RAMCO-Ride Across Muscatine County

The Muscatine Cycling Club had it's first RAMCO ride this morning. And there was such a great turnout, around 50-60 riders. We left Discovery Park at 7:45 this morning. There had been some sprinkles just a few minutes before we left, but no more rain the rest of the day.

Our first stop was at Julie Evan's parent's house about 11 miles west of Muscatine. A nice breakfast buffet was set for us and we all dug in. The rest of the riders headed to Lone Tree where they were going to stop at Gin's to get their famous $1.00 super large pancakes. Patti and I had to get back for a graduation party and a wedding this afternoon, so we went to F70 then up to Nichols and back on Hwy 22. We ended up with 36 miles on our tandem. It will be interesting to hear how everyone else's day went that compelted the whole ride (62 miles).

Last night Patti and I went out to dinner and celebrated our wedding anniversary (38 years) and what a great time we have had looking back and will have looking forward.

Swing Into Spring Duathlon

Our Muscatine Group
Sunday-May 24: I competed in the Swing Into Spring Duathlon in Davenport, IA this morning. This was a short duathlon with a 3k run/17k bike/3k run (1.8 miles/10.2 miles/1.8 miles). The weather was great but we did have a 10 mph northeast wind that impacted the biking leg.

There were 97 participants. In my age group (55-59) there were 6 and I ended up with 5th place. Not as good as I expected, but we had two very fast competitors come down from Sterling Illinois to compete and they took 1st and 2nd in my age group. I missed 4th place by 3 seconds.

I ended up with a total time of 58:22 for the complete race. My 1st running leg was at a 7:19 pace and my 2nd biking leg was at a 22.8 mph pace and my last running leg was at a 8:03 pace. There were 6 racers from the Muscatine area and my time was 2nd in that group.

This was my first biking competition of the year and should improve as the summer moves along and I enter in a couple of other duathlons.
This is Julie from our club. With her husband Mark they competed in the team division with Julie doing the running. This is before the race started and I had just placed my bike on the rack next to Marks.

Iowa Bicycle Coalition Ride

Today our advocacy group-Iowa Bicycle Coalition came into Muscatine to have lunch with club members and local officials to discuss bicycling in and around Muscatine. The following paragraph describes their mission.

The Iowa Bicycle Coalition will be taking a number of trips this year to explore different areas of Iowa. We will ride the trails, roads, and streets. We'll investigate safe routes to school, work and shop. We'll be spending time talking with cyclists, bike clubs, organizations, bikes shop folks, elected officials and businesses. Let's explore Muscatine and talk bicycling.

We had lunch at the Button Factory and sit around the table for a good hour and half discussing local issues and then got on our bikes and headed down the bike path and out Hershey Ave. to the new bike path section added there and then it was back to the Button Factory. I believe we had 11 in total at the luncheon and 7 of us biked afterwards. All in all-a great day to be out on a bike (80 degrees) and some good discussion on biking issues that face us in Muscatine.

Training Ride In The Wind

Today was one of those days that it would have been much better to stay home and stay out of the wind and cold weather. The Midwest is still getting cold, raw weather. This morning it was in the mid-40's and the wind was coming out of the northwest at 20+ mph, which made the windchill about 7-9 degrees cooler than the actual temp.

It was going to be the first ride where all 5 of the Colorado riders were going to be together (Jim, Dave, and Bob from Muscatine, Steve from Blue Grass and myself). We met at 8:30 at the elementary school in Blue Grass. Steve's wife, Gina called me a little before eight to tell me that Steve was not going to make it. His daughter-in-law in Kansas City had a baby and he was heading down there to be with them.

Our goal was to head north on Y-40 through Walcott and Dixon and then on Y4E northwest to Wheatland. It was a miserable ride to say the least. Bob, who has ridden for many years told me that it had to be one of the hardest rides he has been on due to the heavy wind. Since the wind was coming out of the northwest and we were mostly going north, we couldn't get any draft from the person in front so we were all exposed to the wind all morning.

After taking a short break at the Phillip's 66 station in Wheatland we began the tailwind portion of our ride and it was truly enjoyable and made up for the first half of our ride. We ended up with 49.5 miles for the day and with the wind and hills we felt like we got in some serious training for our Colorado ride which is coming up in only 6 short weeks.This picture was taken in Walcott on the return trip at Casey's. Bob is on the left, Dave in the middle and Jim on the right. Notice the donut sign. After seeing it Bob brought to our attention that he might have some donuts to snack on when he gets home.

Riding In Mid-May

The weather in May has been very un-predictable with lots of rain and cooler temps. I have been getting in some training rides (short to medium) length and some running. Today it rained all day and I took a day off from the bike, but did do a 3 mile run. The weather tomorrow is suppose to improve and am hoping to join the Thursday night pace-line ride with the Muscatine club.

A Nice Day For A Century

We are getting ready for the first ride of the day at 8am. Jim has his back to the camera and Dave is on the left and Greg is on the right. The others are behind Joe's van.

Since I didn't get a century in yesterday, I went out today to try again. Joe was doing a 150 mile ride today broken into 3-50 mile rides. There were 7 of us that showed up for the first ride at 8am. Two of my Colorado riders: Jim and Dave also showed up. We left the riverfront in Muscatine and headed into the wind (westerly). It was a fast paced ride and our average was 17.2 for the 49 mile ride. After a 10 minute break we headed out again, this time north and then west. About half the riders quit after this first 50, but we had 4 new ones join us. Dave and I rode out to Atalissa and then left the group and returned back to Muscatine. I ended up with 79 total miles and after a short break decided to ride around Muscatine for a while until the group returned. At 2pm I joined the group for the 3rd ride of the day and went about 7 miles with them before returning to Muscatine, which gave me exactly 100 miles when I got back to the truck.

Three-Fourths Of A Century

I have been wanting to get some longer rides in before my Colorado ride and I had the opportunity today to go out and get a century in. I e-mailed those joining me on the Colorado ride and Jim and Steve were game to ride with me.

I left Wildcat Den State Park around 7:45 this morning and rode into Muscatine and stopped by Jim's house and picked him up. Then we headed north in the cold wind toward Moscow and east into Wilton, where we stopped at a convenience store for a break. I called Steve from the convenience store and he was getting off work in Bettendorf and agreed to meet us in Walcott at 11:30. The bank sign in Walcott showed a temperature of 46 degrees and with the 15-20 mph wind the wind chill had to be down in the upper 30's.This is Jim putting his rain coat back on after taking a short break at the McDonald's in Walcott.

We ran into a light rain in the Walcott area and used Jim's Blackberry to look at the weather map. It showed the rain on the north side of I-80 and we made a decision to head south to Blue Grass and Buffalo. West of Buffalo we headed west through Montpelier and then rode into Wildcat Den for a short break. The weather was getting a little warmer and the sun tried to poke through just for a minute. We then headed west to the junction of New Era Road and Sweetland Road. Jim was ready to head home to Muscatine and I decided my legs did not have enough energy to complete my century-so I headed back to Wildcat Den where my truck was parked. Steve headed north to Wilton and then would cut across on Hwy 6 back to Walcott where his vehicle was parked.

We all had a good time even though the weather was a little miserable. This was Jim's second time to be out on the bike and he did an excellent job. I ended up with 73 miles for the day. Tomorrow, there is a 150 mile ride leaving the riverfront in Muscatine. It will be divided into 3-50 mile loops. I think three of us out of our Colorado group are going to meet there at 8am and at least ride some of the route with the others that show up.