Big Bird's Adventures

I have made it to Iowa in time for the start of this year’s Ragbrai. It will be the 52nd edition of the ride so Ragbrai LII. I can say now as I write this installment up that there were plenty of distractions during this phase of my trip and I didn’t keep decent daily logs as each day clicked away. Some of that was due to being part of a much larger event than my little jaunt across the country. What I found out was that rather than Ragbrai returning to the format prior to edition L (One L of a time!) which was 3-4 thousand cyclists, they had no cap on registration and the number was closer to twenty thousand cyclists. I joined the same group that I rode edition L with where there were some scratches, and some new editions. The main known protagonist being Pete Toohey whom I had been texting status all summer on my ride. We were to be joined by the Texas Meyers clan consisting of Robert, his son (name escapes me again) and daughter-in-law Amber and then the UVA clan (Amber is also UVA clan) that owes its Ragbrai attachment to one UVA alum, (K)Cat Rosenthal, who managed to convince a number of her VA girlfriends to “give Ragbrai a go”. The UVA girls are Cat, Amber, Heidi, and the other women whoose names escape me sadly including a new convert. There was also Ted the Diplomat who was riding with our group, doing his first Ragbrai before being deployed by the State Department to Somalia for his first assignment.