All that after I found out that the blogs I sent from the road on my iPhone with pics, only the pics posted, not the text. Luckily I still had the email and could cut and paste the text in. The learning curve is killing me!!!
So now I’m writing the blog in Pages so that if I lose it again, I won’t have
to start all over. See, I get smarter every day!
Back to RAGBRAI. Zip, zip, zip....I can still hear the sound of bikes zipping past. Bikes were everywhere! And they were always zipping by, whether I was standing still or pedaling. Well, on occasion I did pass a few, but usually only on hills. I got to using Tim’s method of gearing up on the downhill, build momentum, no coasting, then keeping the gearing engaged, pedal hard up the other side. That worked well for me on the rolling hills, but if the hill was long, I’d lose momentum getting down onto my Granny gear and then all was lost. And let me tell you, there were a lot of hills in Iowa. The southern part was a roller coaster. It was definitely noticeable when the road stayed flat for 1/4 to 1/2 mile because it was so rare. Most of the time we were either going up or down.
Imagine 10,000 to 15,000 bikes rolling in
to any small town on any day. That’s what we did 5-8 times a day for 7 days. And each town was a county fair of sorts. Music, food, stuff for sale, and bikes! Lots of bikes. Laying down, leaning against each other, propped against every wall, tree, post, truck or anything else that would hold up a bike.
And the costumes were so creative. Chiquita banana and dancers. Guy in a different colored speedo each day. Flamigos. Cowboys on stick horses. And on and on. Every day I saw something I hadn’t seen before. And I loved the creativity.
People of all ages do RAGBRAI. There were children under 3 being pulled in trailers, as young as 4 pedaling on the backs of bikes, age 8 riding their own bikes... Then there were women and men in their 70's and 80's doing this ride too! They are all my role models. I can't imagine having the strength at that age.
And the bikes: trikes, tandems, triples (a mom and 2 boys about 10 yrs old!), unicycles, roller blades, running, and I'm sure I've forgotten some. Oh yea, the one with a sail!
Lines, standing in lines. If there was a line, I was probably supposed to be in it. Lines for the KYBOs (porta potties...Keep Your Bowels Open...must be a RAGBRAI thing), lines for food, lines for showers, lines just to get through a town. Patience is a requirement...hurrying is an impossibility. And often, after much advertisement about a special food item at the next town, they would have sold out of it. No Whoopie for me. No ice cream for me. No Subway for me. But there ususally was something else further down the road.
Food. County fair food. There’s no vegetables, except corn, in Iowa. But there is meat, mostly pork. I’ve never eaten so much meat in my life. I don’t know what a vegetarian would do on this ride. I don’t think it’s possible unless you brought your own food. Maybe you could find a grocery store in the overnight towns, but I wouldn’t count on it. And there were lots of fruit pies, everywhere. So pie for breakfast, BBQ pork something for lunch, smoothie in the afternoon and then I was lucky if I got dinner. One night it was a Power Bar I had in my bike bag.
I traveled with a charter group, so that I had a neighborhood amongst the 10,000 cyclists. That was a smart move.
I met people on the bus ride across the state from Burlington (the end town where I left my car) to Council Bluffs. Jim, Jay, and Kaitlin was a dad and his 20 something kids. Melissa, a sports writer for AP from NY. Janel and Ann, women from Illinois. Glen, Bill, and Tim, three Jamokes from Chicago. They were the funniest guys, always good for a laugh. And they took good care of me. Helping with my bags, getting my stuff out of the rain when I came in hours later than they did, hanging with me at the musical entertainment at night. Thanks guys, you made my RAGBRAI!
Well, I’ve done it, but I’d never do it again. It was exhausting. Long days in the saddle. Blisters where one shouldn’t have blisters! Too much stimulation. Too many people. Too much frustration. I lov
ed all the people - they were warm and friendly - both on the ride and in the towns. Iowa is a beautiful state. Looks a lot like NY. And the creativity. The cyclists costumes, the town’s decorations! We were warmly welcomed, that’s for sure!
So I can check RAGBRAI off my Bucket List.
