Where have all the bikers gone?

The inspiration for today's post is a Peter, Paul and Mary song. Anyone remember them? That is, anyone under 50 remember them?

It was 49, yes that is forty-nine degrees when I headed out the door today. It warmed a bit while I was riding but I don't think it is going to make the average for the day, which unhappily has now descended to 56. So it was cold.

Shortly after starting out I rode past the corn field up on the corner. The harvest is more or less complete on the corner plot (one of several on that nearly quarter section of the agricultural experimentation center). As detailed the other day, the field was combined instead of chopped this year. I don't know who else will notice but it sticks out like a sore thumb for me that combining leaves a much larger amount of what farmer types call "plant residue" in the field. It looks to me like there is too much stuff there for them to continue to do minimum tillage planting in the spring. I think they are going to have to plow.Why they left those three rows of corn in place is beyond me. In real agricultural settings you see that sometimes (and as recommended by the DNR) as cover and forage for pheasants. I have seen most of the wildlife that frequents this community and even though some neighbors down the street have chickens, I have not seen pheasants here.

Every time a new threshhold of coldness is reached another large group of bicyclists decide that the season is over and are never seen again until what they consider spring (and what for me is about two months into the new season). I thought for a while that today I might not see a single other human on a bicycle. I didn't see any at all for a long time after starting out and in fact, I saw so few that I was prepared to state that I saw no others based on the fact that it was going to be almost true anyway and why spoil a good story just for the sake of the truth? But I saw so few that a recitation of the ones I did see might prove my point better than saying that I saw none.

I was easily able to keep track. The first I saw was a little girl on a 16 inch wheel bicycle, looking like the training wheels had just come off. She wobbled the 10 or 15 feet from one driveway to a next door neighbor's driveway as I approached on a very lightly traveled residential street.

Then I saw a young woman on a comfort bike riding down her driveway as I approached. I believe she probably went onto the street although I turned left and did not actually witness any such thing.

Then I saw a mother and her tiny daughter at the end of their driveway. This little girl still had the training wheels on and may not have actually cleared the end of the driveway. Mama had ridden all the way across the street and was circling back to check on her girl. I don't think they were going to ride very far.

And that was it for the first 21 miles.

I really thought that would be it. But just after mile 21 I met my first confirmed recreational cyclist, a young man with full gear including helmet and tights, riding a white Specialized road bike. By then it was getting to be nearly 3pm and with school starting to let out I started to see some student commuters. The first had one of those plastic milk crate storage boxes lashed to a rack on her rear wheel. That plastic box screams commuter. The next one I met had those after market plastic fenders and a back pack. Two more with back packs and I was nearly home.

I stopped to get an updated photo of the construction at the new softball field.The concerns that I had before construction began that this might be only a token gesture have disappeared. This is going to be a softball field fully equal to the baseball field used by the boys on local high school team. Funny what the threat of a Title IX complaint will produce.

I headed on towards home and literally two blocks from home I saw a second and final recreational rider, out on his road bike along Fairview. So that's it. Ten, really six or seven actually, it's hard to count mama and the two little girls, and four of those I did see were commuters. Where the bikers have gone I do not know, but I do know that they have gone. Actually, I do know where they have gone. Inside.

It was cold, I have the gear. The sun was out, it was pretty. The wind was greatly diminished from yesterday's near gale, it was very manageable. Nice day, nice ride.