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.