In Which Your Award-Winning Biker Rides 26 Miles

Oh no! Road closed. Well, getting there the quickest way was not the point today--I was trying to accumulate miles anyway.

The first ride of the summer-phlox and honeysuckle in bloom along the Cedar River Trail.

It’s not really summer yet. I didn’t have all day to ride—still some work to finish up, and I spent most of the day on campus. But I took some time getting there. I planned to use the Cedar River trail, but had a bit of a problem getting there. Northland, my usual street to Hiawatha to get to the trail, is blocked by road construction. I took the sidewalk on Council Street as far south as it goes, and then turned west on the street that leads to auto row (several car dealerships) to reach the trail.

The morning ride was 10 miles.

Mid-day view of Grotto Pond at MMU. What does it have to do with biking? It's on my bike blog, that's what. And I biked to get to the place where I took the photo.

I worked until around 4:30 or so, and then hit the trail again. I headed south, and as I went I just wondered what the Prairie Parks Fishery looks like this spring. So I checked. It’s cute, as always, and since it was getting past 5, the downtown traffic was pretty light. With that trail trip and then riding the Cedar River Trail home, my bike computer credited me with a bit over 26 miles for the day.

Reflection of the sun getting low over the Cedar River seen from Prairie Parks Fishery trail.

All in all, it was a decent ride, although I’ll have to get quite a few miles in the next week if my May mileage total will rival April. And I will have to go to the office several times during that week.

Honeysuckle (above) and phlox (below) are in bloom along Cedar River Trail.

Anyway, why your “award winning” biker? I won a major award. Not a leg lamp, but a $25 gift card to a local bike shop. It was from an employees who bike to work prize drawing at Mount Mercy last week. Thanks, MMU. I’m thinking that bags which match my back rack might be a good move for RAGBRAI. What do you think?

It's a major award! Well, it's $25 to pimp my ride for RAGBRAI, which is nice.