Road to RAGBRAI: Early Heat Wave

Distance: 34.4 mi / 55.3 km
Time: 3 hours 1 minute
Route Taken: Cedar Prairie Loop / South Riverside / Big Woods

My plan today is to go 40 miles. I haven't reached that goal yet.

It wasn't too bad when I started off at 10 this morning, but near the end of the ride, the heat, wind, and humidity got to me and I had to go home.

But I get ahead of myself. I started off today knowing that it would be a bit humid and windy. The wind was coming from the west, of course, so headwind on the way home. It wasn't horrible when I started, so I went south along the Cedar Prairie loop.

Part of the trail was closed, so I found an alternate route. I think I tacked on half a mile or so. Not too bad but I had to play in traffic a bit and that always sucks. The people around here are pretty used to bikes, but you always get the few assholes who either don't pay attention to you, or worse, see you and decide to be rude. Nothing happened though, so I don't really have a complaint today.

After a few miles I had to ditch the shirt, and rode in my shorts and sports bra. I may not be in the greatest shape but as I said before, comfort trumps shame in this case. At least I'm not as pasty white on my stomach as I was before.

I stopped at Europa today because they were doing free massages. I had to wait for a bit, but I was the last one. Apparently, I really needed one because all of my leg and shoulder muscles were really tense. That really doesn't surprise me one bit. The woman doing the massages said that I could "really use an hour long massage," which is probably true, but there also might be some motivation to sell involved. The hour massages cost 65 dollars, so no-go on those anyway. It still helped a bit though.

Of course, since I was at the bike store, I bought a couple things. Two insulated water bottles (since my water got to the temperature of bath water) and a new pair of gloves. These gloves have a bit more padding than my other ones. The ones I had were Bell ones from Walmart. They're good, but only up to about 20 miles. After that, my hands started hurting and getting numb. I think the combination of the bar ends and the new gloves should take care of that problem. They're men's gloves, since women's gloves are too small for me. I guess big hands come with being tall. I got the red/white ones (there wasn't a picture on the website). I tried to stick to my theme of red/black/white so my bike and all the stuff matches. I'm a bit weird like that.

I got back on the road and took Killer Hill down. I've mentioned Killer Hill in my other blog Disstraction. Basically, it's a really big hill (who knew). Got up to about 35 mph coasting before reaching the trail and riding back towards home. I figured I would get some fun in before turning into the punishing headwind.

I took one ride around Big Woods before deciding to head home, deciding not to take the entire loop. At this point, the heat and wind had started to get to me. I think I made a good decision, because by the time I got home and up a hill, I was sweating profusely and utterly exhausted.

As I said, I might take a few miles later to reach my goal of 40 miles. I also plan on riding to trivia. We shall see.

Oh yeah, no pictures either. My point and shoot decided it didn't want to work anymore. Yet another purchase to make, I guess.

Road to RAGBRAI: Storm Watch

Distance: 33.9 mi / 54.6 km
Time: 1 hour 56 min & 1 hour 55 min
Route Taken: UNI/Big Woods/Greenhill Loop

My friend Karie expressed a desire to go riding with me today, so the first thing I did was ride to her dorm room. She hasn't ridden much, only a couple times, so I knew that I couldn't go all "pro" on her and take her for a 30 mile ride or anything.

I was looking at the weather all morning, worried. The radar and the forecast both said that there would be a storm this afternoon, so I didn't want to get caught in it. Regular rain I don't mind, but thunderstorms aren't really want I want to be riding in. The wind was already pretty bad when I started. It was blowing north, so the first part of my trip (to UNI) was all kinds of fun....

I took Karie north, through Pfeiffer park, over Krieg's Crossing, and up to Big Woods. I did go much slower than usual, but I was prepared for this, and I really didn't mind. I had to keep stopping to let her catch up, but, like I said, she had only ridden a couple times so I didn't blame her. When I first started riding again, I could only go 3 miles before pooping out. She made it a total of 12 or so. Not too bad for a windy day, either.

We made one loop around Big Woods, and then headed back. We both went to the campus dining center, Piazza. I used to work there when I went to UNI, but it's been about 3 years since I've been there. Nothing has really changed. Most of the cooks are the same (of course the student workers are all different). I even talked briefly with one of my former coworkers. The other cooks saw me but I'm not sure if they still recognized me. I didn't really feel like chatting all of them up, so I kind of walked past them and got my food.

After I left UNI, I decided to go for a bit longer of a ride. I had no idea when the storm was going to happen, but I couldn't really see the front at all, so I kept riding. I went south to the Greenhill trail, a route that I hadn't taken yet. I proceeded to ride east; right into the wind. It was a brutal grind uphill, and at this point, the wind was blowing at least 20 mph. I managed to make it, though, and the turn to go north was a nice break.

I took North Riverside trail, and stopped a nice little deck overlooking a lake off the Cedar River. I didn't sit down, but walked around a bit to rest my butt as it was starting to hurt (as usual).

I decided to take a loop around Big Woods to push my odometer over 1000 miles. I put the computer on the bike back in August, so that's, well, 1000 miles since the end of August. Doesn't seem possible, but numbers don't lie. Two years ago I wouldn't have been able to make it 10 miles.

I got home, tired and sweaty, but no rain yet. I was beginning to wonder if it had completely missed us. It certainly was humid, though, so it couldn't have passed us by very far. A look on the radar confirmed that it had, in fact, completely missed us. I'm glad I decided to ride.

I might get another 5 miles out of today by riding to trivia league, but we'll see. The hills are brutal and my legs are tired. I also don't know when I will be riding a long ride next, as I work every day for the rest of the week. I might be able to get a 20 mile ride in on Thursday or Friday, but I'll see.

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.