This weekend, the third annual “Tour the Raccoon” ride is going to give the Offenburgers and a lot of other fun folks another chance to “reconnect with the absolute joy of riding a bike,” as the columnist says. And you’ll meet a lot of notable characters and places along the way, too, because the Offenburgers know most all of them. Come ride along!
By CHUCK OFFENBURGER
COOPER, IOWA, June 6, 2011 — Two consecutive bicycling seasons were essentially wrecked for my wife Carla Offenburger and me by our cancers. Now, after a whole lot of treatment and prayers that seem to be working, we are reconnecting with the absolute joy of riding a bike.
Let me tell you, every ride seems a celebration.
It was that way this past Saturday, when Carla and I rode on the “Wabash Warm-Up” on the beautiful Wabash Trace Nature Trail in southwest Iowa. My goodness, the Trace surely must be the most-shaded and one of the most beautiful trails in the state.
And we’re celebrating again this coming weekend, June 11-12, by riding the third annual “Tour the Raccoon,” doing the full length of our Raccoon River Valley Trail here in west central Iowa. I’ll ride both days, and Carla – who has responsibilities with Saturday’s Bell Tower Festival parade in Jefferson – will join me on the bikes Sunday.
Why don’t you come celebrate with us and ride along? You can register and get more information on the Internet site of the sponsoring Des Moines Cycle Club at www.dmcycleclub.com.
If you ride with us, you’ll likely meet many of the notable characters in the towns along the way because Carla and I know most of them. I rode the RRVT back on its opening day in 1989. The two of us met on this trail a year later, over peach malts at the old Barney’s Dairy Stripe in Adel. And Carla and I now both serve on the board of directors of the Raccoon River Valley Trail Association. Our group does all the marketing and promotion of the trail and the communities along it. We work in partnership with the Greene, Guthrie and Dallas County Conservation Boards, which own and operate the trail.
On this weekend’s tour, we’ll leave Eason Elementary School in Waukee Saturday morning, and my plan is to start riding about 9 a.m. Then most of us on the tour will ride 56 miles through all the RRVT communities – Waukee, Adel, Redfield, Linden, Panora, Yale, Herndon, our own little town of Cooper and on into Jefferson, where we’ll land in the middle of the 32nd annual Bell Tower Festival with a full slate of entertainment and activities.
The “Tour the Raccoon” riders will also be the first to use the new Jefferson Trailhead Campground, which Greene County Conservation has developed just south of the Jefferson Depot, on the east side of the trail. The $80,000 campground project includes a brand new restrooms & showers building, so this is the first full-service campground located right on the 56-mile-long RRVT.
On Sunday, we’ll have a free continental breakfast, being provided to the tour riders by Jefferson’s McFarland Clinic, with fresh hot coffee from Jefferson’s own Greene Bean Coffee Co. Then we’ll pedal back south and east on the trail to Waukee.
Going and coming, we’ll be stopping in all the trail towns, checking out the significant progress that’s been made on enhancing the 22-year-old RRVT.
Of course, the biggest improvement in the trail’s history will be completed next year, in 2012, when the 33-mile long “North Loop” is completed. That will go east from Herndon through Jamaica, Dawson and Perry, then turning southeast through Minburn and Dallas Center on the way to connecting with the existing RRVT again in Waukee. The 8-mile-long Dawson-Perry stretch of that new trail is already open, and Carla and I enjoyed riding it in both directions this past Sunday.
My rides on the RRVT this spring and early summer are reminding me of several things.
First and foremost, life is good.
Second, when you go out on a bike ride on a nice day on a nice trail, it doesn’t even take one mile before you’ve forgotten about whatever has been stressing you out.
Third, Carla and I are never hurrying when we’re on bikes. Rather we’re on a perpetual “Go Slow Tour.” The payoff is we don’t miss much along the way and we always learn a lot.
Fourth, and this is pretty important for our whole home area, the Raccoon River Valley Trail is indeed becoming one of the best recreational trails in America. It is so rare to have a fully-paved trail of 56 miles, and next year becoming 89 miles. When the 72-mile-long interior loop is completed – it will be the longest loop on any rec trail in the U.S. – we expect usage numbers on the trail will mushroom, eventually reaching 300,000 to 400,000 people per year.
The RRVT is also a true multi-use trail. On a day’s bike ride on it, you likely will encounter walkers, joggers, birdwatchers, berry-pickers and more. The whole trail is open to snowmobiles and cross-country skiing in the winter when there is at least four inches of snow. In Greene County, we allow hunting on the trail right-of-way in the fall and early winter. In Guthrie County, at least for now, you can ride horses on the still-undeveloped right-of-way from Herndon through Jamaica to Dawson.
But the real charm of the RRVT is that our southeastern-most trailhead is in Waukee, a suburb of the state’s largest city, Des Moines, and indeed our trail connects right into the metro trail system. So you can ride trails from the heart of downtown in the capital city, if you want to, and wind up on the RRVT. Then our trail takes you out west and north through one of the richest agricultural regions in the world, with the nine fine small towns located right on it. The productivity and fertility you see out there – especially this time of year when planting is completed and crops are emerging – is eye-popping. Ditto, for harvest time in the fall.
You’ve just got to come explore it. And you can do that this next weekend with we Offenburgers and a lot of other fun folks who’ll be on “Tour the Raccoon.”
You can write the columnist directly at chuck@Offenburger.com.
