In Which We Travel 16 Miles To See Trains

Grandson and I on 16-mile ride today. He's on Tag-A-Long seat (and no, we are not about to be hit--took photo as we were stopped at street light).

I’ve still struggling with an ear infection, which is not doing good things for my bike riding. The first round of antibiotics knocked it down briefly, but it came back, and now I’m on drug 2.0.

Let’s hope this one works. In the meantime, speak loudly to me as if I were an old, hard of hearing person. It’s generally true anyway, just more so now.

Still, even as time gets more constrained (it’s August and school is looming), I have had some nice rides. When we can, my wife and I have done some evening rides, including a recent one out to Lowe Park in Marion.

On ride earlier this week--Monday night, I think. My wife and I went out to Lowe Park. Sky looked pretty nice.

I had not been riding much this week, partly because we’ve hosted four grandchildren for consecutive overnights, and we’ve just been busy doing other things. Fun things, such as visiting a nearby gorge to view fossils, but not biking things.

Today, I had the chance to put in a few miles. While his sisters went to taekwondo lessons, my oldest grandson and I took Clarence out for a spin with the Tag-A-Long attached.

We pedaled down to Cedar Lake so he could view trains, and then rode over to Marion to meet his sisters and mother for lunch. In all, we rode about 16 miles. And later, I went to collect my bike, adding enough to fairly claim I rode about 20 miles today.

Two views from evening ride home Aug. 10. Buck on Lindale Trail, above. Sky as I turn from Boyson Trail to Lindale Trail, below.

With Raccoon Ride, It Will Approach A 2 Century Week!

Wednesday--train briefly delays ride. I rode down to Kirkwood to meet Cate and ride back.

Wednesday--Cate pointed out this mural, which is just adjacent to trail in downtown CR.  I had not seen it before, but it's right by the trail--hidden by trees.  Cate says it's a leftover from a big downtown Grant Wood art project several years ago.

Solo ride today--went to my office, then took trail downtown, and then headed over to Prairie Parks Fishery.  Rode there and came back.  Was a lot of Union Pacific odd maintenance contraptions all over the tracks downtown, and the trail parallels the tracks.

Map of Raccoon River Valley Trail, from raccoonrivervalleytrail.org.

Well, blog fans, I’m off on a new adventure and probably won’t update until next week …

It’s been quite a week.  Besides being on TV, I’ve also set a new training mark for miles.  I rode 50 Sunday, 20 Monday, 30 Wednesday and another 25 today—meaning I’m already at 125 miles, and I have a 55 mile or so ride set Saturday—so I’ll get to 180 miles this week.

The Saturday ride is the “Tour the Raccoon” ride along the Raccoon River Trail from Des Moines to Jefferson, sponsored by the Des Moines Cycle Club.  I’m going over to Des Moines with my sister Cate, and meeting my sister Brigid and her husband Eldon for this ride.

We’ll do the ride, stay overnight in Jefferson (well, Cate is staying in a motel in Boone, but nonetheless …) and ride back Sunday.  The ride is the full length of the trail, which is over 50 miles, so besides approaching 200 miles this week, I’ll get more than 50 on the first day next week.

Good RAGBRAI training.

It will also be hot, which is another good RAGBRAI simulation, but it will also be trail miles, not the rolling hill, road miles that RAGBRAI involves.  Still, while hill training is important, the name of the game is mostly miles, and this ride this weekend will help gain me those.

I’m also just looking forward to hanging out with my sibs and sib-in-law, too.  Eldon and Brigid will probably be on the trail before Cate and I get started Saturday, since we have to deal with baggage and they’ve already handled that issue—but I’m sure we’ll have some time together, too.

Anyway, on my Wednesday and Thursday rides, I saw a lot of railroading in downtown CR—a train briefly delayed the joint ride north from Kirkwood that I was doing with Cate Wednesday, and there was lots of work going on along the tracks Thursday.

Such is summer … dodging roadwork, drinking from the water backpack in my front basket, learning to handle the heat …