Completing a cycling triangle

The splash pad looked inviting but I didn’t have a moment to waste.

I had to make it to Interstate Power Park with some daylight remaining. I hopped back into the truck to complete my triangle of mountain biking in Dubuque County.

I was coming from the west, traveling to the east and had already passed by the Interstate Park on my way to the city for an errand before traveling to the Proving Grounds Park, the first leg of the triangle.

The Peru Bottoms area was all new territory to me. I was following a path driven by so many who had labored at the Dubuque Works since the 1940s. In its hey days of the 1980s, more than 8,000 drove to this spot near the river. A fraction drive the route today.

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Now there’s a 10-foot wide concrete side path leading to it from the west. If the path continued south to Dubuque I bet plenty would bike.

I was destined for the mountain bike trail system on land formerly owned by John Deere to test equipment like tractors and bulldozers. The park’s name and trails related back to its history. My first go was on “Shakedown,” of the other 16 trails two examples were called “Excavator Ridge” and “Backdrag.”

The “Shakedown” trail was aptly named, pretty level with features like rails and pump tracks to warm up the muscles and test the brakes. I did half the loop then found myself on the service road in the park. There was an off ramp to an expert trail, but it wasn’t an option for me because all I saw was a vertical drop to a bottomless draw.

Discretion being the better part of valor, I stayed on the access road. Since there were no other cars in the parking lot I figured I was alone — not the place to take a header.

The gravel access road curved and ascended the ridge, a real good grind for the thighs in low gear. I reached the top of the ridge and the connecting trails. What goes up must come down.

The trails on the southeast part of the park used the ridge as its principal feature, coursing back-and-forth and up-and-down. There were few roots to rumble the ride, a benefit of a newer system. Bedrock was a common surface, something that’s unusual for my Linn County trails.

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My brakes got everything I could squeeze out of them. As an insight into the vintage of my ride, I have caliber brakes. It’s definitely time to put on new pads. I rode with more brake than usual but a new trail deserves some cautious riding. Next time I’ll let’r rip.

The next thing I knew I was back on the “Shakedown” trail and then at the parking lot. That was fun. I just scratched the surface, but I had two more systems to the hit so I racked the bike and headed to Asbury. Note to self, a guy could camp at Heritage Pond Park, bike to the Proving Grounds and back on the safety of the side path and then finish the day with a lazy session of bobber watching.

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The spiffy splash pad and facilities at Cloie Creek Park was a good sign. In a moment I was on my steed barreling past the trailhead sign and down a steep hill. Dashing past backyards I had two thoughts. First, Woo! I’m really going fast. Second, geez these guys had a bike trail out their backdoor, how cool.

I reached the bottom and veered right with a full head of steam and right up to someone's home garden in the trail. Oh, that wasn’t the trail. What went down must go up. That part was considerably less fun owing to the pitch and embarrassment.

This time I stopped to actually read the trailhead sign. Mark Twain is to have quipped that those who don’t read have no advantage to those who can’t.

The system was small, pretty much down a ravine and then up the other side and back. A big plus was it was a one-way system which gives the rider confidence knowing he won’t be meeting another around a corner at speed.

I rode the single-track serpentine to its nadir, a paved landing with a municipal pumping station and wide concrete path connecting to the neighborhoods. I continued the trail uphill to a large solar panel array and quickly came back down the return route.

The surface was pretty smooth, and free of roots but the bedrock here and there made for small obstacles. On the return uphill trail nearing the park, I confirmed what I thought I saw on the first descent: erosion. Some erosion is just part of putting trails into hills, but this was more than some and for a newish trail a cause for concern.

An orange sun looked down on me as I got back to the truck. Its color was what you expect in those last moments before it winks out for the day. Owing to the fires in Manitoba the sun carried its color to me as a warning that daylight for my final stop would be in limited supply. At 7:45, I was off on my third leg to Interstate Power Park.

I was driving at a rate faster than my normal. No traffic on the bypass made me feel slow. The profligate bypass and abundance of exurbia frosted my mood; I made it to the parking lot as another was leaving. Time on deck was 8:05, another new trail to myself, and now with shadows getting long the valley would be getting dark quick.

The single-track took necessary twists through a small prairie before descending a steep valley. These were fantastic trails, they were smooth and the flow through the corners was strong. The trails crisscrossed down the ravine and back up the other. Bisecting the system was a pasture-like right of way for transmission towers.

The deer were out. Riding through any of the open areas was a rolling series of encounters. Most wheezed and bounded away. Twice, deer held their ground and waited. I passed on taking the long outer loop and turned into the right of way. I was surprised at how much Iight I lost as I zipped back into the woods.

My brakes were getting more workout than usual but I rode more cautiously than normal. Here and there bedrock features were incorporated into the trail as jumps, obstacles, or beams, very clever.

I felt a bit of relief when I rolled into the parking lot. The sun, now a lazy red, was setting and I prepared to chase after it on my drive home. Third leg completed.

Inside a triangle is 180 degrees, no matter what you do to the angles. Take all three legs back to the beginning and you’ve done 180 degrees. Yet in our circular lives 180 degrees points you in the opposite direction. I took the lesson and steered my truck west.

Looking up, looking ahead, and keeping my pencil sharp.

John Lawrence Hanson, Ed.D. teaches at Linn-Mar High School. He sits on the Marion Tree Board, and is a member of the Outdoor Writers Association of America