In Which I Prepare by Riding Inside

Feb. 19--bike in bike rack at Mount Mercy University. When I posted this image on Facebook, my sister asked it if was my bike. No--wind chill was double digits below zero, and I am not yet recovered enough to ride an outdoor bicycle.

How cold was it in Iowa this week? Frigid air from northern Canada settled on the state, and low temperatures overnight were often double digits below zero Fahrenheit. Wind chills of 30 below or so caused local schools to open late.

And even if I was healthy, most of those days I would not have ridden my bicycle. Well, I guess I am sort of healthy now but I am recovering from a heart bypass operation, and am not yet allowed to ride a bicycle outside.

But I have begun cardiac rehabilitation—twice a week I report to a small gym where they have me walk on a track for a while, and then ride a stationary bicycle. I have an indoor stationary bicycle at home, too, and I try to ride it every day that I don’t go to the rehab gym.

Riding indoors on an exercise bike is not really bicycling as I enjoy it. The sense of actually going somewhere, seeing trees and birds and flowers—or, at this time of year, the shape of the land and the snowy hillsides—that’s a big part of the biking experience.

View from exercise bike, watching a Taskmaster video as I cycle. It's not as good as seeing scenery from a trail, but it's still practice for biking.

But riding indoors is what I can do right now. I watch TV while I go for rides of 20 minutes or so—tonight, I watched a Taskmaster highlights video about live tasks gone wrong. Sometimes, I’ll watch a movie reaction or TV reaction video on YouTube (the TV is set to access my YouTube account) while I bike—I’m particularly fond of people seeing key Ted Lasso episodes for the first time.

Now that the week is ending, the winter weather is warming towards more normal temperatures. In the final week of February, we’ll see high temperatures above freezing—the 40s will feel pretty warm. March is coming, the transition into spring, and when warm spring weather actually arrives in the coming weeks, I hope that I’ll be allowed to enjoy the spring blooms outdoors on an actual bicycle actually rolling across the planet.

Anyway, biking inside may be a poor imitation of riding outside, but it is still the best preparation I can do now for biking season. And I grateful to have my feet on some pedals and my legs in motion

In Which Little Sis Hopes to Ride It All

My sister riding her trike north of Urbana on July 13, 2023. We rode 100 miles together that day, in training for RAGBRAI 2023.

As I noted on another of my blogs, my life recently underwent radical change. On Dec. 18 last year, I rode 11 miles on my bike, but had an appointment with a heart doctor the next day that put a temporary end to my two-wheeled life.

Only a temporary end, knock on wood. I’m growing stronger day-by-day following a Jan. 10 heart bypass operation, and am fully convinced I’ll be rolling across the planet again soon, although I don’t know exactly when. Will I ride some part of RAGBRAI this summer? Plans are for a very pretty, attractive, not too hilly northern route, and north Iowa is (I can give them credit as a man who has lived primarily in the middle of the state) the prettiest part of Iowa.

It should be a great year for RAGBRAI. If you ever considered it, this may be the year to join it.

From RAGBRAI.com, their announcement of the 2025 overnight towns. Details will be coming later, but if you ever thought of riding RAGBRAI, this looks to be a good year to experience that.

I am not sure, however, that it will be my year. I can’t begin training yet, since my broken breastbone where they split me apart to fix my heart will take some time to mend enough so I have full use of my arms again and can bike. And when I do start riding, I think it will be like beginning all over again. Plus, I’m on all kinds of blood thinners and need to take special care to avoid any traumatic injuries when I can bleed out so easily.

That sounds like whining. Honestly, I am grateful. They caught the heart problem before anything terrible happened, and the fix in my pump should last for decades—it’s what I needed to get me back on track, so I don’t want to sound like I’m complaining about the route I’m on.

I am sure it will lead me back to biking soon enough.

Team Joe during some 2024 rides. In Solon, above, and Des Moines, below.

Meanwhile, the first few times I rode RAGBRAI, I had a particular ambition. I rode every mile (excluding, back in those days, the century loop, which I did start riding later). Before my third RAGBRAI ride, when two of my sisters and a brother-in-law formed “Team Joe” to institutionalize the family RAGBRAI ride, my RAGBRAI style changed, as we took turns driving a support vehicle.

But I didn’t mind riding 75 percent or so of a RAGBRAI. I had already proven I could do every mile.

I am now 66. My body was attacked—my heart surgeon noted that most medical doctors treat you, but surgeons assault you. Still, I have six sisters, two of them younger than me—and the next in line to me, who is two years younger than me, has the ambition this year—she thinks this is her chance, her most likely shot.

Riding with my sister on newly paved stretch of trail north of Brandon in all, 2024.

She rides a recumbent trike and wants her three wheels to cover every mile of RAGBRAI 2025. Well, good for her, and I hope I in no way jinx it by writing about it—I hope she achieves her goal.

There is something special about a RAGBRAI where you click in at mile one and keep rolling all the way to the Mississippi River.

Will I share in any of those rides with her? That’s not as clear. I may ride my own fake RAGBRAI again this year—ride a bunch of miles in RAGBRAI ’s honor but ride near my home. It’s up in the air what my status will be in terms of how trained I am, and how comfortable I am being farther from home base.

But this should be her year. May she acheive her ambition. And here’s hoping I can rejoin the rolling herd soon—and I fully expect to. I’ll let you know when you might see me again on two wheels!

Meanwhile, be careful of those crazy trikers out there. One of them is training to check off a big point on her bucket list.

Leaving Sioux City in scrum of walkers on first day of RAGBRAI, 2023. My sister rolling slowly with the walkers, on her trike.

In Which I Have Hope for a Brighter Future

Lights of bike bridge in Marion seen Dec. 18, 2024.

In the end, 2024 didn’t go as I hoped that it would. I didn’t exceed 3,000 miles on my bikes, nor reach my goal of riding 3,300 miles. And I thought, through much of the year, that my miles in 2025 would easily be even more, what with my retiring and having for time for more, longer bicycle rides.

What I didn’t anticipate were some medical bumps in the road. In March, I had a TIA, and was being way more careful after that to not push my bike rides too hard. Yet, as the year drew to its close, I had some dizziness, some light headedness and chest pressure—not pain, but a feeling that something was not right.

As it turns out, my feelings were right, in that something was not right. I ended up having some medical tests which indicated some heart issues, and now I’m going to have heart surgery in early 2025—and Dec. 18, the day before I met with a heart doctor, was my final bike ride of 2024, which was not my life plan.

Well, life is like a bike ride. You can make plans but also must just deal with what you find, what you encounter on the journey. My time on two wheels is on temporary hiatus, probably for several months. Yet, it is likely by March or so I will be ready to roll again.

Dec. 9--Bike ride on Lindale Trail in sunshine--deer traffic on trail. There was winter weather in December, but it was nice enough for biking in most days in Iowa.

I won’t set a mile goal for 2025. I feel like when I start riding again, it will be like starting to ride again, with a body I have to get used to and train from square one. Well, at least the skill of riding a bike won’t have gone away. And heart rehab will be aided by wheeling across the planet, once I’m ready.

At least the months I’m losing—January and February—aren’t prime biking season anyway. While there are no guarantees in this life—as I’m well learning now—my health prognosis is good, with a very high likelihood of being able to get back to biking this year.

We’ll see what is coming.

My last ride, Dec. 18, was an interesting day, one week before Christmas. It’s my wedding anniversary, and after my solo ride, my wife and I went out for a nice dinner.

It was a chilly, grey winter day. I rode down to campus (to get some files I needed for work) and then doubled back along the Cemar Trail. It was a medium ride—cool, but not too cold as I was dressed well.

When I got close to home, the light was getting dim, and I decided to ride down the Lindale Trail. They have completed the trail bridge in Marion that goes across Seventh Avenue, the town’s main drag at that point. I don’t typically ride the trail in dark, but twilight is not full dark. Yet it was dark enough that I hoped to see what the bridge lighting looks like.

Dec. 18--Last biking selfie of the year (above) and bike parked at twilight near bridge.

Well, it was quite pretty, but also obviously set to be decorative from the street—to be a fancy gateway into Marion. The lights are on the exterior of the bridge. They leak enough light onto the bridge deck to illuminate the way there at night, but there is a bit of a ride on a dark trail to get to the bridge from either direction, so I don’t blame the powers that be for illuminating the bridge to look good for drivers rather than plan it to be best for bikers on the bridge, since one would not expect many bikers there at night.

I’m glad I came. The bridge was pretty to see with its lights on, and my twilight strategy worked out OK—I won’t make a habit of a ride at that time, but my bike lights were adequate and I enjoyed the sight, not realizing that is would become my final ride for a while. It all, it was 11.18 miles for the day, almost 95 miles in December and 2,953.83 miles for the year.

Goodbye, 2024. What with one thing and another, it wasn’t quite the year I hoped that it would be, but then again, I suppose, life is never fully what I hope it will be. I still enjoyed almost 3,000 miles rolling across this pretty Earth via bicycle in 2024, and I look forward, after my unexpected break, to continue that kind of journey.

I hope your 2024 went well and that you’ll roll many miles in 2025. And I hope to see some of you out on the bike trails soon enough!

Bike on Cemar Trail near Raining Rose. Gray, cool day. As it turned out, this ride on my road bike Argent was the final ride of 2024. Not what I wanted, but I enjoyed the miles I could ride.

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.