In Which Bike Club Tours the Lake District

First Bike Club Ussie before first ride of the year Friday, Aug. 25.

Cedar Rapids has a thing about “districts.” It has a medical district, it plans a college district—and Friday, Bike Club checked out the water district.

For its first ride of the school year, the Mount Mercy University Bike Club ended up riding to Cedar Lake, along the Cedar River and around Prairie Park Fishery.

The ride got off to a bit of a late start. A young woman was pumping up tires when I got to Lundy, the building where the bikes are stored. Cali—the aforementioned woman—didn’t know where Marlon, club president, was. We checked bikes and used the one air pump to recharge a few tires, and about 4:20, Marlon showed up.

He had not been planning to attend this ride due to leg injury, but he changed his mind and brought along a new student.

We hit the road about 4:30. There was no clear destination in mind, but we sort of headed out to Cedar Lake by habit .The three students chatted, and I suggested we aim for the Prairie Park Fishery, which none of them had been to before.

Sure, they said, so we were off. The afternoon was partly cloudy, warm but not hot, and the biking weather was about ideal. They were going at old man pace, since they had me lead, but nobody complained. We rode to the turnoff to go by the Kick Stand and headed up towards St. Ludmilla, when we hit a snag in the form of street construction.

Two shots along Otis Road headed to Fishery. Cedar River looks very pretty on this fine late summer late afternoon.

We sneaked across. Don’t tell anybody.

The students seemed to be doing fine. We were actually flying along pretty well. I don’t have a computer on my commuting bike, but Map My Ride was recording speeds of around 11 or 12 miles an hour for most miles.

We circled Prairie Park Fishery, chatting about nothing as you do on a pleasant bike ride, and then headed back. We returned by a slightly different route—not cutting across the construction zone this time—and arrived back at MMU just a few minutes before 6. I checked my phone. We had pedaled just over 15 miles in 90 minutes, a distance that seemed to surprise our club president.

Prairie Park Fishery (above) and we have just passed Cedar Lake as we near campus (below).

Three students on ride one—not bad, and I hope that more advance notice and more word-of-mouth will bring out more next time.

The pleasant ride Friday was bookended by slightly different rides. It was sprinkling Thursday morning, but not raining hard, and rather than delay my wife’s departure, I assured here I was OK biking. That morning, I rode the “new” mountain bike (technically it’s by far the oldest bike I have, but it’s “new” because it was just newly repaired). I also wore my RAGBRAI rain poncho—thank you, Paulette, for getting that back to me. I got a bit damp, but not really wet. And then the day slowly turned pleasant, with sunshine peaking out in the afternoon.

But, by early evening, as I was ready to go home, it began to sprinkle again. I felt it was too warm to wear the poncho, so I rode without it, but again the rain was honestly not even a drizzle—just a few drops, and I arrived home only slightly damp.

Saturday was a similar day. The radar and forecast looked good, so after my wife and daughter and female grandkids left on shopping excursions, my grandsons and I took off on a ride. However, it was already sprinkling as I attached the Tag-A-Long to Clarence, so I was worried we would only ride a little and then have to take shelter at home.

But we were lucky. We got cool and were hit by a few drops, but it never really rained, and we were able to ride the Boyson Trail all the way to Hanna Park, ride back to Thomas Park for more play, and then meet the others—including two more grandsons—at Hanna Park. After lunch, my oldest granddaughter got to ride back to my house with me.

All in all, the past three days have been very nice for biking despite some cool, clouds and sprinkles.

Thursday, due to light rain, road the mountain bike to work.