In Which Argent Symbolizes a Club

MMU Bike Club Prez gives trail map to student who is leaning over the seat of my bike.

I would like to think it that it’s all due to Argent, my cool new bike, but clearly Mark’s granola bars feature in the story, too.

Anyway, Tuesday, Mount Mercy University held an “Involvement Fair” to attract new students to the many clubs and organizations that exist on campus. I was there, for two reasons. As I wrote on one of my other blogs, I am the faculty adviser to the student newspaper, the MMU Times.

I’m also the faculty adviser to the relatively new bike club. To make it convenient to promote both, and so that my delicate skin would be unharmed by the spectacular radiation spewed out by the nearest star, I arrived at the Rohde Family Plaza about 30 minutes before the fair. I noticed that some tables were already staked out, but I managed to secure two adjacent ones in the shade for the newspaper and the bike club.

I had posters that I had printed for the paper, but Mark, the bike club’s president, was taking care of the bike club display. I taped my newspaper posters to one table—but, how could I reserve the other?

For a few minutes, while I hightailed it back to Warde Hall, I parked a newspaper staff member, Anna, at a table. Then, I locked a bike to it (the table, not Anna). Nobody else would take the table then!

My evil plan worked well. The writers and the bikers co-existed at adjacent tables. And I left the bike locked there during the fair. Although students had to lean across it to sign up for bike club information, they didn't seem to mind—and the MMU mascot, Mustang Sally, even posed with Argent, as you can see.

Mustang Sally has a fast bike. You better slow that mustang down ...

Mark whipped up a nice quick display on a poster board, which he had to tape flat on the table (lots of wind). It featured some photos I posted to Facebook of some early club rides last spring, one of them a grinning “ussie” of me and some students who are going on one of the rides.

“Look,” said Mark. “Joe is smiling! It’s a miracle!”

Mark is not a communication student. Clearly he has no fear of CR Biker.

Anyway, the MMU Bike Club seems off to a great start this year, all due to Mark’s enthusiasm and energy. The club will host a Club Friday at MMU soon (the MMU web site says Sept. 4, but that’s really, really soon and Mark hadn’t heard anything about it, so I’m not 100 percent sure how soon). The club members are already planning to host weekly bike rides, and I hope they start soon and that I can join them most of the time on either Argent or Francis.

But, it was good that I had ridden Argent yesterday. Francis is a bigger bike with bulging back bags and a big metal Wicked Witch basket in front—students would have had a much harder time leaning over Francis to sign up for the club!

How many signed up? I don’t’ know for sure, but more than the 20 who signed up for the newspaper—and the newspaper had a pretty good haul.

So what is next for the Mount Mercy Bike Club? I still haven’t spoken much with Mark about my idea for a club service project. My idea is to plant weeds.

Adult Monarch--female, I believe. Males have extra black dots on wings.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife photo by Tina Shaw. From fws.gov.

Monarch butterflies have been in the news a lot lately—a local group gave out Milkweed seeds during RAGBRAI to help save the butterfly, since Milkweed is the only plant Monarch caterpillars will eat. There have been other Monarch-related efforts recently, as you can read here and here.

Anyway, I would propose that the club adopt the Monarch as its unofficial mascot, and that we promote planting Milkweed at MMU and along local bike trails. That would lead to an easy-to-organize multi-year service effort. We could start, for example, by planning and planting a butterfly garden at MMU and in later years partner with Trees Forever or some other group to spread Milkweed along the Cedar River Trial or even the new CEMAR Trail. We could also give out Milkweed seeds or plants at future Club Fridays.

Monarch baby on Milkweed. Another FWS image,
this one by Courtney Celley.

The Monarch Butterfly needs our help because habitat loss in Mexico and the eradication of Milkweed in Midwest farm fields are cutting out its ecological niche—and biking seems to me to be an activity people engage in partly because they like being outside and like to enjoy the natural world. Monarch butterflies certainly make that natural world a more attractive place. In fact, Milkweed also makes the outdoors more pleasant, as long as you don’t play with the volatile sap. Milkweed should be renamed “Butterfly Flower” because it’s a hardy, attractive, flowering native plant.

In any case, it’s up to the students if they want to promote Milkweed for the sake of Monarchs or want to do something else as a club service project. Certainly there are lots of other bike-related service ideas, such as promoting bike safety or fund-raising for trails, which could be taken on.

Well, CR Biker does have a smile on his face. It was a good fair—for the Bike Club and the newspaper. As I tried to point out to Mark at the Involvement Fair, I do sometime smile at the newspaper, too.

It will be interesting to see what the MMU Bike Club (my suggestion for a slogan on a t-shirt? “It’s just a hill, bike over it”) will do this year.

And we’ll see if Argent gets to be a prop at any more public events.

In Which I See Mostly Sunny Skies

Butterfly on MMU campus Thursday.

Cloudy, sunny, windy, cool, warm—even a few sprinkles. Biking this week has been every kind of weather except cold and snow.

But it has been good. My only regret is that I’m back at work now, which cuts into my biking time.

Argent on campus Wednesday, I think. All alone for now--hope more bikes show up this semester.

The butterfly is from walking on campus, but the rest are legit biking pictures. I’ve used both Francis and Argent, depending on if I have to haul books and things.

It has been a good biking week!

Earlier this week, Tuesday. Cloudy cool morning.

Late afternoon Wednesday, Cedar Lake.

Mostly sunny Friday morning.

Good Omen For New Trail Section

Monarch (and bonus beetle) on a thistle near newly opened trail section.  Good luck, I think.

The Queen came to visit today on the Cedar Valley Nature Trail.

The Linn County Trails Association,linncountytrails.org, announced it on their web site Friday, but I found it by accident this afternoon. Some, though not all, of the newly paved Cedar Valley Nature Trail is open north of Robins.

I recorded my entrance onto the new trail in video, and shot some photos. 

The trail is obviously “new,” with ditches yet uncovered by vegetation. I imagine the ride will be even more pleasant next summer, but bravo—more paved trail north is a good thing.

While out riding and shooting, I encountered a young woman out jogging with her dog. She stopped and chatted with me for a few minutes, wanting to know if I had passed the 4-mile marker.

Jogger on trail, she stopped to ask me about mile markers.
Maybe my vest was confuing.

I had not, but I think the reason is that the mile markers were probably removed in the trail project, a point I suggested to her. “Oh, we'll call it four miles then,” she said, and jogged off.

I went as far north as the bridges over Otter Creek. I'm not sure how far exactly that is, but I estimate I went a bit more than 6 miles north of Boyson Road (the estimate based on the fact that it took me 35 minutes to get back to Boyson Road, and I cruise along somewhere around 12 miles an hour on a trail).

There were some workers installing part of the railing on the north bridge at Otter Creek, and I decided it was a logical turn-around point.

As I was heading back, I spotted her—no, not the jogger lady, the Queen. She was flitting along the left side of the trail, and I stopped and unslung my camera, only to have her dart off. Not far, fortunately, as she stopped to drink at a thistle on the right side of the trail.

She was a Monarch. I've seen Monarch Butterflies this summer, but not has many as usual. I don't know if changes in their Mexican winter homes or the drought here this year accounts for that, but still, there she was (definitely she, no scent patches on rear wings which would make her a he). I was glad to see her. Seems like a minor good omen for the first ride on a nice new stretch of trail on an unusual cool summer day.

My point of turning around, bridge at Otter Creek.

It was a very unusual day, in this hot, dry summer. It rained overnight, and there was a greenish tint and wetness to this ride which I have not experienced much this year.

The drought has not completely lost it's grip, but at least we're enjoying a break now. May more cool weather and rains be headed our way!

Final, unrelated note—on my way from the trail to MMU, I passed the yield sign at the corner of Maplewood Drive and Wildwood Drive. It's one of the most inexplicable street signs in CR. Headed south on Maplewood, one does not stop or yield. Wildwood Drive, which comes in from the west but ends at the intersection, has a stop sign. So, why, headed north on Maplewood, does one encounter this yield sign? To whom does one yield? Traffic on the cross street coming from the west stops completely. If one were turning left from Maplewood to Wildwood, one would yield to oncoming traffic anyway.

There is a story behind this yield sign. It must mean something. But what?

Yield?  To whom?  Based on where this sign is, it seems to mean nothing.