Storm Damage on a Edwardsville Bike Path

Anne’s iPhone powered ducks began a-quacking at six this morning. Since we signed up for this summer’s Lake Michigan shoreline bicycle tour, Anne has been on a tear to get in shape for this weeklong ride. She doubled her annual mileage in the month of May and her goal for June is to more than double it again. To this end we had the bikes loaded on the car and were pulling out of the driveway at seven. Our destination was Edwardsville, IL and Trailnet’s Route 66 ride. It wasn’t until we were down the block that we realized that this ride wasn’t scheduled until next weekend. We momentarily thought of turning around and going back to bed, but we pressed on regardless and decided to ride the Madison County trails instead.

We started cycling from the Collinsville trailhead, where the Metro East Parks and Recreation headquarters is located. This organization runs the Cadillac of bike trails, hundreds of miles of them. Their newest facet is a bicycle repair stand that comes complete with a suite of bike tools, all cabled to the stand. We headed north, towards Edwardsville. As we approached Edwardsville, the amount of debris on the bike trail increased. In Edwardsville proper downed trees blocked the bike path. We got by the first one, by carrying our bikes. Pictured is Anne standing in front of the second downed tree. The only way around this block would have been to crawl through a muddy and wet drainage ditch. We turned around instead. We encountered several more downed trees before we completed our loop back to the car.

On Friday night Edwardsville was hit hard by twisters. We were spared, but others were not. In addition to downed trees, there were many unplanted corn fields, flooded under rain water from Friday’s storm. After our ride, we had a light lunch at the neighboring Culver’s. We were home by noon and spent the afternoon lying on the couches.