Winter Views: Clearing Up

What the what?!! There were a bunch of scrub trees felled into the path here.

Monday was another frigid edition of Winter here, so riding in the country did not happen. I did bust out the ol' Ti Muk 2 though, and I decided to head over towards the West and see some of the bike trail and assess my new route choices to where I'll be working in the Spring.

The beginning of the route is much like the past 17 plus years. I head out across a grassy field, now covered in ice and snow, of course, and then drop down a little embankment to the Sergeant Road Trail's end on its Northern terminus. This is right where University Avenue crosses the bike trail. When I reached the upper part of the drop in, I stopped short because a bunch of scrub trees had been felled across the path, such as it is.

So, I dismounted and huffed, and puffed, and I drug a couple trees off the path and out of the way. I suppose things will be in a constant state of flux down there in 2020 since this is where the University Avenue rebuilding project comes next. There is supposedly some plan for connecting the bicycle infrastructure planned for University with the Sergeant Road Trail, so I imagine them clearing out the scrub trees is just the beginnings of that project. It will probably interrupt my passage through that way for about a year or two.

Oh well! Such is the price we pay for "progress". I'd be fine if they dumped everyone that wanted to come down to Sergeant Road Trail on a bit of dirt single track, but that's just me! I'm sure that there will be some sort of cement pathway put in at some point instead. In the meantime I'll probably have to go through a part of downtown Waterloo to get West.

Those two large evergreen trees used to be bushes either side of a building entryway in the 1960's!

The area between University and the Expressway to the North used to be an industrialized area back when I was a kid. There was a coal company in this space and a casket company. The casket company building used to have these two evergreen shrubs on either side of the stairs leading to the entry of the building facing West, and now these have grown into trees in their own right. It appears as though these sentinels of days gone by are also going to be mowed down in an effort to make the area accessible to construction equipment. I doubt many in Waterloo or Cedar Falls even remember this history, but anyway.......

One positive in all this- vehicular traffic sure makes mincemeat of post-holes! 

I ended up poking around for a while until it was about lunch time and then I went on back home after cruising some more alleyway connectors to make my way over toward Cedar Falls. I plan on making the route as much off-pavement as I possibly can, so I will be away from traffic and have more fun!

It looks like we're in for one more week of "real Winter" weather and then they are forecasting a break in things. Hmm...... Transitional season is about to come. We're already a third of the way through February, so it won't be long now!