hunkered down, feverishly grading papers.

So I missed it, not that I miss it much. Cool fall rides are the norm here now. Today, the temperature is in the mid 30s, and in addition to the jacket I have already started wearing, I have to dig out some cold-weather gloves.

A very big creature (woodchuck? muscrat?) watches me Sunday as I circle Cedar Lake on my ride home. View of  Cedar Lake on a cold, grey day (below).

But the hybrid bike is back from the shop, and the monsoon season is temporarily suspended.

On Friday, the Mount Mercy University Bike Club held a ride. Five students showed up, not a bad size for a ride on a very cool afternoon. One first-year student is a woman from California, who I am proud of because she is not used to this Iowa weather, but came on the ride nonetheless.

At the end, she was “dancing” a bit, moving her legs to loosen them because biking 10 miles had left her sore—but what she said was “that was fun.”

Club selfie (above) before ride. Crossing grass at Noelridge Park on the way back to campus (below). Crossing a bridge on the Cedar River Trail (bottom).

It was. We headed north to Noelridge Park and circled the park on its limestone trail. Recent rains had washed some ruts in the trail, and I was a little worried we might have a spill, but luckily we did not.

So that ride was quite pleasant. On Saturday, I did a bit of yard work—raking, picking up fallen branches, planting some fall bulbs. And my wife and I headed out on a late afternoon bike ride, down the Lindale Trail to the Boyson Trail, heading to a big box store to get some more bulbs.

There were more slips on that ride, especially on the low-traffic stub of a trail before the sidewalk to the store. Despite that, again it was a pleasant ride.

Sunday, I went to campus to print more papers that had been turned in recently. That ride was less pleasant—rawer, windier, grey with a chilling dampness in the air.

And yet, it was still a bike ride, and that’s nice.

This week, we have a biking adventure planned. More to come later!

Some pretty sky views from Saturday ride to store.

 

In Which Light Sometimes Shines

Oct. 3--Wednesday morning sun. A bit startling to see.

The commuting bike is ready in the shop, which is good news. I hope to pick it up either tonight or tomorrow morning.

Thursday I drove, which was sad because despite being cool, it was a day of sunshine. But Wednesday was the one summer day we had in early October, and it was a day of rare glimpses of the sun—a sometimes milky or partly cloudy sky, but patches of blue and sun shining through.

It was humid, muggy and warm. Then, of course, a front rolled through, thunder crashed and so did the temperatures. There was rain that night, and rain again overnight between Thursday and Friday. But, Friday I did manage to ride, as I had ridden Wednesday, on my mountain “winter beater” bike.

Another Wednesday morning sun picture, with bonus ducks, above. And while there are clouds, there is also still sun (below) as I head home about 6:30 or so.

I was glad of the sun. And glad that the bike shop called to let me know Clarence has a new derailleur.

Finally, I am trying a new bike shop to service Clarence, which I purchased at Cranky’s. I took the bike to Goldfinch Cyclery in New Bo. Parking was an issue, but I encountered two former MMU faculty members while I was down there, which was nice.

And the atmosphere of the shop was nice—I rolled the bike in, the man who looked at it was clearly the same one who would work on it, and he gave me a stern Eldon-like lecture about cleaning my chain.

Which I kind of appreciate. Advice from bike mechanics is good to get—and it just reinforced what I already knew. Where the machinery of a bike is concerned, it’s usually a good idea to listen to Eldon.

And on the C Avenue Bridge Wednesday evening, I spy a buck spying me.