The "Bicycle Writing" class from Coe College in Cedar Rapids, at the North Raccoon River trestle on the RRVT, south of Jefferson

By CHUCK OFFENBURGER

COOPER, Iowa, May 20, 2007 – The question from Coe College professor Kerrie Elliott Miller was whether we would be available to talk with her “Bicycle Writing” class when she and her eight students were riding on the Raccoon River Valley Trail on Friday-Saturday, May 18-19.

Our answer?

Sure we’ll talk to the students, we said, but is too late for us just to enroll in the course?

“Bicycle Writing” is a class during the “May Term” at the college in Cedar Rapids. Students and faculty spend a month at the end of the academic year participating in and studying some aspect of life in which they have expertise and/or special interest. They pursue it with academic vigor, doing assigned readings, research and presentations either orally or in writing.

“This course was created in 2004 by our professor, Kerrie Miller, who has an extreme passion for both cycling and writing,” said Kristy Upah, a junior from Toledo, Iowa, who is in the class. “This year it is taking a different angle than the first time it was offered. In 2004, the class was conducted for one week during RAGBRAI (the Des Moines Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa). This year, our class is using the entire month of May basically to ride all over Iowa and journal about our bicycling adventures. We’re all enthusiastic riders, and most of us love writing as well.”

The class began meeting May 9, with some sessions on the Coe campus and others on the bicycles. The professor and students have ridden on the Iowa River Corridor Trail in the Iowa City area, the Cedar Valley Nature Trail from Gilbertville to Cedar Rapids in northeast Iowa, and a loop in the Sugar Bottom Recreation Area near Iowa City.

On Friday, May 18, the class traveled in two vehicles to Waukee near the southeast end of the RRVT, then bicycled to Panora during the afternoon and overnighted at the Panorama National Conference Center. On Saturday, May 19, they biked from Panora north to the RRVT trailhead in Jefferson, and as secretary of the RRVT Association, I rode along with them to point out some local character and characters. Their rides on the RRVT were especially pleasant, with nice tailwinds both days.

In the small town of Yale on Saturday, the group was given a tour of the classic Yale Round Gymnasium by Ron Dygert, a member of a local committee working with the city government on restoring the gym, which was built as a WPA project in 1932. The community plans to use it again for basketball, small concerts and live theater. In downtown Yale, they made a stop at the old Yale hotel in a 116-year-old wood frame building. The Brewster family of West Des Moines is doing a total renovation on it, converting it to a small inn. Both the gym and hotel projects could be completed and opened to the public in another year.

In tiny Herndon, I pointed out how the new “north loop” of the RRVT will be coming west from Perry and re-joining the current RRVT right there in the town of 25 people. And I also told them how coming from the west to Herndon will be the American Discovery Trail – a network of trails linked across the U.S. – and how when that happens, Herndon could become one of the most well-known trail junctions in the Midwest.

On north, between Herndon and Cooper, I introduced the students and professor to Rich Osborne and his 7-year-old son Mason, who were working on their trailside acreage. Rich and his wife Reagan Osborne, both of whom are information technology professionals, were living in Loveland, Colorado, last summer when they rode their bicycles on RAGBRAI (the Des Moines Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa) for the first time. They fell in love with the state and its small towns, decided to move here and wound up buying the acreage, where they were turning a huge old corn crib into a three-story home. They’ve moved in with Reagan’s parents in western Omaha in the meantime.

Another mile north, we stopped at Simple Serenity Farm, the home of us Offenburgers. My wife Carla, who is president of the RRVT Association, treated the visitors with fresh rhubarb pie and rhubarb coffeecake and chocolate chip cookies right out of the oven.

Then we headed on north, with informational stops in Cooper and at the 600-foot-long trestle bridge over the North Raccoon River, two miles south of Jefferson.

Late Saturday afternoon, the Coe contingent traveled by vehicles to Carroll, where on Sunday, May 20, they bicycled the Sauk Rail Trail from Carroll to Lake View.

Going into the Memorial Day weekend, May 24-26, they plan to ride the urban trails in Council Bluffs and the Wabash Trace Nature Trail from Council Bluffs to Blanchard in southwest Iowa.

Professor Miller, 42, an adjunct instructor in rhetoric, said her interest in bicycling and writing about it began about 10 years ago.

“I started riding parts of RAGBRAI in the 1990s,” she said. “I did it like a lot of people do, kind of out of shape the first couple of times. I finally decided it would be a lot more fun if I could get in better shape, so I did.”

In 2004, she led the class of students on RAGBRAI. In 2005, she and her husband did their own “Bicycle Writing” expedition, riding their bikes out to the start of RAGBRAI in western Iowa, completing the tour and chronicling her experiences on her Internet site. You can browse that, and follow the writing of this spring’s class, by clicking here.

She said most of the students had very little experience riding trails in Iowa, before the class began.

“What I’m really glad to see is how wide open it is out here in rural Iowa,” said David Woehrle, a student from St. Charles, Illinois. “Where I come from it is all urban and developed, and Coe College is right in the middle of Cedar Rapids. So it’s easy to start thinking that it’s all just one big city out there. I love seeing the farms and the fields and all the space.”

How are the students in this class holding up, with all the cycling?

“Of the eight, there are three who are Coe athletes, so they are in excellent shape,” Miller said. “There are four others who are in pretty good shape, and are young and resilient, so they’re doing fine. There is one who is struggling, and I’ve been trying to help her along.”

Upah, a volleyball player, is one of the athletes among the student cyclists.

“I took this class for many reasons,” she said. “First, I am extremely excited to ride some of the best trails in Iowa. Second, I can’t wait to experience some more of Iowa’s countryside and the beautiful landscape that surrounds us. Third, this class will allow me to learn more about Iowa journalists through our assigned readings and mini-projects. And lastly, I will receive credit for one of my three majors – writing – and that part is just icing on the cake!”

The other students making the RRVT ride, besides Upah and Woehrle, were Akira Nihei and Ryosuke Hattori, both of Tokyo, Japan; Elaina Mertens, of Mount Pleasant, Iowa; Katie Knutson, of Cedar Rapids, and Paul Reid, of Fort Madison, Iowa. The professor’s husband Dick Miller has been the main support driver, although he jumps on his bicycle after he gets the vehicles positioned at the next stop, rides back and joins the cycling group.

Article Published: 05-20-2007