In Which My Brain Causes a Brief Biking Hiatus

March 24--I was released from the hospital Thursday, drove to work Friday due to a snowstorm, and rode six miles on Sunday. Back in the saddle again!

It’s turning out that 2024 will be a more new and interesting biking year than I thought. On the morning of March 20, I rode my bicycle to work, intending to bike home that night.

And I didn’t. Because I ended up in the emergency room. In the afternoon, as I detailed on one of my other blogs, I suffered a mini-stroke, what they call a TIA, and had a resulting overnight stay in the hospital. By Friday, I was able to go back to work but a morning snowstorm prevented any bike ride that day..

Well, what’s ahead on the biking road can’t always be anticipated. After my hospitalization, I’ve been told to engage in any physical activity “as tolerated,” and I can tolerate riding a bicycle. For now, my wife has informed me she doesn’t want me to do any solo 50-mile rides, and I think she has a point.

March 24--Going deliberately slow, using my mountain bike due to some snow left on trail. Put in a bit more than 6 miles on first ride in a few days.

So, we’ll see how this year shakes out. Since my last biking report, despite an unexpected hiatus, I have ridden more than 80 miles. This Easter weekend, I’ve enjoyed several rides with a 6-year-old grandson, doing two short rides with the Tag-A-Long seat. The weekend was grand, but so full of family fun that bike time was rather constrained.

I don’t feel myself, 100 percent. I’ve had a headache since the medical event, nothing serious, but irritating. I don’t know if I’m just tuning into aches and pains more, but I’m strapped to a 24-hour heart monitor, and I’ve had several “events” to report. Nothing serious, but some lightheaded moments.

Well, biking friends, when I saw my doctor’s PA post hospitalization, he was pleased that I had already been out on my bicycle. I intent to continue rolling—it would be a serious mistake to pull back too far on exercise, given my health issues.

March 27--Rode down the Lindale Trail for some extra distance on the way home. Weather getting more into spring, deer by trail keeping an eye on me.

But this past fortnight has had its share of reminders of reality and mortality. If we’re lucky, we grow old. That inevitably has an impact on our bodies and lives. And yet, if we’re also lucky, those bodies will be all the better because we choose to bicycle.

In other personal biking news, Team Joe, my RAGBRAI team, has made a big decision. We’re going to do joint rides the week of RAGBRAI, but not RAGBRAI. The route this year is very hilly and very southern Iowa, and doesn’t go through our towns. So we'll enjoy our own rides in the Des Moines and Cedar Rapids areas.

I still want to train and gain miles as the weather turns to summer. How far will I go? Nobody can tell for sure, but I hope to roll many more miles. Hope to see you out there on the trail, Lord willing, the creek don’t rise and my body holds up.

In March, my miles totaled 291.63. I’m sure they would have been more than 300, but for, well, you know. Still, I have 647.31 for the year. I don’t have Spring Break in April, but school ends a couple of weeks into May, so by the time spring is rolling into summer, I’m hoping that I can have rolled more than 1,000 miles. We’ll see!

March 28--Family is coming home for Easter weekend tonight, and I have Friday off work, but I ride to Cedar Lake in the afternoon on the way home. Warm, pretty afternoon, starting to feel a bit more like myself.

In Which Long Rides Bring Various Encounters

Rode with this flag on the front of my mountain bike in mostly blue, sunny skies. An image from one of my final commutes to work the week before Spring Break.

Spring Break 2024—in the past, my wife and I have sometimes planned a trip for the week I have off teaching at a university. We didn’t do that this year, partly because we knew there were several times we were going to watch grandchildren, but unusually warm weather (which is over for now) made for some good opportunities for bike rides.

For example, on March 11, a Monday, I went on my first ride of more than 50 miles this year, riding down the Cedar River Trail to the Hoover Trail, ending up in the town of Solon, about a 25-mile journey from my house.

It was a warm day, with the temperature reaching 70, but also quite windy, so the ride was something of a challenge. It was a cross breeze most of the time, but was more against me as I headed south—which was by design, I was hoping the wind would help me a bit on the way back home.

My bike in Nature Rec Area in Solon, Iowa.

A few days before the ride, I had a mildly unpleasant encounter with a group of teen boys on the Lindale Trail. Nothing too scary, they were just a bit rude to an old man on a bicycle.

And I had a feeling of déjà vu as I left Solon. Behind me I could hear adolescent voices chattering. In my mirror, at some distance, I could pick out three riders rolling along together, headed my way.

In the scheme of things, I’m a relatively slow biker, and I assumed what I knew was a group of teens would eventually overtake me. I decided I would try to not to care, and not rush myself.

Anyway, I was on my road bike, my fastest vehicle. As it turned out, while the following bikers would sometimes approach a bit, at other times I would roll ahead. They never got close enough for me to see them well.

A few miles north of Solon, I got to a rest area that is across a county highway, where I planned to rest a bit. On a ride of this length, I’m deliberate about taking some off-bike time, and this was a designated break.

And I was there, resting on the bench, when the teens rolled up. And it was a slight surprise—three teen girls, indifferent to an old man. It’s amazing to me that, at a distance, the conversational noises made by groups of adolescences can sound like the same background noise, whether made by girls or boys.

Anyway, the girls hopped off of their bikes and gathered to take a selfie, jostling for position for the phone camera.

“Do you want a picture from farther away than arm’s length?” I asked.

Well, they did. And I shot a picture for them with one of their phones.

Shortly afterwards, I headed out, and wished them a good ride. “You have a good ride too,” they cooed like a flock of birds.

That encounter was the more pleasant one. And the earlier one, to be fair, was a minor incident on an overall nice ride. The wind was sometimes a challenge this week, but rides were still unexpectedly good for this time of year. Not all my encounters were human--I saw lots of wildlife, including the first butterflies.

I rode the Sac and Fox Trail on Wednesday. That day, I cycled down the Cedar River Trail to the New Bo area, and headed down Otis Road to the south end of the trail. After circling the lake at Prairie Park Fishery, I entered the Sac and Fox Trail, an unpaved trail that I ride on my mountain bike several times a summer.

My bike on mountain bike trial next to the Sac and Fox Trail.

Frog statue in park at north end of Sac and Fox Trail, someone in the neighborhood always dresses it for the season. It's ready for Saint Patrick's Day.

The trail proved a pleasant surprise. In the past, there have been some soft sandy spots and some rocky gravel areas. I skipped about 2 miles of the 7-mile trail by taking a mountain bike route through the woods, but the 5 miles or so of the Sac and Fox that I did ride were in great shape. Last year, they must have covered most of the trail with a new limestone layer—there were no tricky soft sandy spots, no gravel areas to crunch over. The Sac and Fox is always a nice trail because of its scenery , but it was much more ride-able than in the past. I could have ridden my hybrid bike here.  I probably wouldn’t—I like having a mountain bike on this trail, partly for the option of cycling the woods—still, early in the season in 2024, Cedar Rapids bikers, check out the Sac and Fox.

What else is new in my corner of the biking universe? Something important to me.

A week ago, a daughter had an out-of-town trip planned, and my wife and I agreed to watch her 7-year-old son for a couple of days. And my wife decided that, with the nice weather, we would help him practice riding a bicycle, a skill he had not yet mastered.

She drove him to a school parking lot in Marion on Saturday, and I rode a bike there to meet them. By the time I got there, he was already practicing and doing fairly well. He only could ride a few yards, but was starting to get it.

In his final ride that day, he went maybe 25 yards, his longest solo bicycle journey. He had agreed to the biking session in exchange for playing at the school playground, so we stopped the Saturday practice and played.

Sunday, we went back, this time to a nearby intermediate school with a slightly newer, larger, flatter parking lot.

And the breakthrough was achieved. That weird transition that a person makes, when biking seems too difficult and scary and theoretical, and them something between their brain and body clicks, the balance that eluded them starts to appear and their muscles learn that all you have to do to balance a bike is to keep it rolling—well, it’s magical to see.

Grandson is suddenly a biker!

Another biker has joined the tribe this Spring Break. I hope it foreshadows some pleasant rides coming this summer.

The 50-mile ride March 11 was my longest of 2024. We spent several days in Des Moines at the end of this week, which has also turned seasonably cold, so after Thursday I didn’t add any miles. Still, between March 9 and 14, I rode almost 150 miles (149.47). It included the 50-mile day and several days over 25 miles. It included using all three bikes. It was a nice spring biking break.

So far, on this Saint Patrick’s Day, a bit over halfway through this month, this old half-Irish rider has cycled 210.53 miles for the month, and 566.21 miles this year. More pictures from this Spring Break week:

March 9--Grant Wood Trail east of Marion. It must be a spring thing--usually I see these blackbirds 1 or 2 at a time, but they were in large groups today. Felt a little Hitchcock.

March 12--Deer crossing Lindale Trail.

March 14--Pretty sky seen at creek bend on trail in Marion--the side trail off of the Boyson Trail near Menard's.

Riding alone the Sac and Fox Trail March 11.

More deer March 12, Lindale Trail. A group of more than a dozen were crossing the trail and disappearing into a small patch of woods.

March 14--Is this bridge on the Lindale Trail? The Grant Wood Trail? Somewhere where these trails run together.

Start of Sac and Fox Trail March 13.

March 10--Bike at Cedar Lake.

Pretty sky March 9 on Grant Wood Trail east of Marion.

March 14--Final late-day ride of Spring Break.

Seeing more insects in general, but this butterfly, on final Spring Break Ride March 14 beside Lindale Trail, is a bit unusual to see at this time of year.

March 11--Stop at the rest area between Ely on Solon during long ride.

March 7--Turkey on Lindale Trail.

In Which Early Spring Brings More Than 30 Miles

During Feb. 25 ride, I stop to check if first flowers have bloomed at Mount Mercy University Campus. They had.

Between Ely and Cedar Rapids on Hoover Trail, resting on a bench and enjoying the woods on Feb. 25 ride.

Feb. 23--First commute to work on road bike after replacing front tyre.

Feb. 27--Bike parked at MMU Grotto. Windy afternoon, next day was the one day this week I didn't ride--below-zero wind chills in the morning.

I suppose, technically, that I own four bicycles—but one is an old tandem, used primarily for short summer rides with either my wife or a grandchild.

Grandchildren and spouses, in my corner of the world, don’t do a lot of bicycling in the chilly early spring, which is what February has turned out to be in Iowa. In a normal year, it would still be winter and I would be weeks away from writing about spring. This is not a normal year.

And that’s added up to some extra biking miles for me.

My first ride of the year of more than 30 miles was Sunday, Feb. 25. I went some distance south on the Cedar River Trail for the first time this year, rolling to Ely and then back. It was oddly warm for a February Sunday, and when I rested in a park at Ely, small spiders were skittering across the pavement. Bugs in February. It’s not Heaven, it’s Iowa, but it’s hot like Hades, at least “hot” for this time of year.

Feb. 25--Resting at mid-point of long ride in Ely. I will have to dig up sunscreen, got a mild sunburn on this ride.

Feb. 25--Sunny view of Cedar River on trail headed south, south of river. Mount Trashmore in background.

Feb. 25--Large bird of prey. I think it's a young bald eagle that hasn't grown into its adult colors yet. Although it could be a hawk. What say you, internet hive mind?

Feb. 25--Geese in Ely city park.

I didn’t have time to continue riding south to Solon for a much longer 50-mile or so ride, and I wasn’t dressed for it anyway (I need bike shorts for longer rides).

It was a pleasant ride. I took two brief rests, one in Ely and one on a bench in the woods on the way back. It was a bit breezy, but still a good day to be out. The ride totaled 32.88 miles.

It was on the road bike, which I have finally repaired. I took it to Goldfinch, because I’m too old to easily read tiny black numbers on black rubber, and no, I don’t have my bike tyre size memorized. They concurred that I needed a new front tyre, but advised the that worn back tyre is still good for a few months, although it will need to be replaced before longer summer rides.

Changing the tyre is never my favorite thing, but honestly it worked out to be easier than changing the tube on my mountain bike, which I had done a few weeks ago.

Feb. 21--Bikes in rack near Regina Hall, MMU. None mine. Seeing lots more bikes in February than is normal.

Feb. 23--My bike parked at Warde Hall, early ride after fixing road bike. Hawk feather has blown against rear wheel--there are a pair of red-tailed Hawks that nest on Warde Hall, I assume this is their greeting card.

So, recent rides have seen me taking advantage of the full trio—the long weekend ride and some commutes on Argent, my road bike. When I’m in the mood or worried about poor weather, rolling on The Fancy Beast, my mountain bike. And several routine commutes using the all-purpose pickup truck bike, my hybrid, Clarence.

I rode 224.29 miles in February and 6.94 miles on March 1, giving me 362.62 miles for the year so far—more than 10 percent of my goal in the early winter months of the year. I hope that foreshadows a good riding year. I’m not sure the year includes RAGBRAI—they have a hilly, southern route this year, which doesn’t, frankly, appeal to me much, and last year’s crowded, hot ride kind of spooked me a bit.

I may be ready for fake RAGBRAI this year, where I just try to top 300 miles during the week of the ride. We’ll see. And that way, I can ride my variety of bikes as the mood strikes me—maybe even the tandem (which has no name right now).

Feb. 25--I wondered if first flowers had bloomed, so rode to campus on my way home from Ely. Yup, early spring is official. Building in background, Warde Hall, is oldest on campus and where my office is.