In Which Four Rides Exceed 20 Miles

March 24--Spring break has ended and classes at Mount Mercy University began this morning. When I saw the sun making this daffodil outside the library shine in the morning sun, I regretted not having a bicycle in a nearby bike rack. But that time isn't quite here yet, even if it is coming.

One week of bicycle riding plus a day. Monday of last week was the first ride that I took this year—due not to winter, but to a heart bypass operation I had in January.

Today, the next Monday, was ride four. That first ride 8 days ago was just over 2 miles, and today I cycled 8.2 miles. The ride today was notable for another reason, too—I rode from the Lindale Trail to the Boyson Trail, and returned the reverse way—to get from the Boyson Trail to the Lindale Trail, I had to climb a modest hill.

Granted, I climb a little hill on C Avenue to get from my house to the bike trail in the first place, but this trail hill feels like a more substantial, slightly steeper, climb. It is not a mountain, not a big hill at all—but still. I feel pretty good about biking 8 miles—a pretty big increase in my ride mileage—and adding an extra incline into those miles, too.

March 24--Some big utility project in Marion means the north end of the Boyson Trail is closed for now, and limestone area of the trail is quite rutted. I have not been on my mountain bike yet--my rides so far have been on the lighter road bike--but I did miss the mountain bike today. Still, most of my route today was paved, and even if the trail was rutted, I just slowed down and was careful and didn't have any problems.

I know 8 miles is a nothing ride to any serious biker but my theme for 2025 is simply to return to biking, to slowly build my stamina without injuring myself and to enjoy rolling across the planet again.

In the past, say fall of 2024, I rode a bicycle to work most days. I have not done that yet in 2025. Riding to work requires an early morning start and a commitment to bike back home when I am tired in the afternoon. Once I start, I still won’t be able to do it every day—I have cardiac rehab every Tuesday and Thursday and need to commute by vehicle on those days so I can drive to those appointments—so any bike commuting in spring semester will have to be Monday, Wednesday or Friday.

March 18--Second ride, a bit over 3 miles--my wife and I drove to a park in Robins next to a bike trail and did a bit of afternoon riding there. Still moving slowly, still a little shaky, but completed ride two.

It's also complicated by medical advice to avoid prolonged exposure to less than 40-degree air. I am not sure that guideline is really as important as it was in the weeks immediately following my surgery—but still, I’m waiting for somewhat better morning weather before I take that first ride to work.

On the other hand, the 8 miles I biked today is a bit more than a ride to and from work, by the most direct route, would take. My two-way commute via the shortest route adds up to a bit over 7 miles. And on riding to work there is the issue of climbing—there are more rises on the ride to work, no huge hill, but several places where I would need hill-climbing gear.

I’m working my way back to bike commuting. I’m not quite there yet, but I am getting close. Maybe that will be in next week’s biking report—it depends on warmer morning weather, but as March goes on, the chances of good biking weather do go up.

I hope wherever you are, if you’re in the Northern Hemisphere, that you are starting to enjoy spring rides. Slowly, I am, too. So, for 2025 I have just over 21 miles—not a huge number, but much bigger than zero. I feel good about being back on two wheels and I look forward to adding more miles as time goes on.

March 21--Pretty spring day on Lindale Trail, which has been my go-to place for these first rides of 2025.

In Which I Have the Biking Luck of the Irish

My road bike, out of the garage for the first time in 2025. I've just aired the tyres, and making this image is a chance to catch my breath.

Saint Patrick’s Day 2025 started early for me—I had a 7:45 a.m. appointment with my cardiologist to check my meds and confer on how my recovery from heart bypass surgery that I had Jan. 10 is going.

The news was mixed but mostly good. One of my questions was: When can I start riding a bicycle outside? I have been exercising on an indoor bike, and I ride an exercise bike at cardiac rehab sessions twice a week, so I was feeling my body is ready.

Honestly, the biggest reason they’ve kept me off outdoor bikes isn’t the bike riding itself—which clearly I can do if I take it easy—it’s the risk of an accident or fall while my breastbone knits back together. And, the lesser question of how stable my repaired chest pump is.

Well, today was the day, two months and a week after surgery I heard the magic words that I wanted to hear:

“You can ride your bike,” the cardiologist said.

With several asterisks. I am not yet fully recovered—I get short of breath if I walk more than a block or so. I have a temporary handicapped parking permit for the university where I teach, because two of the buildings I teach in are beyond easy walking range for me.

Yet, I can walk some distance, as I proved today when my wife and I took four grandchildren down to watch the SaPaDaPaSo parade in downtown Cedar Rapids. (SaPaDaPaSo is the Saint Patrick’s Day Parade Society’s self-titled name, it’s basically the St. Patrick’s Day parade).

One of several St. Patricks seen in the March 17 SaPaDaPaSo parade in Cedar Rapids.

It was a warm, breezy, and sunny spring day, requiring a jacket in the morning and sunscreen in the afternoon. The parade is popular, and our parking spot was six blocks from the route. Which meant I walked a mile going to and from—a mile that winded me and required me to use a slow pace, but I got the job done.

Encouraged by the morning medical meeting and my conquering of a mile on foot in early afternoon, I decided today was the day. About 4:30 p.m., I wheeled my road bike out of the garage. Airing up the tyres proved an exhausting ordeal—your correspondent has a healing heart and breastbone, and tires easily while pumping tyres. But like a mile walk, I got the job done.

Then I started out on my ride. I turned south on C Avenue, climbing the relatively mild hill that leads to the Lindale Trail—but there was a brisk south wind, so I was climbing both a hill hill and a wind hill. And getting quite winded, to be honest. So, I shifted down further than I normally would. I had not been on two wheels on an actual ride since December, and I felt a little wobbly at first, but bicycle riding is one of those skills that comes back quickly, and one of my superpowers is being able to balance while moving rather slowly, so I just inched my way up both (actual and breeze-induced) hills.

My plan was to pause and catch my breath when I reached the trail, but when I turned to go on the trail, it turned out the wind wasn’t entirely a south one—it was a south by southwest breeze, and it gave me a boost and room to relax and breath while still moving on the bicycle. I rested as planned, I just didn’t have to stop to do it.

I rode down to Lindale Avenue, about 1.3 miles from my house. There I turned around. I knew this first ride would be very short, and I had already had the long walk today, and I had been enjoined by my heart doctor to enjoy bike rides but make sure I did not tax my healing body too much.

Selfie I took before starting journey back home. Happy to be riding!

Although the breeze wasn’t quite as helpful as I headed back west, it was mostly a side breeze and the trail was mostly flat. I took it easy and enjoyed the day.

The woods beside the trail are still in their winter sleep, but spring comes from the ground up, and although the grass is mostly in its drab, brown winter hues, it did today have a touch of St. Patrick’s Day magic—a tinge of Irish green.

Well, I’m half Irish (my mother was Irish, my father Hungarian). I felt I had some Irish luck going for me today. It felt great to be riding, even if the ride was deliberately short.

The last time I rode, Dec. 10 of last year, I had a winter coat on. Today it was 70 degrees Fahrenheit, and although I did have a long-sleeved shirt on, no coat was required today despite the breeze.

It was a good day for a bike ride. Especially the first bike ride.

Above and below, the kind of afternoon it was. quite pretty. And below, I think you can see that the ground is just starting to hint at spring green.

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.