Road to RAGBRAI: New Paths

Distance: 33.4 mi / 53.7 km
Time: 3 hours 18 minutes
Route Taken: South Riverside/Cedar Prairie Loop/Big Woods

I didn't end up riding yesterday, so I could ride today. My plan was 30-35 miles, a number that I wasn't sure I would be able to make.

As I was preparing for my ride, I found that the amount of stuff I wanted to bring was exceeding the storage space on my bike. I have yet to buy the rack back I'm intending to, as funds are always a bit short when it comes to buying new things. That, and bike stuff is expensive. The cheapest rack bag I've found is 28 dollars, and that's on sale. The ones at the bike stores around here are 50-100 dollars. I can't buy any of them until the 10th of next month though, so today, I was forced to improvise. I took a purse that I have and bungee-corded it down on to the rack. It seemed to work quite well.

This is a picture of my bike and all of the mods so far. It's taken almost a year to do all this, since my money is a bit limited, as I said previously. The bike itself was 5 dollars at Goodwill, which is utterly ridiculous. All it needed was a couple of sessions of derailleur adjustments (20 dollars, tops, for all of them) and it now works like I paid 200 dollars for the thing.

My original plan was to ride the entire Cedar River loop. I took the south trail first. All went pretty well for the first 10 miles or so.  At this point, I was in an unfamiliar part of the trail system. Near Young Arena, the trail split off, and I somehow missed this, so I found myself on a sidewalk riding very, very close to the water. I was only stopped when I ran into a "Under Construction" sign. Thankfully though, it didn't take much backtracking to find my way.

When I got to the next split in the trail, I changed my planned route to the Cedar Prairie Trail. There was a map at the split, so I studied it for a few minutes and then went on my way. This is another route that I had never taken, but it was in a straight line and looked to be a lot easier than trying to navigate downtown Waterloo.

The part of the trail that runs along hwy 63 was quite flat, straight, and clear. The only issue I really had was the amount of stops that I had to make for roads, as there are quite a few cross-streets. A few of these intersections were quite busy roads, so I had to wait and use the pedestrian signal. Didn't really feel like risking my neck in a mad dash across 5 lanes of traffic, anyway.

I nearly missed my turn around point, a split in the trail where it doubles back and heads towards Cedar Falls. I decided to stop here and rest for a few minutes. I ate one of my granola bars I had brought with me, walked around a bit, sat for a couple minutes, and then was on my way again.

The trail back to Cedar Falls wasn't too bad until I started hitting the hills. Of course, at that point, the wind, which was coming from the north (the direction I was heading) decided to pick up. I had massive rubber legs on some of those hills, and quite a few swear words left my mouth as I struggled to climb them. This was about 20 miles into the ride, mind you, so I was quite tired and sore already. I managed to make it though, somehow.

I was only at 25 miles when I reached a crossroads. One that would take me directly home, another that would take me further on the trails. I decided to try to push it past 30, so I went to Pfeiffer Springs park. I took my 2nd break here. After a bathroom, snack, and butt break, I continued on my way across the river. I decided to do a loop around Big Woods lake, a detour of about 3 miles, before going home. At least the wind wasn't too bad at this point. I only did one lap before heading to downtown Cedar Falls. 

I stopped at the cupcake store, Scratch, a small little bakery outlet on Main St. I hadn't been to it since it had moved, so I figured it was about time to try it again. I went there when it first opened at its previous location, and I wasn't really all that impressed the first time. My coworkers all rave about it, though, so I figured that I'd give it another chance. I locked my bike up and went inside. One of the girls was ready to help me right away, but I at least wanted to look at the flavors first, so I let the person behind me go. I shouldn't have. She wanted 12 different cupcakes in all different flavors and boxed in a certain way and asked questions about half of them and even answered her phone in the middle. Ugh. There were at least 2 other cashiers hanging around during all of this but it took almost until the end of this woman's rambling for one of them to help me. As she did, the woman turned to me and went "Oh. I thought you were being helped." I shot back a sarcastic "I was trying to pick what I wanted, but then you just started...talking." I admit I was a bit irritated at this point. I paid for my cupcake and left. I put it in my bag, a kind of precarious place for it, but the only one that I really had.

My irritation, at least, made the last mile and a half ride go a bit faster. This street is one I ride every day on my work commute, so I'm used to it. It is all uphill though, so it does suck a bit when you've already gone 30 miles previously. As I got to the top of the hill and waited at the stoplight, a van full of kids went by and all of them yelled and waved at me. I laughed a little: irritation gone.

I got home and realized my cupcake was flipped over in the box. The frosting was all over the bottom of the box. I got a spoon and scraped it off the bottom though, so it wasn't a total loss. It appears I need a more reliable system for transporting cupcakes. It tasted pretty good, though.

Today was pretty chilly, a lot cooler than earlier in the week. There were still a lot of bugs out though. Not as many butterflies, but there were still quite a few. A fruit fly somehow landed on my arm and managed to hang on for dear life for over a mile. I resisted the urge to brush it away and let it ride just to see how long it could stay on. I think it flew away when I stopped for the break. 

Not sure when my next ride will be. I'm going to try to ride my bike to work tomorrow, but we'll see how my legs feel.

Road to RAGBRAI : Recovery

I did end up riding last night; an additional 11 miles, in fact. I had trivia league on College Hill, which means i took a little bit of a detour from my usual route to work and back.

The ride to work was normal, aside from the fact my butt still hurt from yesterday. My legs didn't hurt all that badly, but I could tell they were tired. I was pretty sore at work though.

The ride to the Hill wasn't too bad, although it was a bit unfamiliar to me. I managed to make it there without much issue, however, even with road construction. The nice thing about a bike is that I can still use the sidewalk if I have to.

The ride home was by far the worst part. Between the Hill and my house (a distance of only a couple miles), there are 2-3 pretty large hills. I didn't realize how bad the muscles were until I stood up to climb one. I felt every muscle in my legs in painful detail at that point. My asthma kicked in too, making it a doubly crappy climb. I managed to make it, somehow, but it appears I need to work on some hill training.

I probably shouldn't ride my bike to work tonight. It is a very beautiful day out right now, so the urge is there, but I really need to let my poor legs recover. Especially if I plan to ride a lot tomorrow. Such a dilemma....

Road to RAGBRAI : Scaring Butterflies

Well, I decided to use this thing again.

The reason I am beginning to post again is that I will be doing quite a bit in the next couple of months to prepare for RAGBRAI. That stands for "Register's Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa". It is a week long ride in July across the state of Iowa. This year's ride is 471 miles (758km), which is about average as far as distances go.

Obviously, this sort of thing requires a lot of preparation, both on and off the bike. I have to get my bike that I'm using (a late-90s Trek mt bike), my legs, my butt, and my confidence all ready to go. A few obstacles are money, time, energy, and a few persistent health problems, but I should be able to make considerable progress.

I'll address the issues individually as they arise, but for now, lets talk about today's bike ride.

Distance: 22.1 miles / 35.5 km
Time: 1 hour 55 minutes
Route Taken: Riverside Loop / Big Woods Loop

I didn't really intend for today's ride to be nearly as long as it turned out. I was, at first, just going to ride the Riverside loop, a total distance of about 12 miles. However, after I got going, I managed to talk myself into going further. "I will not get better unless I push myself," I thought, "so let's go for it." I'm pretty glad that I did.

The weather today was beautiful. This last month or so has been a mix of windy, cold, and rainy, and it was beginning to interfere with my desire to ride. I suppose that is April in Iowa for you. The forecast said 72 degrees with only a little bit of wind, so it was much better today. It was only barely in the 60s when I started off this morning, but warmed up quite a bit during the two hours I was out.

I did the Riverside Loop first. I only passed a few people out, but I guess 10 am is a bit early. For a majority of the ride, it was just me and the butterflies. There were hundreds resting along the sides of the trail, and they would take flight when I rode past them. I felt like I was in some sort of Disney movie or something, although in Disney movies the butterflies don't go splat if they don't get out of the way in time. Thankfully I only hit a couple, and those bounced off my arms or legs. I'm sure they're still okay, somehow.

I took my first break when I got up to Big Woods, after about 11 miles of riding. I parked myself at a bench a short distance from a pair of geese, who looked at me warily but otherwise didn't move. As soon as I stopped, it started to sprinkle rain. It only did this for about 5 minutes, and the sun shone the entire time. After a few minutes of walking out some leg stiffness (and butt pain), I was on my way again.

I did a lap and a half around Big Woods lake, and then proceeded the rest of the Big Woods loop. This trail system goes through North Cedar, the part of town, well, north of the Cedar River. It runs through Blackhawk park, and then back to downtown. I managed to make the whole thing without stopping until I got back downtown. By then, my butt hurt so bad I had to get off of it for a little while. This was my second break; walking in circles around a picnic table in a small pedestrian area next to the Ice House Museum. I only stayed there about 5 minutes as well, before riding the mile and a half remaining back to my house.

This ride set a good baseline. I now sort of have an idea of how long I can make it before either my legs or butt give out. This is a figure I need to at least double before ragbrai...and I have 3 months to do it.

I work tonight, and I usually ride my bike to work (a round trip distance of 10.4 miles) but I'm not sure if I'll do so or not tonight. I have a couple of hours to decide this, I guess.

The next big ride tentatively scheduled for Thursday morning. Hopefully I'll make 25-30 miles this time. Wish me luck!