into Iowa and a shot of RAGBRAI

Movie of RAGBRAI and a new friend, Ryan

The first two rules of RAGBRAI, according to roadsigns that a local scout troop did as someone’s eagle scout project, are to not talk about RAGBRAI. The next rules are that it takes two to race, that if someone slumps over then the race is over, and that a newbie must finish. I guess this is a reference to The Fight Club, so maybe they aren’t to be taken seriously, but I’ll mostly follow the rules and just say that RAGBRAI (the Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Acrost Iowa – that’s the Des Moines Register and that’s the Iowan pronunciation of ‘across’) is like Spring Break meets serious older people and family bike club touring with vehicle support. If you’d like to find out more about RAGBRAI do an internet search.

Self Kontained Alcoholics: (left to right) Ryan, Jen, Heather, Luke, Jill, and Derek

Hey, a hay bike!

a quint bike

Max and I aren’t that into drunken revelry and wet t-shirt contests, nor are we into having vehicle support since it’s contrary to the idea of a bicycle way of life (as I may have said before, we’d hitchhike because those people are already going that way, but we don’t want to be the reason why an extra car is on the road). But having 15,000 people escort us for part of our journey was pretty cool.

Mr. Pancake

Mr. Pork Chop

Hear Mr. Pork Chop

Missouri-Mississippi Divide

Team Bad Boy’s bikes

Everyday we’d get up around 7 AM to find that most people have already left town. We’d bike a few miles to Mr. Pancake just as he would be closing up. Five pancakes which melt in your mouth washed down with two sausages and orange liquid. More biking, some drinking, then Mr. Pork Chop. Big fat guy with 12 grand kids working the grill. Best damn chops I’ve ever had. More biking, some drinking, some music, some nekkid slip and slide, then hit the day’s stop. Crazy waterslides in every community pool followed by amazingly good ethnic food. Fireworks and debauchery. During the ride we’d probably get passed by over a dozen recumbents, scores of tandems, about a billion road bikes, and shamefully a couple Huffy’s. (This last paragraph was written by Max)

Albert

Riverside, the future birthplace of Captain James T. Kirk

The second day we took a detour to see Albert the World’s Largest Bull in Audubon. It was nice having a swimming pool and bathroom and city park all to ourselves again. We met up with RAGBRAI again on the third day of the ride and then broke off again on the fourth to check out the art and science museums in Des Moines. OMSI kicks butt. We followed RAGBRAI until the second to last day in Washington; then we headed north to Iowa City to crash at the Patels’ house. The Patels are the parents of a friend that went to Cornell with Max. Hella nice place.