In Which Winter Biking Presents Minor Challenges

Dec. 6--After flat tyre was repaired, I ride bike home in the afternoon. Pretty light at Cedar Lake.

Winter in Iowa: A warm November ended rather dramatically with a minor dusting of snow and the sudden shift to cold temperatures. Thanksgiving Day saw flurries in the morning, and the days after were cool.

But I’ve continued to roll across this planet, and I have enjoyed many rides. I have layers of clothes and warm boots that make riding possible in cold weather, although there have also been a couple of days where weather prevented my biking. One Monday, snow fell, and I don’t ride in snow. There was also a day, the day after the snow fell, I think, where the morning windchill made the world feel like 9 degrees below zero Fahrenheit. I used to say my threshold to stop biking was zero, although I think these days it may be 10 above. It’s certainly far above 9 below.

So, sometimes I don’t ride due to weather.

Dec. 2--Snow fell today so I drove. Bike rack where I usually park--no bide today!

And then there have been a few other mishaps, too. On Friday, Dec. 6, I started my ride to work on a cold morning, but I was fully bundled up. About 1.5 miles into the ride, I felt a feeling no biker wants—the bike was suddenly a bit wobbly and sluggish. I stopped and felt the tyres—yup, the front was very mushy. Clearly, it was losing air.

On long summer rides, I bring a spare tube on my road bike, but I wasn’t carrying one this day—and frankly it takes me so long to change a flat that it would have been a real pain on a ride to work. I do carry a pump and tried pumping it up, but it lost air again quickly—clearly, there was a puncture. And I was about 2 miles from work.

I was lucky to be bundled up as well as I was, and also that I was wearing winter boots. That was a much longer walk than I was used to, but at least my boots are better than biking shoes for a very long stroll.

I was a few minutes late to class that morning, which I hate, but I made it. I messaged my wife, and that afternoon she drove to campus to give me a ride home. We put the bike in the van and decided we might enjoy a late lunch together, so we drove down to New Bo, where I wheeled the bike over to Goldfinch Cyclery. They were willing to sell me two tubes, but suggested they could install one for $10—a very cheap labor cost to have any competent bike mechanic touch your vehicle, so I said “sure.”

My wife and I browsed a bit as the mechanic worked. I had lost a leg band the day before (minor mishaps is my theme on this post) and picked up some new ones. We paid for the repair, the two tubes and the leg bands, locked the bike in the van and went to NewBo Market for a nice lunch.

And then I rode my bike home, late in the afternoon. It was a pretty afternoon, temperature in the 40s, which makes it fairly warm. So the morning flat didn’t spoil the afternoon ride.

And Saturday, Dec. 7, I was planning a trip to see a musical at TCR with my wife, one of my daughters and a grandson, but I had a bit of time for a morning ride. Today was to be a particularly warm day, but I thought it was cold enough in the morning that the mountain bike trails off of the Boyson Road trail might be ridable, so I got the trusty old mountain bike The Fancy Beast out.

Dec. 7--Warn Saturday sun on Boyson Road Trail.

And the trail was slightly mushy at parts, but in general, the plan was OK. Except, when I took the more difficult of the two trails, there came a point where I startled a buck and stopped to take its picture. And when I got on the bike again, well, I couldn’t tell the trail from the deer paths through the woods, and I got quickly lost in the woods.

Minor mishaps, right? I don’t recommend deer paths for bike rides, by the way—I inadvertently ran that experiment and don’t recommend. But the track I followed led me back to the other bike trail, one that is both easier and more defined (I think because it gets more traffic).

Luckily, no further mishaps and no flats. The rest of the ride went well as the day warmed up. The past three days have been a return to warmer than usual weather, although a big chill is expected this week.

All in all, despite a few bumps in the road, winter riding in Iowa this year has been pretty good. As of Dec. 9, I have 65.49 miles for the month and 2,224.59 miles for the year—closing in on 3,000. In November, I rolled 184.89 miles.

In Which Biking Is a Family Affair

Flag on Mount Mercy University campus blows in stiff, cold wind Nov. 25. Winter is coming, but I am still biking. 

Fall is starting to transition into winter here in Iowa. Our weirdly warm and dry autumn changed to a more normal, damper pattern in November. The weather service says this has still been a warmer than normal month, but the outlook for the coming winter is an average weather pattern—which in Iowa means we should see some genuine cold and some snow.

We had our first hint of that, when a white dusting fell Nov. 20 and there was a bit of snow visible in a few spots on my morning commute on Nov. 21.

Nov. 21--Crossing C Avenue Bridge on morning ride. Despite the track I made in the snow, the bridge didn't seem slippery--but I was still glad to be riding The Fancy Beast mountain bike.

Yet, despite the cold, biking weather overall has been decent. Today I did wear full winter gear for the first time—a hat, hood, two long-sleeved shirts (a T and a thick sweatshirt), two pairs of socks including an outer pair intended for winter insulation, warm winter boots, long underwear, mittens—pretty much, the works. It was in 20s with a wind chill supposedly in the teens, although, to me, the wind wasn’t all that biting on my sunny morning ride.

Then again, I was very well insulated.

Well, despite winter, many recent rides have warmed my heart. The other theme this cool (but still unseasonably warm) November has been rolling with grandsons. A young boy, almost 5, is visiting Iowa from the Bay Area of California, and it’s nice to have this little San Franciscan staying with us. On Sunday, Nov. 17, he and his father and his third-grader cousin and I went on a bike ride. The older grandson and I used the tandem bike, the Cali kid and his dad used Clarence (my hybrid bike) with the Tag-A-Long seat.

California boy, ready for a ride.

We cycled up to the Lindale Trail, rode out to the Subway end, and then doubled back. We had to briefly pause—the tandem is heavy and I faded for a minute—but after a brief rest we proceeded at a slower pace. We headed east into Marion, pausing for a break at the Marion Public Library. I had my library card and was willing to check out a DVD or some books, but the boys were more interested in the chance to play, so after a while, and an announcement that the library would be closing soon, we left sans checkouts and headed back home.

It’s colder now, and I don’t know how well the child from the West Coast would tolerate it, but I hope I can attach that Tag-A-Long again and do at least one more ride with him before he wings west. We’ll see.

Nov. 19--Dandelion on cool fall morning. And that's my bike parked at rack in background, just rode to campus.

Seen Nov. 18 on C Avenue during morning commute--dinosaur session on wires.

Meanwhile, the day before that pleasant Sunday ride, my wife and I drove down to the Chain Reaction Bike Hub in Cedar Rapids with one of our daughters and her teen son. His 15th birthday is this week, and he needed an adult-size bike for his birthday. The Hub is a great local non-profit organization that offers bike-shop quality used bicycles, which have been repaired and are in great condition to ride, at reasonable prices.

We spoke on the drive downtown, and he was thinking he would like a mountain bike. He doesn’t care for the narrow tyres of road bikes, and wanted a bike to peddle on short rides around town, not really a long-range RAGBRAI bike.

The first bike he tried was a mountain bike that seemed a bit too small. The second bike was OK, but the chain slipped off when he tried to shift—not a serious problem, but not good PR for that bike. The third bike wasn’t a mountain bike—it was a hybrid, with slightly wider tyres than some hybrids. It was the largest of the three bikes that he rode, although it seemed to fit him well and given that he’s already tall and probably not done growing, I think it was a great choice.

And on Sunday, one week after the first grandson-themed ride, the teenager called me. “Want to go for a ride today?” Well, yes I did.

He rode over, and we briefly discussed routes. We could use the Lindale and Grant Wood trails for a tour de Marion, we could do the ride north to Lafayette, or we could head south.

Grandson looks at bridge we just crossed over Cedar River Nov. 24 on Edgewood Road.

He said he didn’t care, so I chose south. I had seen a note online that the new bike lane that crosses the Cedar River on Edgewood Road was open, and I was curious to see it. I also thought he would enjoy the ride down to Ellis Park.

Well, I was partly right. We rode to the Cedar River Trail and headed south. At Third Avenue, we turned off the trail and took the bike lane to cross the river, and then double back west along the trail by the river.

Little did I know that our way along that river trail would be blocked by a street construction project. The grandson had wanted a trail ride, but we ended snaking around the construction area on streets, although he seemed to be doing fine. And so we went, via street and sidewalk, back towards the river and the park that was our goal.

Ellis Park was pleasant, and the bridge turned out to be quite nice. It’s still marked with a “bikeway narrows, walk bicycles” sign—which made a lot of sense when the walkway was narrow before it was widened in a street project that is still ongoing in the traffic lanes, but there were no walkers on the bridge and there was plenty of room, so we pretended not to see the sign and simply cycled across the river.

View of Cedar River from new, wider walkway-bike lane on Edgewood Road bridge.

We paused. I had brought food for us, and ate a bag of nuts and some plantain chips. I brought some for the grandson, but he declined and simply waiting while I wolfed down my snack.

We were over 10 miles into our ride—by far the longest ride he says he remembers ever doing. And he had originally requested a “trail ride.” I had planned a ride that was going to be mostly trail and turned to be more street riding because of the closed river trail—and the question was, how would we get back? I was reluctant to retrace our steps—the detour around the project had not been all that easy. And we already were across the river to the northeast side again.

Despite there being a hill in that direction, I suggested we continued going north on the wide new sidewalk beside Edgewood Road.

Argent, my road bike, on the north end of the Edgewood Road wider walkway. Work continues on the road lanes, but this is now open.

The sidewalk ended at Glass Road, but I knew I could drive home easily at that point. Never had biked from there, however. Glass Road is a bit busy and narrow, and the grandson does most of his biking on sidewalks, so used the sidewalk as we turned east on Glass Road and rode to Wenig Road, where we turned north. Again, we were on a fairly narrow, fairly busy street so we continued our sidewalk trek.

And got to 42nd Street near Kennedy High School, where a bike lane led us back east to the Cedar River Trail.

So, my grandson’s “trail” ride turned out to be a 19-mile (close to 20, 19.67 miles according to the GPS app on my phone) adventure with less than half of it on trails. And, as it happens, when you diverge from bike trials, especially on Wenig Road and Edgewood Road, you also do more hill riding, although I think those climbs were harder on my old body than on his young one.

Still, the birthday bicycle boy got an introduction to longer rides. I hope the grandsons (and granddaughters) will want future rides, because I thoroughly enjoy such family rides.

As aforementioned, they warm my heart, even as the weather turns cold. As of midday today, I have ridden 160.11 miles in November, with the longest ride being the 19.67 with the teen grandson. So far for 2024, I’ve rolled 2,834.32 miles across this bumpy, pretty planet.

In Which Bugs Still Hang on in November

Nov. 9--Bike parked on Creek Trail beside the Boyson Trail--Sewage project continues, but the trail has been opened again.

It’s November in Iowa, and now definitely looks like fall. The landscape is starting to take on its muted brown hues, and the look of woods beside the trails is different now, as leaves leave and leave us with a different, unobstructed view of the land.

And yet, on the ground, green hangs on a bit. A few later flowers, like Asters, aren’t yet all spent. On Thursday this week, I wandered a bit on my ride to work, riding out the Cedar River Trail via the new western leg of the Lindale Trail and the street that goes by Theisen’s. Along the way, I saw a flash of yellow in the corner of my eye—butterflies are a rarity now, but one was flitting about in the cool morning air. It was gone by the time I stopped and took my camera out, but it was a reminder of how warm this autumn has been.

Fortunately, it has not continued as dry—which has reduced the days I can ride, but I’m OK with that. The soil needs to store some moisture before the winter freeze, especially after the very dry September and October we had.

Nov. 2--Just climbed the hill on C Avenue, while I get ready to go down Lindale Trail, chain shifts off of the front year. Fortunately, I knew enough to stop right away so the chain didn't get lodged--quickly fixed.

Cedar Lake seen on indirect ride to work Nov. 7.

It rained today (I wrote this Saturday, Nov. 9), which kept me inside this afternoon, but I knew from my weather app that there was a chance of a ride this morning. It was sprinkling as I got The Fancy Beast mountain bike out of the garage. As expected, according to the app, the sprinkles ended quickly, so my morning ride was mostly dry.

I went on the Boyson Trail because it was nearby and I knew rain would be coming. I had the mountain bike because I thought I would gamble and see if the new Creek Trail is still closed. It’s not, they have opened it. It’s been wet, the end of the trial near the Boyson Trail is a shallow pond when rain falls. Still, they have replaced the section of trail that they recently dug up, so I rode out to Boyson Road before returning.

Nov. 7--Dandelion fluff near Collins Aerospace on Lindale Trail. Near where I saw the butterfly.

Before heading home, I cycled out to Oak Shade Cemetery and walked over to say hello to my parents, recently buried there.

November has had a few days where I did not ride due to rain, but as of Nov. 9 I have still managed almost 70 miles—66.78 so far, giving me 2,743.99 miles for the year.

And a butterfly! Is it really November?

Nov. 11--Creek Trail--where it used to be closed and is now open.

In Which Some October Bears Are Saved

Didn't ride to work on the morning of Oct. 22 due to the first rain this month, but late in the afternoon took a ride along the Boyson Trail. Creek at the Hanna Park end of the trail.

 

Oct. 21--Morning light at C Avenue Pond seen on bike ride to work. October was a very pretty month in Iowa.

Happy Halloween! A grandson had an afternoon costume parade at his school, which meant I left work earlier than usual today—which was nice, because that way I didn’t run into any trick-or-treat traffic on the bike ride home.

It was blustery and cold, however. We had a decent rain yesterday, a rarity in this dry fall, but the weather pattern seems to finally be shifting. The summer season of October is ending and genuine, chilly, damp fall is suddenly upon us. It was cloudy this morning, in the 50s, so I wore a sweatshirt but stowed a jacket, knowing that this would be a windy day that would only grow colder as the day wore on.

Speaking of wore on, I wish the jacket had been worn on my back rather than stowed in my backpack. Before I event got the 40 yards or so to C Avenue, a cool sprinkle began, which turned into a rather unpleasant drizzle for the first third of my commute. Luckily, I didn’t get truly soaked, just slightly damp.

Well, I drove Wednesday due to the rain, and even if both rides were slightly challenging—damp in the morning, windy and cold in the afternoon—they were rides, which in general are always nicer than drives.
 

Oct. 22--Morning. Not my bike seat, some braver soul rode to campus that rare, wet morning.

October 2024 bike rides are history, and they were a pretty good history. I rolled for 275.65 miles, not a bad total for a full-time professor who doesn’t have time for any truly long bike journeys during the school year. So far this year, I’ve ridden 2,674.21 miles.

And witnessed a few bears being rescued. Woolly Bears, that is—the fall caterpillar. The moth that the caterpillar is the larvae of has an interesting lifestyle—why do we see these caterpillars in fall? Because their bodies are designed to survived the winter—they actually can stop their hearts and fully freeze, and yet thaw and get on with their brief lives as a adult moths next year.

And, no, despite folklore, the width of the bands has nothing to do with the harshness of winter—it’s both chance (caterpillars from eggs in the same brood will vary) and the age of the caterpillar (which molt it’s in—as it ages, the brown parts increase), not some magic weather forecast, that leads to narrow or wide caterpillar brown stripes.

Anyway, on Sunday, Oct. 27, a grandson and his mom brought over some doughnuts for a nice breakfast (with scrambled eggs and bacon), and then we loaded up my bike in the van, drove to his house, picked up his bike and parked at Hanna Park in Marion. That’s at the south end of the Boyson Trail, and the grandson, who is a big baseball fan, agreed to go for a bike ride before we played at baseball at the park.

The ride was good—the day was fine and sunny. The grandson is a relatively recent bike rider, and was a bit wobbly on this day—and at one point, he did lose control, rolled off the edge of the pavement and tumbled. Fortunately, the ouch wasn’t serious, but it startled him, so we cut the ride a little short. In the meantime, his mother and his grandmother were walking on the same trail, and we waited for them—counting Woolly Bears, the seasonable caterpillars who were appearing in some numbers on the warm pavement.

The grandson is the Woolly Bear rescuer. He picks them up, looks at them, and always places them on the grass. When his mom came into view, he had to grab one and run to her, showing her the caterpillar he had. Now, to be fair, not all spikey looking caterpillars are safe to handle—spikes on a caterpillar are defensive and can even contain poisons. Woolly Bears can irritate the skin a bit if you are a little rough and get scratched by their spikes, but they are not one of the iffy kinds of caterpillar—handled gently, they are safe for a child to pick up and examine. And the grandson, as the saver of Woolly Bears, is always gentle with them.

Bear on the trail! Woolly Bear caterpillar Oct. 27--Grandson is busy showing another one to his mom. I don't rescue them as he does, but I don't harm them, either.

A Woolly Bear, my bike and grandson's bike Oct. 27.

Can’t say I picked them up, although I do try to avoid them on warm fall afternoons when I see them. Luckily they are small and the trails relatively wide compared to their body sizes. As far as I know—and I honestly don’t know for certain—no immature moths have been harmed this fall by my rolling across the planet.

Snakes, on the other hand, can be a bit harder to avoid, and this month I saw several of them—but, again, didn’t hit any.

Above and below--not the same snake, two snakes I saw on Lindale Trail ride Oct. 19.

Snakes, like caterpillars, can be dangerous, but almost all of the ones seen in Iowa are harmless creatures, hunters of bugs that do us no harm, so I tend to let them be.

Anyway, I appreciated this October. I hope next year’s October may be a bit more seasonal—as a gardener, I’m not all that fond of drought and heat—but it would be OK for it to have pretty days, as I will be retired then and I aspire to accumulate even more miles.

Tower decorative details added to bridge on Lindale Trail in Marion, seen Oct. 19.

We’ll see. On the Lindale Trail (or Grant Wood Trail—not sure what the current name is), some towers were added this month to the curved bridge over the busiest street in Marion, which are nice to see. There are clearly lights on the bridge, but I haven’t checked the bridge after dark to see if it’s lit at night. Never mind, I’m sure I will see this at night some time, and in the meantime, I’ve been lucky to enjoy many pleasant rides during this pretty month.

More images of some pretty sights October bicycle rides:

Rode out to Lowe Park Oct. 26--Turkeys seen in field beside a residential street in Marion along the way.

Pretty fall leaf seen on Oct. 27 ride with grandson.

C Avenue Pond Oct. 28.

Seen beside Lindale Trail Oct. 19.

This and the rest of the images: Flowers and insects seen on Oct. 26 bike ride at Lowe Park garden.

In Which I Share A Tale of Two Wheels

 

Pretty day Saturday Oct. 12 for ride on the Cedar Valley Nature Trail north of Urbana.

It was the best of rides; it was the worst of rides.

Fall has finally come to Iowa. We had a hard freeze this week, and it has been very dry lately, so everything has a sort of drab fall look to it. Which is not as bad as it sounds—fall can be pretty, and as the underbrush leaves leave, the shape of the brown land can emerge and be pleasing to look at. On the whole, I prefer a lush, green look to my scenery but I still enjoy when the scenery of the land can be seen.

Anyway, I had some interesting bike adventures over Fall Break, last week. I had hoped to get some miles in, and I did, but there were complications. Best and worst and all that.

On Thursday, Oct. 10, I put on my biking outfit, including bike shorts. My personal rule of thumb is to wear biking shorts for rides of about 20 miles—the bike shorts are worth wearing if I am going to roll 20 miles or more, otherwise, regular clothes are fine for biking. I wasn’t sure exactly where I was going to go on this ride, but I vaguely thought of the ride south to Morgan Creek Park.

Anyway, it was a fine day, not yet as chilly as it would get this week, and I rode off. But about 6 miles from home, as I rode on the trail beside Cedar Lake, I noted a funny and familiar noise and feeling, so I stopped and felt my rear tyre.

Bike with flat tyre parked at Cedar Lake.

Yup. Flat. There was a lot of broken glass on the bike lanes in town I had used to get to the lake, and I assumed I probably got a puncture close to the lake. My wife was out of town (one reason I had planned a longer ride), and I was 6 miles from home.

It seemed like there would be a long walk was going to be my afternoon agenda. But I called my daughter who works downtown, and she called me back in a few minutes. Yes, she was on her lunch hour. She had walked from her office to the public library, but could walk back to her car and them give me a ride.

I locked my crippled bike, waited for a few minutes and then was rescued, which I greatly appreciated. Once home, I had lunch and then drove my van down to Cedar Lake to pick up the bike for a trip to Goldfinch Cyclery, where I got a new tube for the road bike (and a new tube and tyre for the hybrid bike—its back tyre was worn and needed replacing). Later in the day, I rode my mountain bike for a pleasant 10-mile jaunt to Lowe Park so the day wasn’t so lost for rolling even if I never made the 20-mile goal.

Fixing bikes on Friday. It didn't take as long as I thought.

The Fancy Beast at Lowe Park on late-day ride.

Friday for me was a work day, mostly. I had plans for a longer bike ride on Saturday, and I needed to get some grading under my belt—so it was a day for checking mid-term exams. Still, I needed to pick up some prescription drugs, so I fixed the road bike and  the hybrid bike during a grading break, and rode the rode bike up to HyVee Drug store, a ride of just over a mile. Later, I used the hybrid bike for a quick late trip on the Lindale Trail.

Saturday was the adventure. And the best and worst ride. In the afternoon, I loaded my road bike Argent into my van, picked up my sister and her recumbent trike, and then drove to Urbana. This summer, they had paved the final stretches of the Cedar Valley Nature Trail north, and we planned to check out the new trial paving north of Urbana.

Prettiest part of the trail Oct. 12, above and below.

The day was sunny, and pretty. We made good time, rolling north through Brandon, where we had made a stop. Along the way, we speculated whether we would see the bluff by the river—we had ridden this part of the trail in previous years, but not often, so we could not recall if the bluffs were north or south of LaPorte City, where we tentatively planned to turn around.

Turns out, it’s south of LaPorte City, which was nice. While we taking a snack/restroom break in Brandon, another group of bikers rode up and told us a bridge was out north of Brandon, and that they planned to leave the trail and take county roads to go around the break.

Well, we decided just to see how far north we got before the closed bridge. A few miles later, we crossed a road where there was a big “trail closed ahead” sign, and assumed it was the last road before the bridge, and that the bridge was not far ahead. We were both right and wrong. There wasn’t another road that we saw, but we crossed first one and then another bridge, and the one that was always a ways ahead. And it was north of Brandon along this ride where we reached the prettiest part of the trail, with the low rocky bluff to our right and the river off through the woods on our left.

And the bikers form Brandon passed us as we rode, but we never saw them again. Where they disappeared and how they got to their alternative route when no roads cross the trail will forever be a mystery. Anyway, we never made it to LaPorte City, which is one of the towns near the north end of the trail. As advertised by the Brandon bikers and via the sign some miles bike, a long bridge over the Cedar River was closed. So now the trial all the way to Waterloo is paved, but you cannot ride that full route yet.

Pretty rustic rest area with bench, bike art and sign between Brandon and LaPorte City.

Yeah, trail closed ahead. Maybe more than 5 miles ahead.

End of the trail, for now--we calculated we were only 3 miles or so from LaPorte City. I hope this is open next summer for a long adventure ride north on the now paved trail there.

Well, no matter, the afternoon was getting on and it was time for us to ride back to Urbana. The ride back passed pleasantly—it is a very pretty trail, always was, but is so much easier and more pleasant to ride now that the surface is asphalt rather than limestone.

So, it was the best of rides. Until we approached Urbana.

At a county highway on the north side of town, we waited for a car to pass, and then started across the intersection, my sister in front, me close behind. As I crossed the highway, I was more or less glancing back and forth to the side, as one does when one is astride a bicycle and wary of tons of motorized metal on a cross path.

Somehow, my sister heard the departing car and mistook the noise for an approaching one. Although no car was heading in our direction, she slammed on her brakes. Compared with bikes, trikes have a braking advantage, which led to a breaking disadvantage for me and my bike. My sister’s trike also doesn’t have brake lights, and I discovered that she had stopped in the worse possible way.

Crunch. The worst of rides.

Well, that’s an overstatement. I ran hard into her rear wheel, badly bending her fender, which we assumed was the worst of the damage. Until we started to ride, and an odd twinkly tune was being played by my front wheel. Because I had snapped a spoke, which was banging on Argent’s front fork with every turn of the wheel.

A spoke is broke, oh no!

It still wasn’t the worst of rides for two reasons—one, neither my sister nor I was in any way physically harmed. The other happy happenstance was we were close to the end of the ride. My front wheel was wobbly, no longer true, but I just slowed way down and rolled slowly to the ride’s end only a mile or so away.

Well, shucks. One day after fixing Argent’s tyre, I broke its front wheel. So Argent is again lame, and it will take some dollars to get it fixed. But my hybrid bike Clarence and my mountain bike The Fancy Beast are both ride-able.

Well, OK, the ride had an unhappy ending but wasn’t really the worst of rides. It was the best of days and not as good of a ride as it could have been, but still well over 30 miles on a newly paved, gorgeous trail. And in the next week, frost and freeze arrived and fall in Iowa is now looking more fall-like. Which is OK for a bike rider—it’s still a great time to be rolling on two wheels. As long as both of your two wheels work. So far in October, 169.75 miles. And the year so far, 2,568.4 miles. Not the best mileage total, maybe, but happily, not the worst.

C Avenue Pond Oct. 16--freezing morning, but pretty day fora bike ride to work.

In Which Summer Continues in October

Sept. 21--Riding on the trail east to Marion means watching for the large walnuts that get dropped this time of year.

The lastest month of biking in Iowa? Beautiful—and also dry. Honestly, I would not mind missing a few rides due to rain, if you ask, Mother Nature.

Still, today I want on a 19.7-mile ride along the Grant Wood Trail—I chose that route because I didn’t get out the door until mid-afternoon and didn’t have time for a super long ride. The Gazette reported this morning on the ribbon cutting for the Cedar Valley Nature Trail, now paved for all 50 miles north to Waterloo, and I would like to ride that soon—but not today.

And today, another reason to take it easy in the afternoon was heat. It flirted with 90 degrees today, very hot for this time of year. Luckily, it was also breezy and dry, so it was not a terrible humid heat.

Oct. 5--About 10 miles from home, east on Grant Wood Trail, pausing before heading back home. Fall look to the woods by the trail.

Oct. 5--Trail and corn, as I again pause on the way back home. On the paved trail now, beside a corn field (above and below).

I didn’t really plan it that way because, to be honest, I didn’t pay attention to the forecast, but there was a gusty south wind today, so my choice to go down the Grant Woods trail, a mostly east-west ride, was a good one.

In late September, the drought and shortening daylight caused the plants to react as they should. It hasn’t really felt like fall yet, no hint of frost, but there has very much been a fall look to the rides with nuts dropping from the browning trees. We are getting to that dry time of fall when the first hard freeze will be welcome to get rid of tiny biting insects that suddenly abound in the dry grass, but I guess the dry weather means there aren’t as many biters around as usual.

Well, the riding has been good. Fall break is next week, and dry, sunny weather continues, so maybe I’ll get in a longer ride north to check out some of new paving. We’ll see. In the meantime, I am enjoying fall rides. As of Oct. 5, 51.05 miles for this month, 2,449.7 miles for the year so far. In September, my miles totaled 246.32.

More September bike ride views:

Sept. 21--Mountain bike on mountain bike trail by Boyson Trail, fall look in the land.

Sept. 15--Pretty fall sunset.

Sept. 13--Lucky Friday at the bike rack. Some other MMU employees decided this was the one day they would ride bikes to work--fuller bike rack than usual.

Sept. 21--Trail in Marion on day before Equinox--fall is arriving.

Sept. 24--C Avenue Pond on pretty fall morning.

Sept. 27--Despite warm weather down here--it must be very cold up there where the thin clouds are--Sun Dog, usually only seen on very cold day in winter, appears.

Sept. 24--Another look at the C Avenue Pond.