In early October my girlfriend, Lee, and I drove to Leroy, MN to meet friends, Eric and Kristen, who have a farm there as well as a house in the Twin Cities, and ride the Shooting Star State Trail. Eric has ridden many long rides with me and if you have read any of my other stories you may recognize the name. His photo is also in some of the posts, including Lake Champlain and one of the two of us in front of the WORLD’S ONLY Corn Palace in Mitchell, SD.
We met them in Forestville State Park and spent a pleasant half-day exploring it. This part of the state is hilly with bluffs and caves. Two of the caves, Mystery Caves outside of Spring Valley and Crystal Caves in Harmony. It is a very pretty part of the state, especially in the fall. My father was a minister in the Methodist Church in Spring Valley (and Wykoff and Fillmore—a service in each every Sunday) and the red brick church still stands and has been turned into a museum. My father told me the stain glass windows had been made in Italy under a process that made them more beautiful than regular stain glass windows. The process had been lost and there are very few of the windows left around the country. If you are ever down that way it is worth a visit, although the museum hours are probably a bit irregular. The parsonage in which I lived has, alas, been torn down having been deemed unworthy of a museum.
After a pleasant day with Eric and Kristen we spent the night in Spring Valley and, the next day, rode the Shooting Star Trail. The trail runs about 30 miles between Leroy and Austin. As per usual, Lee and I planned to ride just ten miles out (from Leroy) and back for a twenty-mile ride. Unfortunately, the leaves had already turned color and fallen when we got there so the wooded areas weren’t nearly as pretty as they would have been a couple of weeks earlier. The trail runs through mostly fields of crops and prairies (which I’ll bet are beautiful in the spring) and has some woodlands interspersed.
As state bike trails go the Shooting Star has “gotten the short end of the stick” in maintenance, with many cracks, holes, and bumps. It was, quite literally, a pain in the butt to ride. However, we still managed to enjoy our time riding through the countryside. The lack of maintenance reared its ugly head again when we reached the village of Taopi where the first restroom, a port-a-potty, we had seen on the trail was extremely unusable as the floor had been completely smeared with a large amount of, ummm, shall I say “brown material.” YECHHHHH! We didn’t use it.
The ride back to Leroy was uneventful enough until we got to a wooded area not far from Leroy. Lee and I always ride fairly far apart as she rides faster than I and is normally some ways ahead, and we have an agreement that she will stop at a rest area to let me catch up (with my two bad knees I have long ago gotten over feeling bad about not keeping up). In the wooded area there was a thick carpet of leaves. Carpets of leaves can be hazardous in several ways—two of which are—(1) if the leaves are wet they are very slippery and (2) when there are enough of them they can cover up hazards, such as holes, bumps, or small branches. These hazards can cause problems if you are not prepared for them (and it is hard to be prepared for something you cannot see). As I rode through the thick carpet of leaves on my narrow-tired road bike, I hit a concealed branch that was perpendicular to the tire, which meant it was not just a bump but when my tire hit the side of it I was thrown to the side. I was almost able to right myself when I hit another branch and went down—HARD!
Thank goodness for bike helmets!
In all my riding I have fallen several times and the helmet saved me from harm, but I have never hit the ground as hard as I did this time and my head came down with the “whip-lash” effect that makes the head hit all the harder. I am certain that if I had not been wearing the helmet I would have awoken in a hospital in Austin (or worse). As it was I had to sit on the side of the trail for several minutes to get back what wits I have.
A very nice couple on bikes stopped to ask if I needed help and Lee, who had been waiting for me and ridden back when I didn’t catch up, found me, too. Fortunately, we were just two miles from completing our ride so I was able to “limp” my way back. That was three weeks ago and I still have a bruise on my side. Don’t let this discourage you, but remember to always wear your helmet and hold tight to the handlebars when riding through leaves, especially if they are wet.
At any rate, we got back to the car safely, drove back to the Cities, and I am only slightly the worse for wear.
