In Which We Learn Why Rivers Flood

Spring sun shines on ice at Ada Hayden Park in Ames. Despite frozen lakes. the ride Monday in Ames was pleasant.

Just in time for spring break, a bit of warmer biking weather has arrived. I have not had time for a long ride yet, and am plowing away at a mountain of grading over the next couple of days, but still, I have managed some pleasant rides.

My wife and I took Monday off to visit our youngest son in Ames—to take him out for lunch, go on a bike ride, hang around for the afternoon and take him out for supper, all to celebrate his freshly earned pHd in math.

We pause to make group image during Monday bike ride in a park in Ames. Bikes (below) are part of public art seen in downtown Ames.

We had a pleasant, if cool, ride around the late at Ada Hayden Park in Ames. Twice around added up to about 7 miles.

Today, it was warmer, but also cloudier and breezier. I had about 90 minutes in the late afternoon that I could devote to biking, so I decided to take my first trip north along the Cedar Valley Nature Trail. And just north of Robins, I unexpectedly reached and early turn-around point, as the trail was suddenly covered in sodden snow.

Three images of where I decided to turn around, north of Robins on the Cedar Valley Nature Trail. A few more warm days needed before this ride.

Well, no run to Lafayette today. I was heading north rather than south because I knew the trail by the river was probably flooded, and seeing how much snow there was still in parts of the countryside perhaps explains why.

Still, today I managed a bit over 14 miles. Does that mean 28 on Wednesday and 56 Thursday? Let’s not talk of Friday.

Two final images from Thursday. Snow beside the trail at the old mile marker sign one mile north of the Boyson Trail Head (above). Newer mile markers that start somewhere else have been installed, too.

Saw these two ducks in small creek as I passed behind Harding Middle School on my way home.

In Which We Tour Two Lake Parks

Selfie of one--"Bike Club" ride Sept. 30.

Friday was cloudy and cool. Due to personal illness—I’ve been battling a severe cold that has kept me sub par for more than a week—I wasn’t sure if I would stick around for the Bike Club ride, but Friday, while not exactly feeling well, I felt better than I had for a while.

But, when 4:30 came around, there were no student bikers. Well, it was a cool day, with clouds, and my student biking buddies do tend to be fair weather bikers. So the bike club selfie consisted of a self portrait.

Trail around Cedar Lake Friday was ... open! Extra pond to the right.

I headed over to the Cedar River Trail, and aimed for Cedar Lake. I did not really expect to get there, because the Cedar River reached major flood stage this week, and the lake and its area were under water.

Surprisingly, the trail was open around the lake. You could kind of tell water had been there—the pavement was dry, but had an odd sort of sandy-mud patina on it—fortunately very thin and not wet.

At the north end of the trail—the “low” end—it was much damper, but even here it wasn’t muddy nor difficult to bike.

North end of trail--damper, but still easy to bike.

Well, the flood of 2016 turned out to be less of a deal than expected for this trail. Whew. There are homes and businesses dealing with damage, and among the great sigh Cedar Rapids sending up that this flood wasn’t a 2008 flood, we ought to remember that, too.

Anyway, Saturday we had a little field trip to Ames planned, to visit our son who is a math PhD student at ISU, and to harvest some seeds. He lives in an apartment complex near Lincoln Way, and has quite a stand of common Iowa milkweed growing in a ditch in front of his buillding.

Milkweed pod in ditch in Ames--with passenger. I left him alone--I was only after pods that were starting to split anyway.

This weekend, we decided, based on cell phone images he had texted to his mom, that some was dry enough to harvest. Audrey, my daughter, my grandson and I all piled into our van, loaded on two bikes and took off for Ames. We met Ben, had a satisfying lunch at the Café, rode our bikes around Ada Hayden Heritage Park (or walked, in the daughter’s case, or both rode in a stroller and rode on a bicycle in the grandson’s case) and collected some seeds.

The park is very nice. It belies those who say “prairies are ugly,” which is a line I heard recently, as the drying native grasses and flowers add a quaint beauty to the small lake.

Audrey and Ben (and my bike) on bridge at Ada Hayden Park. Looking across the lake (below). Pretty drying grasses and my daughter finishing her walk (bottom).

I’m not sure, due to location, whether Cedar Lake will ever be this pretty. But, Cedar Lake is what we’ve go in Cedar Rapids, and I’m glad the trail around it wasn’t damaged in the most recent flood.

So Friday and Saturday added up to two cloudy, cool rides around two very satisfying lakes.

In Which RAGBRAI Sets Its 2015 Logo

It has been an eventful week, on the bicycle and off, which is one reason your biking correspondent has disappeared briefly off the face of the blogosphere. But, I am back.

Screen shot of RAGBRAI.com logo video.

RAGBRAI made me come back. I saw on Facebook their post about the logo for the 2015 ride, and of course I had to check it out and kibitz. Here is their announcement.

Meh. I give the logo a 7—it’s pleasant enough but not inspired. Tractors are OK, although it seems one of their more complicated logos. Not sure how it will fit on a water bottle.

Still, not only am I seeing Facebook posts about next year’s RAGBRAI, but my commemorative DVD of this year’s ride arrived this week in the mail. I haven’t had time to watch it all, and frankly, parts of it are a bit unwatchable—the accolades for RAGBRAI in the “history” chapter grow quickly wearying—but whatever. The DVD reminds me of the RAGBRAI that was, while the logo makes me look forward to RAGBRAIs yet to be.

Another screen shot. Tractor morphs into a bike.

Next year, my biggest goal is to train with a few more days that have consecutive long rides. My medical checkup following the chest pain scares on RAGBRAI 2014 indicated a healthy heart, although the cardiologist who did my heart test had to point out, needlessly, I think, that: “You may be having some skeletal-muscle issues. You’re not 25 years old anymore, you know.”

Clearly, I am not. I need more long rides to get into shape. Then again, I’m also not too old for RAGBRAI.

More on that in a minute. But first, a diversion into my biking week. Last week was fall break, and I enjoyed a very pleasant hour-long bike ride in Ames along a trail that parallels Squaw Creek. Steve H, I saw Ames High School for the first time—it’s at the north end of the trail we were on.

Oct. 16 afternoon bike ride in Ames.

And although I drove today due to morning rain, this week again has been a mostly good one for a bike commuter. Wednesday night, I took the trail route home just because I could, and my computer, which has been mostly comatose lately, woke up for a mile or so to let me know I was trucking along the trail at about 15 mph. I was feeling pretty good, like a pretty fast biker.

I exited the trail, feeling powerful with my RAGBRAI-trained legs, and was ruminating about the pleasant, leafy smell of fall air. Then, as I was riding on some quiet street near Noeldridge Park, I heard it: a “click-click-click” sound, like someone riding a bike not quite in gear.

It wasn’t me. The sound gained on me. And a gentlemen on what looked like an ancient yellow ten speed shouted a cheery greeting as he click-click-clicked on by.

So much for powerful RAGBRAI legs. Then again, even an ancient ten speed is more built for swiftness than Francis—a sturdy but slow commuting bike—is. Then again, this man, who looked old to me (at a guess I would say he was probably around 80) was zooming by me with his chain not quite hitting the gears correctly.

He reminded me of a World War II veteran who rode by me on his first RAGBRAI just a couple of years ago. Then again, this guy honestly looked like he could have been the same WWII veteran. How many 80-year-old bikers are out late enough in Cedar Rapids on fall evenings to have to run with lights on so they can click-click-click past startled, late-middle-aged professors?

Well, I can’t be too old to ride. Clearly, Mr. ten speed wasn’t. That old man gave me some hope, like the new RAGBRAI logo, a reason to look ahead. Maybe someday, I’ll be on some fast yellow bike, and I can zoom by some young whippersnapper in his 50s.

All in all, it has been a good biking week.

OK, we took a walk at ISU after the bike ride, so this isn't a biking picture. Still, last Thursday was this kind of day. Lake Laverne at Iowa State University.

In Which I Find Where Cheap Beast Bikes Go To Die

Bike lock at apartment complex locking nothing to the rack.

I've noticed before that bike racks near dorms at Iowa State University are a bit, well, chaotic, with many abandoned bikes accumulating.

They seem to run to inexpensive mountain bikes, like The Beast. I suppose if you had a nice road bike, you’d be unlikely to be taking it to ISU or parking it outside, for that matter.

Friday, we moved Ben back to college. He’s in graduate school now at ISU and lives in an apartment complex near the campus. And it seems the such complexes have racks much like a dorm building.

So this is where beast bikes go to die.

A cluster of dying bikes at a rack near ISU in Ames. Crazy wheels.

Ben is near a shopping complex with both a HyVee and a Goodwill. One end of the complex featured a totally empty bike rack, but then again it is summer in Ames, maybe it will see more use later. And it was near a health clinic—perhaps the sick don’t pedal to their appointments. To be fair, there were some in-use bikes chained up at HyVee.

Empty shopping mall bike rack. Near an SUV. Sigh.

Goodwill featured many pink girls’ bicycles—seems to be a glut on the market for those.

Bikes for sale at Goodwill. All the small girl pink bikes you can possibly want.

The empty bike rack was a bit discouraging, sort of like an empty park on a beautiful day. Oh, wait. Ben’s apartment is next to a nice city park. With an empty playground on a nice summer day. Parents, turn off the electricity in your house and chase the kids outdoors. Even if the kids are in their 20s. Bike racks and playgrounds are only good if they are used.

Empty city park on a nice summer day. And only person we saw recreating outside was a comply lass in a tiny bikini working on her skin cancer. It's a crazy world.

Wear Your Helmet. Jawohl!

Photo shows WWI German helmet I photographed at Liberty Memorial World War I Museum in Kansas City in December. My bike helmet doesn't look that cool, but I bet it's lighter and more comfortable.

Ben had a potential near death experience recently. He reports he was riding a friend's bicycle in Ames, when a car failed to stop before making a right turn directly in front of him. It basically nudged him, forcing an unplanned right turn.

Ben and the friend's bike are fine, but to me, the scary part of the story is that Ben was not wearing a bicycle helmet. My bright boy who is contemplating adding pre-med to his math and biology majors, and who has studied two languages in college, could have lost it all at once.

Yikes.

When I was much younger, in the early 1980s, a sister-in-law of mine was hospitalized with a serious head blow resulting from a close encounter with a street drain cover in Davenport, Iowa. Since she suffered that head trauma, CR Biker has been pretty consistent.

When I bike, I wear a helmet. Just as I would not think of driving a car without wearing a seatbelt, I won't ride a bike without a helmet. Human skulls were not built for falls form 7 feet up at speeds in excess of 15 mph.

Ben wants us to bring him his bike when we see him this weekend. We will. And a helmet. It's a need, not a want.