Monday

Today we are riding on Center Trails from the Ashworth Park trailhead. We did a bunch of other errands around town before riding so we were pretty short on time but still fit in about eight miles of these winding trails. I don't have many pictures of the actual trail scenery because any time we stopped, large clouds of voracious mosquitoes would desend for a meal. This would be a tie for worst mosquitoes I've ever experienced. Overall it was good though as we thankfully didn't have any mechanical issues requiring stops.

I'm not really sure what's going on back here but the construction site keeps getting bigger. 

Staycation Rollout

Corrine and I decided to try something new for a spring/summer vacation and will be using our home for a hub and doing/seeing things which can make a day trip. It does not offer the wide open spaces and solitude we are accustomed to when we travel, but the hope is that it will be generally less strenuous and offer more recovery.  For the initial staycation day, the plan was to see the DSM farmer's market and have a ride afterward. 

We rode into the downtown area and parked our bikes at this extremely expansive and newly finished trail-head / park. 

We found a truck selling sausage/egg biscuits which were being made on the grill right there. They were fantastic. 

There were two of these bears? wandering around.

The turnout was huge as usual and things bordered on crowded. I always enjoy being here - the demographics and culture of the down-town area are significantly different compared to those at home and sometimes I need that in order to recharge. 

After finding breakfast and buying some delicious vegie bread, we walked back to the bikes and rolled out for a ride. The skies were somewhat ominous. By ominous I mean, I can clearly see where rain is pouring down in the distance, ominous. This simply means it's nearly adventure time and we put on rain gear.

We stop for a bit under a highway overpass.

"Trail Closed" sign? Bah, that just means "go look over there". 

We found several flooded areas, some were over the shoes while pedaling but it was all good.

We eventually arrive in Beaverdale for lunch. Doing some riding in bike lanes here.

We rode past this family of geese a couple times and it appears they have new hatch lings out and about.

Arriving back in DSM, we sat around on the end of the new trail park again. It's taken a couple years to get this all finished but it turned out to be really spectacular.

Elkhart TT #3

About midway through the Elkhart TT series and Corrine has picked up some real time trial gear - it was time to try out the aero helmet today. There was no wind to speak of but stiff competition. The new helmet helped with a personal best course time, and a fourth place finish. Enough points were collected to stay on top as the overall leader. I think there are two more races to go. 

Spring weather has made for some highly variable clouds the last couple days.

Elkhart Time-Trial #2

The second Elkhart series time-trial was tonight with wind blowing from the opposite direction that it had last time. Rumor was that North wind makes for the most difficult runs on the course. It seemed to make everyone a few seconds slower but I wouldn't call it a huge difference (unless you're losing by a few seconds I suppose). 

Corrine handily laid down a second-place finish and collected plenty of points to maintain her first-place overall status in the series. Three more Elkhart races to go!

IMBCS #2 Ingawanis

We had a nice full day today, about 350 miles of driving with a race in the middle. This was IMBCS #2 at Camp Ingawanis near Waverly IA. With all the rain and snow over the past week, it would seem that course conditions would be questionable and we'd been getting email updates from the director that parts of the course would be removed and re-routed as required with total length determined day-of. During the drive, we passed many crop fields with either a remaining coating of snow or standing water which couldn't drain away.

Once we arrived, the venue area seemed to have drained out pretty well as it's located at relatively high elevation. This was a low-key event run by extremely nice people. No USA-Cycling officials, just a verbal count-down and "GO". 

I did a crappy, crappy job on the start-gate sprint and wound up working around several people over the first 1/4 of the lap. Due to course modifications implemented to accommodate the weather, we were only doing like 5.25 miles and only a single lap at that. Finish times were around 30-minutes so it was a short one. I finished 5th in my category and Corrine finished 2nd in hers, putting her on the podium! Cody's rear derailleur folded into his wheel spokes and was completely destroyed about 10 minutes after the start. On the bright-side, there are still series points for DNF? Bummer because Cody had already gapped the entire field and had only one straggler holding on. That almost certainly would have been a first place finish. Next time.

I don't really have any trail pictures, only the open grassy area used for start/finish. It was pretty fun with a bunch of flowy singletrack. There was also an unintended mud pit at the end for flavor. 

The race director and team had provided a big crockpot of pasta as well as cookies etc. and I saw the below object off to the side. This is a boy-scout camp (all race proceeds went to the scouts) and I think this was some sort of food which was left in a fridge last summer and was just discovered today? As mold goes, there's a pretty impressive color pallet. It's also pretty good at growing up and out of the pan. 

I think these podium logs were broken - Corrine is second place but still way taller than first. Maybe it's just the photo angle?

Up Next: IMBCS #3 Seven-Oaks Rec!

Frigid Flowers

Wow, accurate weather forecasting, who knew. I was pretty sure this "snow" would be just a dusting that imitated a heavy frost. Measurable snow falling at this time is pretty historical and has only happened a few times in the last hundred years. Last year on this day, it was almost 90°F!

It started innocently enough in the evening.  

We went for a walk to pick up some pizza and it was definitely going to be a little hard on Tulip Time at this point, it was still just menacing flurries. 

The next morning, it was clear the snow meant business.

I did fund the plowing of 1/4" snow depth somewhat comical.

After the storm was over, we had a forecast for pretty quick return to seasonal normal temps.

Once the heat turned back on, people came outside again. The food booths were bustling along.

Tubs for the street scrubbers had ice/slush on them.

Many of the West-Market Park vendors had a rough go of the weekend. Lots of collapsed tents with the fabric removed and frame haphazardly discarded. 

I think a person could have collected these and made a few good ones from the parts. They were all over the place. 

The snow melted off pretty quick and the city did manage to run a single day and night parade on Saturday.