In Which 10 Hills are Climbed

Quick ride to Schultz Road Thursday afternoon. Milkweed north of Lafayette (above) and some Black-Eye Susan (below).

I didn’t get a huge number of miles Friday or Saturday—not enough time and too much else to do.

So I tried to make the miles count for RAGBRAI practice by emphasizing hills. After a quick ride Thursday to Lafayette, on Friday I went to campus to do some work (not enough, much more to do), and I climbed the MMU hill 5 times, including twice doing the Villa route to the library with is the steepest, most intense hill climb.

That ride came after I had already climbed the Brentwood Hill three times. I added two more climbs this morning—so in about 30 miles, I climbed 10 hills.

We’ll see if I fit in another ride this afternoon.

Two views of balloon and moon from top of Bowman Woods Hill on Friday morning.

In Which We See the Moon In A Pond

Lights in a pond on C Avenue.

Riding home in the dark at night on one of the first cool fall evenings felt pretty nice.

We have not had the first frost yet, and honestly I am looking forward to that. Not because I’ll love biking in cold weather (although biking in cool weather is actually quite pleasant as long as it’s dry), but because I won’t miss the biting insects.

I was pleased this morning to dig Argent out of the garage—so far this week, I had been riding Francis. That’s been due to carrying capacity—Francis has the baskets but Argent has the speed.

I didn't have too much to carry today, so I opted for speed over capacity. It does not make a big difference in the commute, but I was getting a slightly late start this morning, and I was able to recover about 5 minutes due to riding the faster bike.

Anyway, so it was Francis on the ride home last night. I was late at the office because I stayed for an event in our fall Vietnam series, and was riding home around 9 p.m. The moon, which had been full Sunday, was still large and was just rising in the sky.

I stopped by the pond at Rockwell-Collins. I liked the way the fountains, parking lot lights and moon were all reflected, so I rested my little camera on the handlebars of my pickup truck bike and tried to snap a few.

The shutter was very slow, but I think the results are decent. Like the bike ride—a little slow and decent.

In Which The Moon Is Not Full, But Close

I did not take this photo, it's an October 2013 full moon image I downloaded from Wikimedia Commons. It was shot and posted by "LordToran."

We’re two days away from the full moon, kiddies, so the ride home tonight was not as light as it could have been, but it was also not very dark.

I had stayed on campus at Mount Mercy University to attend an art reception and then to see the play “Oedipus Tyrannous.” The play began at 7:30 and lasted for two hours, and I left campus around 9:45 p.m.

It was dark, but these days most of my afternoon commutes are in the dark. After all, it’s getting dark around 5 p.m. since the time change. I have lights on my bike, and I know the roads fairly well, so riding in the dark is not a big deal.

And the nearly full moon helps.

Still, biking around 10 p.m. is very different from biking around 5 p.m. The day has closed down, and the back streets I pass through area bit eerie. With the moon shining bright, you almost expect to hear a ghostly howl or see a werewolf padding down a dark alley.

I didn't spot any werewolves. I can pedal pretty fast, but don’t want to test the idea that the bike is either faster than the werewolf, or it’s not.

Tonight, it was just nice to get home. I enjoyed the art interlude, but I am enjoying the home interlude, too.

In Which I Ride In A Poetry Fog

Moon over water tower, seen on Blair's Ferry this morning. Now, isn't that cool?

Water in Dry Creek, a new sight this morning.

Your bicycle correspondent was in an odd mood last night and this morning. Not a bad mood, just an odd one.

In fact, the rides have been very pleasant—this morning, in particular. It was the day after overnight thunderstorms, and if you know Iowa, you know the day after a storm can be beautiful. Despite clouds, that’s what this day promises to be.

No, the oddness comes from metaphors dancing in my mind. On the way home yesterday, I passed by Elmcrest Country Club—as I do every day that I don’t take the trail ride home. The club has tennis courts that are hidden from view, but near enough to the street that you can hear that distinctive “thonk (pause) thonk” sound a tennis ball makes as it is struck by a racquet or thumps off a court surface.

I don’t mind that sound, but I found myself wondering how a writer could describe it. What metaphor or other comparison would capture something as distinct as that particular sound that seems to be made by nothing else?

It was worse this morning. For one thing, the weather has cooled and the morning was just breathtakingly fine. Before my commute, I spent a few minutes doing routine service to Francis—greasing the chain, checking the tire pressure and then pumping both tires up when it turned out I should check the tire pressure more often. I wasn’t rushing the task, and somehow the simplicity of it had me tuned into the world around me.

I had an empty bottle of bike lube. I walked around the house to the backyard to toss it into a garbage can there, and walked about 20 yards too far, carefully stepping on the walkway stones to avoid the damp earth, breathing in the morning air, admiring the sudden lushness of a parched land that has been blessed with its first deep drink of …

There, you see? Hang on. Events will conspire to make it worse.

After gazing at leaves for a while as if I were a stoner on a high (is that a simile or metaphor?), I retraced my steps, and when I got to the side garden by the wall in front of the house, a silent little shape flitted into my field of view, hovered briefly maybe 10 yards in front of me, and then zigzagged off into the setting full moon. I wrote on my other blog how, after a rare recent rain, I mistook moths on some hostas for a crowd of hummingbirds, but this was not a mistake. The iridescent shininess of his body, the upright posture of his flying—I could, only briefly, see his curved, sharp beak, but I saw it. This was no insect. This was a bird—probably, by the brightness, a macho bird, although with some species you can’t tell, and I haven’t used Google to research hummingbirds to see if the females are also bright.

Because I was just too busy enjoying this one.

And that moon! The sky was mostly cloudy grey, with just a few milky blue breaks in the west. An almost full moon was setting at 7 a.m. this morning, and it looked like a golf ball resting on a bed of cotton as it slipped through a blue patch towards a cloudy horizon.

Darn you, Carol Tyx! Again, pushing my other blog (y’all click now, you hear?), I attended a program of hers yesterday in which she described her poetry writing style.

I’m no poet, but I do write. One thing she said is that she tells her students that she sometimes suffers from a literary hangover, where she stayed up too late the night before reading a book she could not put down.

I didn’t stay up late last night reading. Instead, I wrote the post about her program and was in bed by 10:30. But, my brain must have been slightly fried by the exposure to poetry. After the hummingbird, I was entranced by the sight of water in Dry Creek (it has been dry for weeks), by the moon several times, by geese and squirrels and crows that scampered and squawked and otherwise provided unintentional distraction to the mind suddenly aware of its love for the simple, natural world around. The smell of wet soil perfumed the air, a smell I have not encountered a lot recently in this dry patch of the world.

It was cool this morning in every sense of the word. The ride was nice. And I think I was also suffering from a slight poetry hangover. That was OK, too.

Feather on the steps of Warde Hall when I got there this morning. Why did I photograph it? Because I can, man. I promise no illegal (or, for that matter, any fun legal)  substances were consumed in the writing of this blog. I'm just stoned on poetry.

A Bike Ride In the Dusk

Maple leaves with almost full moon in background.  Tree is near Indian Creek along bike trail in Marion.

My wife and one of my daughters were ready to do some shopping, and suggested I might want to go on a bike ride.

Well, they were right.  It was a beautiful fall late afternoon, just after 6, the warm air of the evening getting its first twilight chill.  It was light enough to ride and take some photos, but late enough for that special autumn evening air.  Summer air, to me, can seem “used,” when it’s hot and humid.  It feels like it’s been exhaled by some large, unpleasant mammal before you event get to breath it in.  Crisp fall evening air feels fresh and new.

Ivy along new bike trail linking Cedar Rapids and Marion glows in late afternoon setting sun.

There are still some night sounds, a few die-hard crickets chirping in the woods, but since we’ve had a couple of freezing nights, the insect noises have died down.  It was quiet and comfortable as I rode along, stopping now and then to snap some fall photos.

I rode south along C Avenue to the trial that runs behind Walgreens.  There are some “road work ahead” signs posted, and the primitive trail in Cedar Rapids has been cleared of brush.  One suspects that the city is finally going to do some limestone resurfacing to match the already completed trail in Marion.

Hawthorne in Marion park near trail.  Leaves are not yet turning, but fall berries are pretty.

I rode to the Marion trail, then did the southern loop through the Frisbee golf course, back over by Menards, along a few quiet streets, through a city park and then back home via the trail and C Avenue again.

What a ride!  I needed my lights, but I enjoyed myself, and I hope you enjoy seeing some of what I saw.

Hot Child in the City

OK, I'm neither hot nor a child, but I am in the city, or at least what passes for one in Iowa.

It was mid-summer suddenly today--that's the kind of year it has been. One day, a long, snow-filled winter. The next day, the ground is bare and daffodils are stating to poke through. Today the new rose bush in front is being devoured by the sudden appearance of hordes of insects. For this time of year, I've seen huge spiders. Winter to spring to summer in leaps and bounds, with no in-between times.

Anyway, I had to grade tonight and didn't start towards home until after 10. The moon was up and around 3/4, which was helpful, as is the lights on my bike.

Riding at night is a bit strange. I worry a bit, because I can't see stones and sticks and cracks in the pavement, but seem to have ridden the same route so often that even what my eyes can't see, my bike and arms remember and steer around.

At least traffic is light after 10. I worry, for no explainable reason, about bats, but none attacked while I was riding. The only mishap on the way home was my breifcase knocked my bike bling, the plastic modle P-51 my sister got me, off of its support on my handlebars. Not off the bike, fortunately, and nothing was broken, just a matter of putting it all back together.

Have to go to campus again tomorrow for a meeting. Summer is here with a vengence and the pace of my life should slow, but not yet. Well, the level of heat we're having doesn't really bother me--just drink more, sweat more, ride slower and take extra showers!