Big Bird's Adventures

As I said in the previous post I would like to keep this to 3 posts, so I will not go into too many details regarding this trip. I will mention a few items of interest to me, and I will either embed, or post links to other content that you may or may not wish to click through to. I will post this Facebook link to a Ragbrai LI group where you are free to peruse what others liked/disliked about this years ride.

Sorry Tabitha, I don’t have an image with all of us.

Perhaps, there really isn’t much to say, that a movie can’t say better, so let’s start with

Let’s mention a few things about Iowa, that perhaps the average person in America is unaware of.

• Iowa is not flat. Not by a long shot. It doesn’t have mountains, but it sure does have hills, and in spades too. The first evidence of that out of Sioux City was the D12, a local road heading due East where the distance between hill peaks was visible and almost a full mile distant.
• Iowa may not be unique in this respect, but I have laid down tracks for more more than 70 miles where it is nothing but straight lines with maybe 14 turns.
• Iowans are amazing. Everyday we were out there, the roads had supporters along the way. All the towns were welcoming, and riders we welcome to stop at any shade tree along the way and converse with the Iowans.
• If you have ever thought, “I could never get sick of seeing corn!”, well I think in Iowa, on a bike, you might rethink that thought.
• Concrete. Is there a state in the union that uses more of it to build roads? I think not.
• The wind is always at your back when you ride West to East.
  • Bullshit on that one!!! The wind never blows from West to East.
• Iowa is a beautiful state, and Iowans are beautiful people.

The script was the same every day, because we were doing Ragbrai during a slight heat wave, so get up by 5am and try to get one the road by 6 and get as many miles behind you as is possible before the real heat of the day kicks in. While that may not have always been possible, it certainly helped. Take in all that the ride provided, see the small towns, meet the people in those towns, eat their food and pies, and move on to the next town with stops at the Craft Beer tents. There were two each day except the last day when there was only one. Reach the host town at the end of the day, and then marvel at the effort to spot the BCB tags where ever they may be, that guided us to our charter campsite each day. Some times the early arrivals of our friends resulted in not having to go find our bags, and all we had to do was set up our tents. Brancel and their staff maintained a wonderful place to hang out, in the shade, with access to water and beers, as well as a top notch bike mechanic and an able set of certified massage therapists. If food wasn’t brought in to purchase, we could always find it not too far away in town, walk if needed, or ride our bikes again. While there were shuttles available, I never used one. After the sun set, so did all the riders. Eventually it cooled enough inside my tent to actually throw my sleeping bag over my body. Repeat.

There was Beer Day on Wednesday, the shortest day of the ride, which ended in Des Moines. Beer Day!?!? Never heard of it? What is that you say?
It all started with a post from Amber: “To whoever is in on beer day, we roll at 6:30 sharp tomorrow morning. Rules coming shortly”.
Followed very quickly with another from Amber: “Actually Rules coming tomorrow morning”
Ten minutes later this, from Pete: “Yep that’s the deal…Lil Amby says she’s tired of the mismanagement. Time for girls to rule. Wheels up 6:30, Amber says we’re having fun whether we like it or not.”

That is right, we all put our fates collectively into the hands of a 23 YO Virginia UVA transplant who now lives in Texas. Complete loyalty, and maybe a little fealty as well thrown in for good measure, we would submit to her rule on Beer day. That meant that when she pointed to the side of the road, we pulled over and submitted to whatever the rule for that stop was. First stop? Bloody Marys not 5 miles from the start. It was going to be a long day. It wasn’t just Amber making the rules, as she delegated to others, at random the rule for a particular stop. Whatever that person said, was the order of the moment. “Breakfast” and you had to get something to eat. “Beer” and that should be self explanatory. “Jump in the dunk tank” we didn’t get that order.

So, the shortest ride of the tour, became the longest day of the tour because for some of us when we got to the outskirts of Ankeny, those of us that committed to visiting a friend of Larry’s peeled off and sought the residence of Kevin and Sherri who had been waiting a good portion of the day for our arrival. By the time we arrived, one of Larry’s shoes was a disaster, necessitating a trip to the local bike shop for a new pair. We were fed and for some reason, Larry, Justin, and Pete retreated to the basement and took a nap while I stayed outside and chatted with our hosts. Larry came back up after a 45 minutes, but a mistake we made was to let Pete and Justin nap another 2 hours at least, and so by the time we were back on our bikes we barely had enough time to ride to the Waterworks Park in Des Moines and get our camp setup and get a shower before the trucks closed at 9! We just made it in time, and luckily there was a food truck outside the showers that was still serving. Lynyrd skynyrd was was the band that night, but few of us had the energy nor the will to find the main stage and partake. I will have to be content with seeing the original band at The Capitol Theater in Passaic way back in the 70’s before the horrible plane crash.

This year’s route was billed as “over 500 miles” which was close to the original ride in 1973. My tracking showed 547 miles for the week, and that doesn’t count the miles after the ride when we sought food and/or entertainment. After Des Moines we had 89, 80 and 70 miles to finish the ride, with continued heat predicted, and for the most part realized. The only hiccup was our last night in the tent when severe weather warnings were issued. Most of us took in a dinner at The Iowa River Power restaurant, and so missed all the excitement. There were two equipment casualties: I lost my really nice backpacking camp chair because I failed to secure it inside my tent, and Justin’s tent ended up in the bushes of a nearby residence because he failed to secure it to the ground. Fortunately no one was hurt, and also fortunate that the porta-john folks came and righted the facilities as well as cleaned them out. They were no longer in a nice straight line, but they were thankfully usable.

The final day we agreed to meet in Buffalo where we would finish the final miles together. Until then we were on our own. I had a great day the previous day, and I latched onto a couple of trains to knock out some early miles. I dropped out when I hit the only craft beer stop, and earned my t-shirt prize for hitting 10 of the 13. By the time I got to Muscatine I was with Pete and Larry when we rolled in. Before hooking up with David and Terry, I took the opportunity to dip my wheels in the Mississippi there in Muscatine, because in my mind I had crossed Iowa and this was as official as it needed to be. It turned out to be a smart move as the dip site in Davenport was jammed!

Terry, David and I rode the miles to Buffalo where we met the others, minus Tabitha at The Beach Pub right along Route 22. Some folks got some food, others some drinks, and the rest of us just hung out. Pete took the opportunity, since this would be the last real opportunity to say anything, to orate and emotional speech championing our collective efforts for the week, and what a tremendous experience it has been. Just before setting out we snapped the group shot at the head of this post, and then Tabitha showed up and we finished Ragbrai L together.

As predicted the Davenport dip site was a zoo, and so we all got pretty separated with Dave, Terry and I working our way back to Saint Ambrose where our luggage awaited us. There never was another collective opportunity, and so we said our farewells and a non-binding promise to do it again in 2025.

It is a couple of weeks later, and 2025 sounds pretty good right now.

Tagged: Bicycle Touring, Cycling, Cycling Suffering, Ragbrai L, Travel