He's No Lance Armstrong!

After having my usual bike riding path altered by recent flooding on the Mississippi River, I decided to try another local path that follows a much smaller water source.

This bike path follows Duck Creek, which is noticeably smaller than the mighty Mississippi, but a pleasant change of pace. Amazingly, this creek was still in its banks, allowing bike riding, jogging and walking to go on undisturbed, save for a few puddles here and there.

My initial ride covered about half of the trail before turning around. Its kind of neat to have a trail that wanders right through the middle of two cities, only needing to stop for traffic at a few locations that had crossing lights in case of heavy traffic.

This path has several local parks next to it, including a couple places where you can play frisbee golf. Some of the spots have you riding through a canopy of over-hanging trees and a bit of quiet serenity.

At certain times it seems like you are no longer in the city at all, with birds, squirrels and rabbits as your only companions. In other spots, you can see houses and the adjoining paths leading to residential neighborhoods. Again, fairly quiet and relaxing.

Being the curious explorer that I am, I naturally had to see how far this path went and where it ends up. So I rode from one city to the next, with a few small hills here and there.

In a couple of these hilly spots I tried to shift gears to make the pedaling a little easier. Well, my bike gears aren't quite working correctly and I couldn't shift to a lower gear......so I tried my Lance Armstrong impression.

You know, the one where the cyclists are standing up while riding up the hills for greater power? To see someone 240 pounds doing this while riding a "comfort" style mountain bike was probably comical - and I'm lucky I didn't fall forward over the handlebars.

Well, by the time my ride was over I had been riding for close to an hour. Now, I had to turn around and ride back to where the car was parked. Good thing one of the local parks had vending machines with Gatorade, 'cause I needed it.

Since this path changes elevation as you travel from one city to the next, coming back I got to try my Lance impression a few more times as I went up the hills. I don't think I scared him out of retirement!

So my exploration led to a two hour bike ride and a new-found appreciation for small creeks and escaping into the great outdoors. So while people won't come here to view and photograph this little body of water the way they do the Mississippi, it's a nice little slice of middle America, without all the geese and their "mess."

My point, like the meandering bike path, is to find some type of exercise or activity that you enjoy and do it. Get adequate movement into your life to try and prevent disease and feel better.