Road to RAGBRAI: Errands

Distance: 22.2 mi / 35.7 km
Time: 1 hour 32 min / 40 min (total) 
Route Taken: Wal-Mart/College Square Mall

Today was meant to be a much shorter ride, maximum 25 miles. I didn't quite hit that mark but I think I did pretty good.

Karie and I went to Wal-Mart today to look at bike stuff. Yes, I realize that Wal-Mart doesn't scream "High quality goods" when it comes to bikes, but they sometimes have some good accessories. I was looking to see if they had bar ends, and she was looking for a computer, a tube bag like I have, and a lock. At least, that's what she bought.

The ride there was pretty decent. The wind wasn't nearly as bad as yesterday, thankfully. I had some residual soreness in my legs, a bit more in my butt. Not enough to prevent me from riding, thankfully. It wasn't too warm out, either, but it wasn't unpleasant at all.

I didn't find bar ends at Wal-Mart, so I convinced Karie to ride with me to Scheels at the mall. We had to take some actual roads for this trip, which is always a thrill ride. We didn't do too badly though, but people need to learn how to behave around bikes. Or more bike riders need to learn how to behave around cars so the people driving don't get all nervous around us. Well anyway, I guess paying attention is the most important part. We made it fine, although we had to circle the whole mall just to find the bike racks.

Scheels has a bike rack out front, but for some reason they seem to have decided to use it as advertising space. They had a bunch of used bikes all locked out front. There were only a couple of open spots, on the back of the rack, and that sort of annoyed me. At least they didn't take up the entire space.

Anyway, I found my bar ends, bought them, and we went back to Karie's house. I hung out for a bit, helped her install her new bike computer, and then I took off for home.

My second ride of the day was over to my best friend Dave's house to do laundry, and to make him install my new bar ends. We went and ate Hy-vee Chinese food in the meantime. After we got back, he installed them. He had to cut off the ends of my original grips, and bolt the new bars on the ends. It only took about 15 minutes to install both of them. I took them for a short test ride, and they were solid and felt pretty comfortable.

I left after finishing laundry and watching a couple episodes of River Monsters (one of my favorite shows!). On the ride home, I of course tested my new handlebars. The verdict? I love them. I feel like I have much more control than I did before. They especially help on hills. Switching hand positions to brake and shift will take a bit of getting used to, but I was already instinctively using them. The only downside I noticed was that the bare metal got a bit cold in the cooler air of the night, but I plan on buying some handlebar wrap tomorrow, so that will be taken care of soon.

I posted a picture of my new water bottle setup, too. Enjoy!

Road to RAGBRAI: Punishing Winds

Distance: 40.3 mi / 64.9 km
Time: 3 hours 35 min 
Route Taken: Riverside/Cedar Prairie Loop/Big Woods Loop

My goal that I set today was 40 miles. I got ready and walked out of my house to...wind. Lots of wind.

I started off with a tailwind, which is fun of course, but meant that I would be riding home in a headwind. I still went out and did it, though.

I was originally going to take the Cedar Prairie trail the opposite direction that I did last time, but I changed my mind and went on the Greenhill trail. I decided to stop at Europa (the bike store) to get a 2nd water bottle cage put on my bike, as I'm quickly finding out that one bottle of water is not nearly enough. I want to get a rack bag too, but I don't get paid until Thursday so that will have to wait. I'm probably going to buy one online. The cheapest one that they have at Europa is 50 dollars, and I don't really like that one. I'll look around more later today.

I went down the south riverside trail to get to the Cedar Prairie trail and...turned into the headwind. The next 10  miles or so it blew at me diagonally, making things a bit more difficult than it should have been. I was exhausted after 20 miles but after a short break, I kept pushing myself. I swore a few times, and got stared at a lot. I guess I looked like I was working hard or something.

I took the trail all the way up to Big Woods, and after resting another 10 minutes, took the loop through Blackhawk Park. Another 2 miles into the headwind. The return trip was tailwind, and somehow that gave me enough energy and motivation to do the last 2 miles home; uphill and against the wind.

I made my goal, thankfully. I haven't decided if I'm going to ride tomorrow or not. I should try to get at least 20 miles in, but we'll see how my legs feel tomorrow. I'm exhausted.

No pictures today, since I managed to forget my memory card for the camera...

Road to RAGBRAI: Tan Lines

Distance: 17 mi / 27.3 km
Time: 1 hour 30 min 
Route Taken: Riverside/Big Woods

I took a short ride today to at least attempt to make up for not riding extra yesterday. Although, my main plan was to go up to Big Woods and lay out for a bit to enjoy the really warm weather (and to soften my biker tan lines)I did about 12 miles before Big Woods by taking a loop around Riverside trails. For some reason, it seemed a bit harder today than it usually does. I'm not sure if its a bit of fatigue, the humidity, or the heat, or just me being weak, but I got tired much quicker than I usually do. I didn't exhaust myself, of course, but I felt a bit drained. I think it was probably the humidity.






When I got to Big Woods I changed into my swimsuit bottoms (I was already wearing the top) and rode to one of the hidden beaches. This is the first time I rode with the new seat without bike shorts. I wouldn't be able to do it for long; there are lots of metal bits near bare skin and it would just...hurt. Anyway, I got to the area, which wasn't too far (about a quarter of the way around the lake), set up my towel, and laid down for a bit. It didn't take long for me to move my towel from the ground to the bench, however, since there were lots of bugs...everywhere.


I saw butterflies by the hundreds today. Half of the time I was laying out I had my eyes open watching them. I did eventually get my camera and start sneaking up on them. Most of them were too smart for that but I did get pretty close to a couple of them. The downside was...the flies. They kept annoying me and biting. Well, that comes with being outside, I suppose.


After about an hour, I decided it was time to come home. I did a lap around the lake, and then headed back. I didn't push myself too hard today because I will be taking the bike to work, so that's another 10.4 miles to add to today. It was very humid at this point so I didn't bother to put my tank top back on. Keeping cool trumps shame as far as I'm concerned.





I have two days off in a row next week so I will attempt to ride two long rides in a row. I'll probably be tired as hell afterwards, but if I want to do RAGBRAI I better get used to it...



Enjoy the extra pictures today!

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.

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!