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.

In Which Not-RAGBRAI Part 2 Has Great Weather

Team Joe on Aug. 31 in Solon, Iowa, mid point of our longest not-RAGBRAI ride this year. My delayed twin Brigid, sister Cate, brother-in-law Eldon and me. Used my camera's timer to make image.

Many days in August, 2024, were very, very hot in Iowa. Despite actual temperatures in the 90s, there were far too many times that humidity made the heat index top 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Well, I should not complain. We’re not in Phoenix, with 100 days of 100-degree heat.

Team Joe had planned for the second half of its Not-RAGBRAI ride to take place over Labor Day Weekend. Would we be braving the hot breath of this very warm summer?

Well, the summer gods relented. The dragon of August was, apparently, ready for a rest. As our first ride on Aug. 30 neared, the weather shifted and the hot summer suddenly seemed to give way to early fall. Part of that shift from hot to cooler was morning rain on my birthday, so I drove to campus.

Which was OK, in a way, half of Team Joe was driving over from Des Moines in the afternoon, and we planned relatively quick first ride. By about 4, the sky was partly cloudy by the afternoon was cool and pretty. My sister in town rode her recumbent trike to my house where the rest of Team Joe arrived from Des Moines and got their trikes ready to ride.

In Team Joe, I’m the lone biker. Here I am, newly 66, still rolling on two wheels.

Ride one of not-RAGBRAI part two went well. We headed east on the Grant Wood Trail, circled Waldo’s Rock and headed out to the new bridge, turning around there. The Friday ride was 20.61 mile. And it was my birthday.

Aug. 30--Cloudy birthday sky on our ride--pond at Waldo's Rock Park.

The birthday snake, Waldo's Rock Park. It clearly liked the warm pavement on a cool afternoon, but was not as happy with the attention of hairless apes--it was in full threat, intimidation mode, partly muted by the fact that it was about 4 inches long.

Team Joe includes two of my sisters and a brother-in-law. My youngest sister is exactly 4 years younger than me—she was born on my fourth birthday. Following the Friday ride, as a joint birthday celebration, the team and additional family members went out to a nice dinner at a local Indian restaurant, and then had a great fruit cobbler my wife made as desert. More than 20 miles and a very fine meal—it was a good way to celebrate turning 66 (or 62, in the case of my sister).

Saturday’s ride was the longest one we planned. We rode south on the Cedar River Trail, going down to Solon and eating lunch there. The day was warmer, and we felt it. Thus on the way back to Cedar Rapids, we made the obligatory ice cream stop in Ely and then headed back to town, deciding to take an alternate route up Third Avenue rather than continuing on the bike trail. My local sister (not the delayed twin, my other biker sister) showed me a back way by Coe College that ends up at the end of the CEMAR Trail.

But as we neared the ride’s end, I faded a bit and had to rest. Getting old: I do recommend it, given the only alternative, but it has its challenges. Well, after a break, I was able to ride slowly home. A classic RAGBRAI meal, spaghetti, was the plan for the night. Saturday’s ride was 50.06 miles.

Another Team Joe image at park in Solon.

It had cooled down again Sunday. My youngest sister and brother-in-law went out to breakfast with my wife and I, and then we just relaxed for a while—the other sister was busy Sunday morning and came over in the afternoon. Our final ride was along the Boyson Trail and then out to Lowe Park. We walked around the nice garden at the Lowe Park art building, and then took a break at the playground area.

It was not our longest ride, but with the pauses in the park, it was great for a biker who carries a camera and enjoys making images:

Flowers and pretty fall sky at Lowe Park.

One bicycle, three tricycles parked at playground, Lowe Park.

Lowe Park flower.

I have not seen many Monarch butterflies this summer, so at playground in Lowe Park, it was great to see four fat cats on one Milkweed plant. They looked about ready for the transition to butterfly, and I hope they make it on the migration to Mexico and make many babies.

Four on one plant.

My wife and I had a trip to Des Moines planned for Monday, so the Sunday ride was the final one for Team Joe on our not-RAGBRAI adventure this year. We rolled 19.05 miles that day, and over the three days our rides added up to 91.72 miles. I wrote earlier about the first half of our not-RAGBRAI ride in Des Moines, and our total team distance for the two halves of the event were 143.08 miles.

I enjoyed the team rides. My individual rides since then have been very nice, too—with the beautiful weather sticking around for a while. On a recent Saturday, I had a nice morning ride out Waldo’s Rock, and then in the afternoon headed to a park on the tandem bike with an 8-year-old grandson.

Warmer weather is coming. Summer 2024 isn’t totally done with us now, although I think we could be past the most intense heat. I rode 402 miles in August. So far this year, it has been 2,265.27 miles. Images from other recent rides:

Sept. 7 solo ride to Waldo's Rock with mountain bike--riding grass trail through prairie plant area.

Sept. 7, Waldo's Rock park.

It's been weeks of pretty skies as slightly cooler weather sets in. Pretty early fall light Sept. 6 on bike ride home, corner of C Avenue and Blairs Ferry Road.

Morning of Sept. 6, C Avenue Pond seen on bike ride to work.

As I unlock bike Aug. 28 for bike ride home, I'm being inspected from not far away. The squirrels at Mount Mercy think they own the campus, except when the hawks are in the sky.