In Which the City Shows New Trails

 

June 10--My bike parked at pool at Ellis Park, start of city ride. Another biker (below) arrives.

“New” is a bit of a theme to my June rides.

Although I got a flat tyre on it yesterday and need to fix it, I have a new wheel on my road bike. I had slightly dented the rim getting a flat a few weeks ago, and it had a bit of a wobble my sister noted on one of our training rides. So I took it to the shop and bought a new wheel.

It won’t take me long to fix the flat, I already have the tube. A job for tomorrow.

Ill health cost me biking one day during this hot, dry month—vertigo. I checked the videos and did the head movements, and it seems to have cleared up that problem.

June has been mixed. My goal was to go on a 60-plus-mile ride each week, and due to various other things cropping up, I have not met that goal. But I’ve ridden over 470 miles in June, more miles than most whole weeks of RAGBRAI, so while I need to do more long rides, enough medium rides are giving me many miles.

One of those rides, June 10, was a “Ride the Districts” 15-mile ride where the city of Cedar Rapids showed off some new bicycle infrastructure south of the Cedar River. The ride started at Ellis Park, which I’ve cycled to in the past but avoided this year because construction projects are between me and it and I have not found an alternative route. For this ride, I drove there along a busy street I would not bike on. Still, we, me and dozens of others on this ride, headed out of the park, turned south and then west and reached the Cherokee Trail.

Using that trail, which was new to me, and some streets and roundabouts, we reached Morgan Creek County Park, one of the nicest parks in the Cedar Rapids area. It was both exciting to learn one can cycle there, and a little sad.

On my own, with my poor navigation skills, I doubt I could repeat that route. Maybe after Ellis Park finally becomes a viable destination I can experiment and figure it out—I hope so. Morgan Creek Park would be a nice new bike ride destination.

June 10--I signed up online and got one of these shirts, route on the back, not great to check during ride.

Above and below, speaker at first stop in the ride covers new developments along Cherokee Trail.

In June, summer is for sure here. Iowa this year feels like “high summer” in June. In a normal year, the state dries out and heats up in late July and August—but this year the heat and dry time has arrive early.

Well, at least that means more sunny days for biking, but careful biking, an old man like me needs to stay well hydrated in this heat.

Anyway, back to the ride. We received some updates from city staff, and I sadly didn’t take any notes, so I don’t recall a lot, except that work continues to expand the Grant Wood Trail, which is good news in my neighborhood.

Third stop, near the end of the ride.

Riders.

 

Ride organizer speaking at first stop.

Shelter at Morgan Creek Park was snack stop, which was nice. Whole ride was about 15 miles.

County speaker at Morgan Creek Park.

And, as the equinox came on later in the month, summer flowers, lilies and coneflowers and milkweed, are suddenly everywhere. The grass is dry, although mature trees still look OK. If it continues to be extremely hot and dry, eventually they’ll start to look sad and drop leaves early, but fortunately we’re not at that point.

Anyway, on June 23 I had a meeting at the University of Northern Iowa. It gave me a chance, in the afternoon, to ride 10 miles along some trails that were new to me. If I had more time, more water and less heat, I would have ridden farther, but at least I was able to ride some new routes in Wateloo. I’ve been using familiar trails a lot this month, so some tastes of new have been good.

Longest ride so far in June: 60.7 miles on the 9th. Year-to-date, 1.591.42 miles. Not quite halfway to the 3,300-mile goal, but there is still a week left in June, and I should get even more miles in July, what with RAGBRAI and all.

Many images from this summer month:

June 1-9:

Sunny, hot day June 9, riding trail south to Solon.

June 9--Ride to north end of Sac and Fox Trail. Nice to see bike lines added on Cottage Grove Road.

June 9--Stormy looking clouds on C Avenue.

Hybrid bike at Lowe Park, going for short morning rides while granddaughters have music lessons.

June 10--Sunset on Lindale Trail, hazy sky thanks to forest fires in Canada.

June 4--Blue Jay on commercial building next to Lindale Trail.

Sky colors June 1 on Grant Wood Trail.

June 11-17

June 11--Blackbird at Lowe Park.

June 12--Pretty summer sky on Grant Wood Trail.

June 12--Clouds at Lowe Park Trail.

June 15--Trumpet Vine blooming along Cedar River Trail in Hiawatha.

June 16--Butterfly Flower in bloom at Noelridge Park.

June 16--Common Milkweed in bloom, Noelridge Park.

June 16--Milkweed in bloom Noelridge Park.

June 16--Parked at Lafayette along Cedar Valley Nature Trail.

June 16--Watching bird at Lafayette.

June 16--CVNT north, pretty blue sky.

June 17--Sunset on Lindale Trail.

 June 21-23:

June 21--Deer on creek trail off of Boyson Trail.

June 21--View of bridge on creek trail.

June 21--Sunset at Lowe Park.

June 22-Saw lots of deer on late ride this day.

June 22--It looked like this one winked at me. I rode on quickly.

June 22--Elephant in park along trail in Waterloo.

June 23--George Wyth State Park in Waterloo, shady trail.

June 23--Trail along top of levee along Cedar River.

In Which Team Joe Does RAGBRAI 2018

Team Joe in Boone on Tuesday. We stopped for lunch at a house of a college friend of Cate and Brigid. We stayed in Ames that night with another member of the Cate and Brigid ISU mafia. And our Newton host was a friend of Brigid and Eldon. We were aided this year by both the kindness of strangers and the kindness of old friends.

What will we recall about RAGBRAI 2018? A lot, I am sure. It was the year of the tyre trouble, as three of four team members, including your correspondent, suffered flats. It was the year of the guardian angels, as two of three team members with flats were quickly aided by helpful members of the United States Air Force. It was the year when we thought anybody out of state who did RAGBRAI for the first time might not get the right idea about Iowa—lows in the 50s and highs in the 80s are not all that typical in the last full week of July.

Overall, it was a grand ride.

I rode five days of RAGBRAI this year, about par for my recent rides. The ride in total was a bit over 400 miles, but for me it was about 370 miles. We had a few passing sprinkles on the road, but the weather was so cooperative that when we did have rain, it was while we were in town. Everything got a bit wet in the campground in Jefferson—it was sunny when we left for supper, and we had not really battened down the hatches before we toddled off to eat. Despite that bit of dampness, it was a gorgeous week.

Morning view from a ridge top on Monday.

It was not without some problems. The first day I rode, I felt sometimes awful—faint and dizzy and I wondered if all the practice rides had been enough. That, however, was a long day—more than 70 miles—and a hilly day with over 2,500 feet of climb. And while no day in RAGBRAI was truly hot, it was 90ish warm, one of the warmer days this year.

My wife says I probably got dehydrated, and I think she is right. As fate and H2O would have it, I felt pretty much fine the rest of the week—pretty much, although my old back and my old knees did let me know that they didn’t always appreciate everything.

Team Joe is aging, and when my sisters and I were going through the extended rituals required to get out of a camp chair or arise from the ground, there were grunts and groans that we began to consider the old person arising soundtrack of RAGBRAI.

Tall bike casts shadow Tuesday. No, non-Iowans, this was not a typical summer week.

 We learned to persevere this year. My front derailleur was a bit touchy, and once or twice a day would over shift when I was trying to go from the small to the large cog. Fortunately, the chain never got stuck, it just meant I had to immediately stop and get my fingers greasy putting the chain back on. I thought it was my mechanical glitch of the ride, but actually it was the minor annoyance in the year of the flat tyre.

It began in Baxter on Wednesday. We were just nearing the edge of town, we were beyond the walking scrum and again riding, when there was a dramatic pop. I think I was actually in the lead—not where I usually am (slow Joe), but I heard the pop and my sister yell something.

Cate’s back tyre had blown. As we started to look at it, a random stranger, a nice older gentleman who appeared to be in our age group, stopped to lend a hand and chat. And a few seconds later, the woman who took command popped over.

Major Caroline had a force of personality and instantly was in charge. She took the wheel, helped random helpful man take off the tyre, and found the problem right away. It wasn’t a rock or other sharp object—the tube had ruptured on its side because the side bead of the tyre had failed.

USAF Major Caroline informed Cate that she needed to walk back through town to the bike shop and get a new tyre there. We four (Cate, Brigid, random helpful man and I) nodded in agreement. We were prepared to storm Normandy if Major Caroline told us to.

Major Caroline (and random, kindly helpful man--it's not just the Air Force, RAGBRAI riders in general are often ready to help).

Entering Nevada on Wednesday.

Well, as blowouts go, it was well timed because it was in a RAGBRAI town where one of the roving bike shops did have a repair kiosk. We bid goodbye to Major Caroline and all hoped in our hearts we would meet again, and Brigid and I idly chatted as Cate walked back, wheel in hand, to the bike repair tent.

Bike shop guy told her that she probably had over inflated her tyre slightly, the day had warmed up and “poof.” We vowed to watch it a bit with the air from that point on.

As it turned out, tyre mayhem wasn’t done with us yet. On Thursday morning, my penultimate ride of RAGBRAI, Eldon and I were riding together. We were still in Newton, riding along in the stream of morning bicycle traffic, when Eldon hailed me and we pulled over into a small campground parking area.

You know the Allstate ads featuring actor Dean Winters as Mayhem? I could imagine his voice. “I’m a pothole in Newton, Iowa. You have self-sealing tubeless tyres on your fancy British tricycle, but I’m going to cut a half-inch gash in one that will have it bubbling out sealant like a toddler with a cold bubbles out snot.”

Another flat tyre. The good news is that there was a spare tyre in Marco, our support vehicle. The bad news is that the spare tyre was in Marco, our support vehicle, so there were several phone calls, an interlude of waiting, and then the rest of Team Joe (and our kind host Duane) showed up.

Cate put the spare tyre on a pump and walked over with it hanging there, and the resulting “tyre cross” became a new unofficial symbol of Team Joe and the year of the tyre.

Camp view in Sigourney on Thursday.

The pump cross in Newton.

Chain came off--It's back on now, almost.

Rolling on hills on Thursday.

I ended up leaving Newton alone, as changing a tubeless tyre turns out to be a more involved and lengthier process than a regular tyre—you trade the smaller likelihood of a flat with that system for the greater investment in time should a flat occur—although Eldon caught up with me well before we stopped for lunch that day.

But wait, as they say on TV, there’s more. Fast forward to Saturday, the final ride. Brigid was laid low in the morning. The plan was that all four of us would ride that final day—family from CR would handle the logistics of getting Marco—but on Friday night, my delayed twin sister ate some tasty Indian dish that contained cauliflower.

Which, it seems, is something Brigid ought not do. On the way to Iowa City, she became very nauseated, and unable to ride. Eldon stayed with her to tend to her, and Cate and I rode alone that day. The sickness was short lived, and Brigid and Eldon were fortunately able to join us for an Ethiopian feast at a Coralville restaurant that night, but on Saturday’s ride, it was just Cate and I.

We were nearing Atalissa after a pleasant, not hilly roll through Johnson County. The road suddenly seemed very rough to me—way too rough. I pulled over, and felt my back tyre. This time where was no dramatic poof, no blowout noise, but the tyre was completely deflated.

So Cate and I upended the bike and began the process of changing the tube. There was an obvious hole in my tyre, but the tyre appeared sound enough for continued use. I had a spare tube with me and Cate had a pump. As we worked, another rider had trouble and pulled over on the same bridge, and then three Air Force guys showed up.

We were mildly amused because we had been there longer, but the USAF helped second rider first—but it didn’t matter and I don’t want to sound like I am complaining at all. In fact, the USAF was nothing but helpful, and even if they aided the other guy first, they didn’t hesitate to come over and lend us a hand, too. We were having a little trouble putting the tyre back on, and a strong young gentleman from the Air Force provided the needed hand strength. And Cate’s frame pump was being a little finicky, so the Air Force whipped out one of theirs, and two of them inflated my tyre.

The Air Force is indeed the guardian angels of RAGBRAI, and even if we were both secretly missing Major Caroline, we also very much appreciated the aid of the Air Force dudes.

Air Force team rolls out of camp in Onawa on first day of RAGBRAI. As it turned out, these guardian angles often aided Team Joe (among, I am sure, many others).

In Atalissa, I stopped at the bike repair tent, but just for air. It’s hard to fully inflate a road bike tyre with a frame pump. We had second breakfast at the fire station there and then were then on our way.

There is an adaptive bicycle group that rides RAGBRAI—tandem bicycles where the stoker has limited or no eye sight, for example, or people who don’t have the use of their legs riding specialized trikes with hand pedals. As it turned out, that group was staying inside the school in Onawa and began RAGBRAI accidentally riding with Team Joe.

At the end of RAGBRAI, Cate and I had arranged to meet our ride at a rendezvous point—the QC Expo Center—located in Rock Island, Illinois. As we crossed the bridge over the Mississippi River, we had a delay as this low bridge swings open for barge traffic, and we noted we were surrounded by the same adaptive bicycle group who were using the same meeting point.

West Liberty, Saturday. Stopping to fill my "bomb bay," a small bag on my bike, with seed balls to toss in ditches. One of the Monarch butterfly support group members.

RAGBRAI 2018 is now in our rearview mirrors. As we look back, it wasn’t one of the RAGBRAIs with the most dramatic scenery—no Lansing or Guttenberg mountains. But it was full of the rolling hills and country vistas that make Iowa so pleasant on those few, rare, beautiful summer days that for some reason this week was full of.

Despite mayhem, blowouts and sharp objects on the road, it was a very satisfying ride. May the blessings of the pump and tyre cross be upon you.

Cate borrows my camera for a dam selfie. The dam is behind us. We are delayed in crossing the Mississippi by barge traffic, but really don't mind much. We have finished RAGBRAI!

In Which I Contemplate Shifting Iowa Skies

June isn’t the cruelest month, but it can be the most interesting. Almost exactly 10 years ago—June 13, 2008—the Cedar River crested after it spend days rampaging out of its banks and destroyed a chunk of Cedar Rapids. We were aghast at the power of our usually calm stream, and the whole city came within on functioning well of losing its water supply.

Whole neighborhoods were destroyed and lives upended.

Well, here we are, 10 years later. A slightly short and dry spring has given way to a volatile and rather damp early June—and there are starting to be some flood watches posted for the Cedar River due to heavy rains up north. Let’s hope history does not repeat.

Anyway, while much of yesterday was sunshine, there were also thunderstorms. Today was the day after. I attended church in the morning and then went on a late morning-lunch-park ride with my wife, daughter and grandson.

And then it was nap time. I woke up about 3. My wife had urged me to get out of the house and get on one of my bikes, because I need the training rides. The sky looked a little ominous, but I checked radar and it said I was good to go.

So , by about 3:30, I went. All in all, in a rather leisurely 37-mile ride, I got sprinkled on just a tiny bit, but was mostly dry, and the sky was an interesting kaleidoscope of change. Here is a gallery, in the order shot, of some sky images from the ride today:

Lowe Park trail in Marion, headed west to ball park area.

Nearing Tower Terrace Road in loop in neighborhood east of Lowe Park.

Boyson Road, heading into my neighborhood, before turning down Boyson Trail.

C Avenue headed north from Lindale Trail area.

Emmons and Center Point in Hiawatha. More blue appearing slowly in sky.

Nearing Cedar Lake from the north.

On the shores of Cedar Lake.

View of sun from south end of Cedar Lake.

Northeast edge of lake, looking west.

Noelridge Park at about 7:45 p.m.

On C Avenue bike lane. Lots of  large birds--buzzards or hawks--congregate near broadcast tower in this area.

At Corner of C and Old Marion Road.

Final two images--both looking west over C Avenue pond t Rockwell-Collins.

My ride was in two parts. In part 1, because I had not “Map My Ride” recorded it, I followed the same route my wife and I had ridden last night on our tandem bike. I went out to Lowe Park, rode the trail there, did a loop through some neighborhood streets that led back to Tower Terrace Road, and then returned home via the Boyson and Lindale trails.

The ride, it turns out, was about 14 miles.

I knew I wasn’t done for today—I needed more miles. So I decided the hill challenge was next. I rode up the Bowman Woods Hill on Brentwood Drive from one direction, looped around to the other side of the hill, did it again, and then looped back up another route, going down into a valley neighborhood and climbing back out. All in all, I tackled the hill four times.

That was enough. I next headed west to the Cedar River Trail, stopped at the Boyson Road trail parking lot for water and to eat the nuts I had brought with me, and then headed south to Cedar Lake.

On the way home, I took the shorter route that leads through Noelridge Park, but backtracked a bit to come into my neighborhood via the C Avenue bike lane.

Besides watching a shifting sky, I was impressed by the number of bikes and walkers out on the trail today. It was definitely the “day after,” as a large tree had split in the previous day’s storm, and clearly a city crew had already been at work to clear the trail.

Down by Cedar Lake, I encountered a young couple ripping leaves off of a milkweed plant. Hmmm. Turns out, they are “caterpillar hunters.” They find milkweed leaves with monarch eggs on them, and take them home to shelter and raise the future butterflies. “I have more than 60 chrysalis right now,” the woman noted.

Well, good luck, egg hunters. I don’t think they were hurting the plants—they were clearly only taking a part of a leaf when they found an egg—and it seems they are doing some good.

Between the 8-mile park ride in the morning and the 37-mile sky scene ride in the evening, it ended up as a 45-mile day. My wife told me to break 50, which I did not quite do, but I’ll make that a goal this week, weather willing. One day of 60 miles? OK, 50 is the “hard” goal, 60 is the “stretch” goal, and we’ll see.

Milkweed in bloom near Cedar Lake.

Big limb off of tree north of J Avenue on Cedar River Trail. Clearly, city crews were at work today.