All Shapes and Sizes - the Ground Crew Keeps Them Rolling

Doesn't matter what you ride - your road crew has your back

Even if Casey's needs to go to the BP, they will be there for you.

No Matter how long the line at the Pump or the Potty, they will be there for you.

They will leave at the crack of 0'dark thirty

They will park in a space the Fiat passed up

They will handle the press and paparazzi for you.

They dream of the glory you wrap your tired butt in

They ensure there is an emergency exit if the spiders start to bark

They ride around in buses with dumb puns painted on them

Or advertise your business

They haul your portable showers, bike parts and AC where you never knew it could go

Even if it isn't,, you can call it a team bus

You get the sponsor and the crew gets the inflated do-nut to ride on

They learn to back up a bus with a back deck

And pull a newly painted trailer when the truck is more rust and bondo than anything else

They will pick you up when you go Wheels Up - ok, there will be judgement but you are in the wagon and it is air conditioned so quit whining already will ya?

What people will wear and ride

As if riding across Iowa wasn't challenge enough

I bet it was expensive

Darned if I know, but I dig the basket

Tandem with matching outfits even

Recumbent two-wheel

Recumbent and upright tandem

recumbent three-wheel

You three go ahead, I'll just sit here

You think this is a traffic jam?

Think Again.

Really, until you saw the second one, was it that weird?

Dueling Mohawks

I'm thinking bacon

Any Shade in the Storm I guess

Chocolate Bar maybe

I really haven't got a clue

Couple's tu-tu

Yellow tu-tu day

Hopefully he's from Team Flamingo

When you realize you are riding next to that guy.

Helmet Envy

HRH headed off

HRH on Day 1

Captain USA?

Pebbles and BamBam

OK, let's walk across Iowa on an elliptical bicycle.

Hiawatha to Coralville via Mount Vernon

Where did I leave you? Wednesday, we ate at a little Mexican place in a mall about four years from closing its doors. The food was fine and we got HRH a margarita. She found a few gifts for hrh and a t-shirt to wear on Thursday's ride at the Kmart next door, She was still pretty badly burned but the lotion and sunscreen were taking the edge off. Still she wanted one more day with protection on her shoulders. 

I slept on the fold-out couch and it really wasn't bad even though HRH and CaDiva were, as previously described, seriously whiny the next morning. It might explain why we were a little wrung out by Thursday night. 

Regardless of the reason, we made a bad decision to try the hotel restaurant a second time. You know how I told you were had an over-priced free-breakfast on Wednesday morning? Well, the food and the service didn't get any better after a 60-mile bike ride. You see how I am being so HRH-focused? 

I am not even mentioning CaDiva and I waiting in the sun all day without access to plumbing - or even un-plumbing. Ok, it didn't involve wearing spandex or having a bicycle shoved up our butt. And, ok, she brought us church-lady pie. My guess is HRH-focus was probably the way to go. 

So, Friday morning, we were tired and had to pack up the hotel before we found food and caffeine.  I think we may have forgotten to tip housekeeping. Which is a shame since they were the only ones we were able to count on during our stay. That's wrong really. We could count on it taking a dozen or more attempts with the card key to open the door. We could also count on the swimming pool occupants being completely unconcerned by the proximity of our room to their party. 

But we got on the road with coffee and BK sandwiches.and into Cedar Rapids just after rush hour. When we found a parking lot to drop off HRH we were certain we were near her people. Only it turned out it wasn't really near her people. It was near the place some people who would be her people had camped. The first of several helpful riders stepped up to assure HRH she was on the right path, but that a storm was coming.

The other thing about helpful bikers - if one of them tells you to turn away from the way the rest of them are turning, you need to remember the distress word is lemon. It turned out he was very safe and he alerted her to a storm on its way. But, HRH tends to think she needs a safe word and I don't worry so much when she is safe. I need to know if I'm going all big-sister upside someone's head. 

Once HRH let us know there were no lemons, she told us to get her the details on the weather. Note to future selves, if HRH says find out what the weather is doing, try the radio first. 

We found a Starbucks with Wi-Fi and set up our maps with both computers and a group of helpful bikers sitting around a patio and started to track a really ugly storm moving up from western Iowa through to mid-Wisconsin. By ugly, I mean winds, hail, and lightening.

HRH kept saying, "I'm riding safe." Ok, that's what we thought she was saying. What she was really saying was, "Am I riding safe." This would have been good to clarify. We finally figured out she wanted us to hold back. So we spent her first 20 miles routing paths we could follow to rescue her without running into 20K wet bicyclists. 

We stayed put until she knew she would make it to Mount Vernon. And then we beat feet, in through the back again. We had to share the road with the riders but we found a place to wait for her. She found us, don't ask me how, but she did just as the rain got serious. 

We loaded her up in the car and after riding 210 miles between Fort Dodge and Mount Vernon and she told us to take her home.

I have pictures, not many, but some. I will load them up and share them along with some other stories to share. But now I am starting to wind down, I think I'll go to bed and pick this up tomorrow.

 

More Later, I promise

HRH, CaDiva and I are all in our respective homes. HRH rode four days and over half the distance across Iowa. She is phenomenal. When I quit falling asleep in my chair I'll give you more details, including sidebars on weird team buses and what people will put on their heads. But, Work tomorrow and for now I'm still sleepy and need to go to bed.

Day 1, Personal Best

Day 2 "A Short Day" 

Day 3

Day four, she was hit by lightning storms and rain. But we also met some great people who helped keep us on track. HRH made it to Mount Vernon before she decided to ride smart and call it an end.

 Andy Davis, aldavis@press-citizen.com6:51 p.m. CDT July 24, 2015

Cedar Falls to Hiawatha via Vinton – 70.9 miles straight up hill – no matter what Cedar Falls said

HRH has a 2400 foot climb today if she makes it all 70.9 miles. The heat and humidity are up today. Truth be told, they aren’t up to the “If you live in Iowa during the summer, those days come off purgatory” up but hotter and stickier than they have been the last two days. Like I said, CaDiva pronounced Tuesday a sucker day. 

 This morning reminded me why I am the most patient and caring of all three of us. At 5:30 AM, after sleeping on the pull out sofa, I grabbed the alarm and quieted it immediately. Then carefully took my suitcase into the bathroom and shut the door BEFORE turning on any lights. I completed my morning ablutions and dressed. I snuck quietly back to the room and began folding up the couch when my traveling companions went all bat crap crazy over not waking them up.

I told them I got up so they could sleep a little longer, where upon they continued their whine and cheese fest about how they were awake listening to me snore. This is patently impossible. I have a machine that keeps me from snoring. It actually forces air up my nose so that a snore can’t get out unless I open my lips. And I don’t do that because the air up my nose comes out my mouth. And that is not only nasty it feels weird. So they were just whining because I was going to drive this morning. And they should remember, stopping at Starbucks is not guaranteed.

We were able to fool Jillian into taking us almost all the way back to Cedar Falls from Marshalltown this morning by getting right up to Highway 30 before asking her directions. We made it as far as Hudson, IA when a very pleasant State Trooper who was directing traffic told me to make a U-turn at Hudson. This was the point when all the 20 THOUSAND riders were lined up for the single-holer flush toilet across the street from Hudson High. Now we know full well there are toilets in most high schools, that’s where you go to smoke. We don’t, but other people do. Not now so much as in 10^th grade. But if they let us in to pee, we wouldn’t.

Waiting for the bathroom

Wake me when it's free

Anyway, HRH told us to hold back near La Porte City in case she needed rescuing. The bike traffic was between us and where the support route was, so we had to find another way. This entailed CaDiva and I, mostly me, but she was sitting there too so I’ll give her some credit, using a road map. We carefully followed all the state and county roads we could take to get to Vinton, IA. 

How about 58?

Nope the riders are on 58.

38?

Nope they are on 38.

What about 46?

Nope, they are there too.

Ok we back track to Traer on 63 and cut over on 8. That way we can take 218 to LaPorte City if she is in trouble.

Bikers are on 218.

DAMMIT!

We’ll have to tell her to make it to Mount Auburn and take V61.

Well, if she can make it to Mount Auburn then she can make it to Vinton.

By which time she texted us to go onto Vinton. Which we did. But we came in the back way and ran smack dab into the middle of the riders.  We worked our way around to a residential streets just three vehicles wide, with parked cars on both sides.

This is harder than it sounds since I don’t know right from left (And you should be more tolerant of diversity before you start making smart-ass comments about those of us who are spatially-impaired.) CaDiva, who is not so inflicted, has trouble watching out for bicyclists on narrow streets when I’m trying to explain we should go behind us over there and turn that way to find a residential street with some shade. Turn to my side, not the watch side (she doesn’t wear a watch). But we are now one of the parked cars in the shade, so life is good.

HRH found a kybo in La Porte City and now she is two hours out. We will wait. CaDiva is looking through the owner’s manual to find out if we can charge anything without the motor running. And I’m trying to write fluently without a mouse. Yeah, I don’t know why I need a mouse either, but it is not as easy as it sounds with a laptop on your, get this, LAP and not mouse. I have to keep turning off the touch pad because it is where I rest my wrists and I keep relocating my insertion point. Well, that did not sound that dirty before I typed it.