Iowa is not flat. We did not need fancy altimeters to prove this fact. Our legs gave us all the feedback we needed when we rode across Iowa at the end of July. We entered the lottery for the 33rd RAGBRAI (The Register’s Great Bike Ride Across Iowa) in March and began our training for Iowa as a prelude to the “Ride the East” tour we would be doing at the end of summer.
We formed our group “Team Bacon” with three friends from California (LaVaun, Doug and Sig), along with my childhood friend Karen (now living in Iowa) and Bob and I. LaVaun, who wasn’t crazy enough to ride a bike, drove our support van, providing us with extra options for getting to restaurants out of typical bike range and to a hotel one night away from the masses. “Mothership” as we called her, was a lifesaver in many ways.
We left our car at the finish town and rode a charter bus west across Iowa to the LeMars, the starting town. In 100 degree heat, 10,000 riders and support crews camped out, filling a football field and beyond the first night. Our group coming from multiple locations finally found each other and launched ourselves into festival. Mothership got us temporarily away from the masses for dinner, but we had to go to the Blue Bunny along with everyone else for ice cream. We finally turned in for the night, trying to sleep in the hot humid climate. I had just dropped off when the RAGBRAI fireworks started – who thought this was a good idea?
LeMars to Shelton
Sunday we started our 500 mile serpentine route east into the oppressive heat and humidity. But wait! Karen, Doug and Sig had locked their bikes together and had lost the key! So there we were itching to get going and instead we’re waiting for a locksmith. Once we got going, it was an incredible day of riding – the rolling party of riders was a sight to behold. I was amazed by the mass of colorful and sometimes costumed riders. Bob and I stopped often at food stands, I’m thinking we’re going to eat across Iowa, no weight loss on this bike trip! We learned the temperature was to cool down significantly the next day and I was thinking “yea! Seattle cool, gray cycling!” I wasn’t thinking that this dramatic drop in temperature can only happen in the Midwest with an atmospheric clash of hurricane proportions.
We awoke to at 2 a.m. to the horrific sound of our tent being whipped about and morphed into shapes that a flimsy nylon structure was never designed to contort into. We jumped outside to reinforce the tent staking and dove back inside to keep our tent from becoming airborne in the 80 mph winds. The driving rain came through the tent walls, the lightning flashed with the brightness of 1,000 suns, and the thunder crashes could only be matched by a bombing raid. My mind jumped from being totally terrified, to this is so cool! This tent is going through this apocalyptic event and we’re ok! After the lesser second storm of the night blew through and we could finally get back to sleep, trying to avoid the puddle that had formed on my side of the tent. In the morning we found out that many tents had broken, one rider died when a large tree branch fell on him while in his tent, but the Ride went on.
Sheldon to Esterville
Doug decided not to ride the next day after staying up half the night, so he and Mothership gathered up a bunch of our wet items and found a laundry mat. They opened the dryer door and were about to throw in the first load when they discovered a dead rat in the dryer! We considered changing our team name to “washed rat” for our next outing. It was still cool and gray when the rest of us had arrived in Esterville, we found out that LaVaun had booked us into a motel, thinking we all needed a calm, dry night.
Esterville to Algona
The ride continued to astound me, we were never out of the sight of hundreds of riders. They took up the whole road, even slow riders occupied on the center line requiring faster riders to pass them in the oncoming traffic lane. Fortunately for us, Iowans know the RAGBRAI route when its in their area (it changes every year) and found other roads to travel on. There were also police officers at every intersection directing traffic. It’s all a part of getting this rolling party down the road.
Algona to Northwood
While attempting to leave Algona after eating at a nondescript fast food joint for breakfast and we planned to cycle straight down the highway until we joined the route to keep from backtracking and avoid the crowds of cyclists for a few more miles. I was leading our group and bypassed the uniformed patrol officer directing us to take the turn into town and onto the official route. I chose to ignore our donut dunking demi-god and proceeded to run his carefully controlled intersection. Karen dutifully followed me into our life of crime while lemming like, our male cohorts dutifully followed the appointed route.
Apparently our favorite officer had a fight with the wife that morning and wasn’t about to let a couple of girly cyclists contradict his commands. Sig heard him say “Guess I’m going to git me some cyclists” and off he went in hot pursuit after us, lights a flashin’. He got to the next intersection ahead of Karen and I and was obviously steaming at our total disregard of his power. I made one more attempt to pursue my version of the day’s route, but was met with the piercing glare of the Iowa state patrol and we dutifully turned at the appointed spot and into the mass of riders, wondering if we would ever find the rest of Team Bacon. We did find the rest of our group fairly quickly and had a good laugh. Karen and I were now know as Bait and Little Bait. For dinner that night we drove many miles away from RAGBRAI and when we came back at dusk there were still riders coming in. They weren’t slow, just drinking and having a good time at the traditional penultimate town party.
Northwood to Cresco
RAGBRAI was still entertaining me as much as the towns entertained the riders. Each town we went through had multiple food booths. Bob and I had three rib-eye sandwiches at one place. Usually Bob would get something and I would have a bite or two and he would move on to something different and I would have a bite, that way I could sample a lot of different things. But the rib-eye was so good we kept going back for one more until we had eaten three. Along with the entertainment the towns offered (Frozen t-shirt contest, jump in the pool and see how many oranges you can stick in your bike shorts, duck poop bingo – don’t ask) it was so congested, we usually had to dismount and walk. This day we were in an Amish area. While the men folk were in the fields working without mechanical means and the women were in town selling their home-baked pies to us. Everyone benefited.
Cresco to West Union
It’s amazing how RAGBRAI has become what is has. Starting 33 years ago by a couple of guys from the Des Moines Register wondering if anyone wanted to bike across the state to this 10,000 registered rider rolling party (even more than that participating on their own). The terrain is beautiful in its own way, rolling hills and a river at both ends. The rows of corn and soybeans appeal to my sense of pattern and design, but it really doesn’t change much from day to day. It’s definitely the man-made scenery that keeps people coming and coming back for more. The themes each town comes up with, their local entertainment, the multiple food booths in the towns, along with the mobile vendors on the route (Mr. Porkchop, Farm Boys Breakfast, Tender Tom’s Turkey, and many more) and the energy of the riders – everyone wants to have a good time.
West Union to Guttenburg
Last day of riding so we got going quickly. 53 miles was the shortest day, but finishing the ride was only part of our day’s activity. We needed to start driving back to Seattle upon completion and hoped to get into South Dakota by day’s end. My legs were little tired after cycling all week plus the rolling hills of Iowa get steeper as you get closer to the river, but finally from a high ridge, we caught site of the Mississippi River, We flew downhill into Guttenburg spraying each other with our water bottles as we rode through town, sand the end of RAGBRAI.s
