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.

Eldora to Cedar Falls via Parkersburg

Let’s pick-up where I left you last night. HRH rode all 70 miles, actually almost 70.5 miles. This is her personal best. We found a Hy-Vee, very helpful to the riders, who let us wait in the parking lot. She said that was a lot easier than telling her to drive east on Water Street and south on Center Street. What can I say? At a certain point, if you are still asking me for directions, it is your own fault.

 

 

Regardless, sitting in the Hy-Vee parking lot provided us a primo people watching spot. You would be amazed at what people can ride or put on their helmets. I still think the tutus would be hard to ride in. HRH said she saw more than one kilt. Of course, one was on a woman, and I think that makes it a little more kinky than breezy.

I made it

70.44 miles in one day

Getting out of town was an adventure. You see, we left Jillian muted but routed to Fort Dodge during the entire route. As punishment, she refused to take us directly to Marshalltown.  At one point, we were driving headlong into the riders. Not only is a serious faux pas, but they are even pissier than Jillian. We did eventually find the hotel.

They recommended we bring the bike into the room. This is never a good sign. Fortunately, the room was plenty large enough for the bike and the three of us. All HRH wanted was a shower and some lotion for the incredible sunburn she earned on the first day. Actually, speaking of kinky, if you burn while wearing bike shorts, they kind of look like thigh high stockings. I think if we cut a silhouette in tomorrow’s shorts, we could make it look like garters.

Any way, we had to find food. We settled on Perkins. Serious mistake, the service vacuumed the great verdant single element. The food was ok, but mine was the only one served hot. You can see my Yelp for more details, but we will be looking for some place different tonight.

We got back to the room, which faced onto the pool. Even with the kids playing and peeking in our window, HRH was deep breathing by 9:00. CaDiva and I tried to share a queen bed. Tonight, I’ll try the fold out couch. It isn’t that I’m not fond of my bride, but when the alarm clock went off at midnight, it was on the wrong side of my bed. As a result, I tried repeatedly to snooze CaDiva. This was not effective. Neither was trying to snooze my cell phone when I roused sufficiently to remember I was sleeping on the not-watch side of the bed.

Finally, we were back to sleep but 5:30 came very early. A little earlier than we planned, when CaDiva woke me up at 5:15 to tell her it was only 5:15. HRH pointed out there was a large clock on the night side table that would have told us each the time and with a little less difficulty than finding my phone and my glasses in the dark. Nevertheless, she had been up since 5:00.

We opted for the hotel complimentary breakfast. We’ll go back to BK tomorrow. In our hunt for Starbucks, we found one, so tomorrow should run a little faster.  Why hunt for Starbucks? Jillian was still pouting BIG TIME from yesterday and would only tell me about the Starbucks in Newton 22 miles away. Then she drove us all through Marshalltown before aiming us back towards Eldora.  She also told us it would take us an hour and 17 minutes to drive 32 miles.

And they went on and on and on

We got HRH dropped off just a block from her people only an hour and a half after our 7:00 AM goal.  CaDiva and I waited until the support vehicles thinned to a mad rush before we tried to merge. We were in Guthrie Center before we found the first Casey’s.  Of course, everyone else found the same Casey’s. It wasn’t the only one in town, but it was the first, and they were having a GOOD day financially.

Everyone had the same idea

No Fecal Matter, Mr. Holmes

We found Parkersburg easily enough but they put us way off the downtown center of activity. We should probably try to get closer, but they are still rebuilding after a devastating tornado about 5 years ago. So we decided to be good guests and sit in the shadeless Methodist church parking lot, surrounded by locked bathroom facilities.

It is on the way out of town for the riders. So we texted HRH instructions to stop at the first kybo on the way into town and find us for lunch. CaDiva and I are working on not sneezing or laughing hard until after lunch. This is not easy given the need for open windows despite pollen and CaDiva making up RAGBRAI mottos. The eco-friendly Sturgis is my favorite so far. If HRH finds food before us, I hope she brings us some pie and pork chops. If not, we’ll feed and hydrate her as good ground crew does.

She texted us about a cute shirt she spotted and something about Thursday anklet. The shirt said, “Does this bicycle make my butt look fast?” We are going to ask her about the anklet after hydration.  More later.

I brought pie.

She brought Church Lady Pie! One slice each of Apple, Strawberry Rhubarb, and Cherry. HRH tried them all but stayed with the Cherry. I tried the cherry and it made my head pucker. CaDiva is a fan of strawberry rhubarb, but that made more than HRH’s head pucker.

We sat in the parking lot through a lovely lunch of chicken and rotini pasta with spinach (CaDiva forgot the Parmesan but it was still superb.) The chilled salad was so filling we passed on the fruit and dived into pie. HRH was all set to start out again when we realized we didn’t have the engine running so her phone wasn’t charging.

Lessons learned:

·         Hang up gloves over night to dry out

·         Turn on engine when HRH arrives

·         Use time waiting for HRH, while MiDiva blogs, to clean out purse and other helpful chores

·         Pee before finding a place to park and wait for HRH

·         The sun screen (both the stuff we slathered on HRH and the silver one in the windshield) were a good idea

·         Remind HRH to bring her Gatorade

Oh, anklet Thursday was actually through Ackley, IA. And that made a little more sense. But, it is RAGBRAI, so anklet Thursday was not that far-fetched.  It also turned out we were sitting across from Ed Thomas Field. He coached football in Parkersburg, Ia. He was killed by one of his former students in 2009.

We are sitting in Cedar Falls now, at the intersection of bikes and support vehicles, watching for HRH. She had to do a phone retrieval, no damage, which she will explain later. We are still trying to understand what a marine in dress blues was doing walking down 27^th towards the bicyclists, but sometimes you just have to enjoy the view and not ask questions.

Unfortunately, I was distracted and didn’t catch the tandem recumbent bike with both riders wearing the cowboy hat helmets. Might come by later, we’ll see.

Called mom twice so far, and she reminded us that she parked in Cedar Falls with my father, the Dastard, when he was digging a well in Waterloo. She still tells the tale of when she walked out of the little trailer they lived in, seriously pregnant with me and carrying my only slightly older brother, when a tornado strolled the road right in front of them. Fortunately, they only had full-service gas stations then (that was probably why they called them service stations) and the attendant slide a chair up under her before she fell down.

I don’t like posting pictures of children, especially ones I don’t know, but I will tell you there are enough of them on RAGBRAI for CaDiva to nickname them, Ragbrailettes.

Day one - we are out of Fort Dodge to Eldora

First day, we got to HRH’s house at 5:08 AM. She was up and ready. hrh was out like a light in the recliner after giving her Grandma clear instructions to take the Hello Kitty purse on the grand adventure.  The bike rack and securing the bike didn’t take any longer than stopping at the DD and Starbucks for necessaries.

I'm awake

Essential Supplies

After consulting several maps, and Jillian (our noble but whiny GPS device) we got on I 235 towards Fort Dodge. The day promised to be beautiful, low humidity, temps in the low 80s, and no rain. As CaDiva labeled it, sucker ride.

We cruised along just fine after initial apologies to HRH re the late start. She invoked Girl Trip rule, “There are no apologies on a Girl Trip.” After consulting the previous minutes, we found no such rule was on the list. There being a quorum, the motion to add this rule was seconded and passed by voice ballot. The body discussed the amendment CaDiva proposed earlier when she turned right on Hickman instead of right and had to turn around in the consignment store parking lot without shopping.  We tabled the proposal until later since it involved contradictory concepts. Before ratification, the body will have to reconcile the “There is no wrong turn on a Girl trip” and “There is always time for shopping on a Girl Trip" rules.

We start at zero

And, she is off

And, she's off

We passed the last rest stop 7 minutes before my diuretic kicked in. It was a long 33 minutes to the next Casey’s.  While this isn’t going to be added to a Girl Trip Rule, on RAGBRAI – you can always count on a Casey’s. They take good care of the bicyclists and invariably have caffeine, bathrooms, and ice, three essentials to a good RAGBRAI day. 

It may only be a one-holer, but it was indoors and it flushed.

Finally, we found a parking lot near enough to the route to let HRH join up with her PEOPLE. Across the street from HRH's jump off point, we spotted our first official Corn Field Potty.

Ragbrai AC

Now, CaDiva and I start our route to the meet town. We 

encountered several key elements to a RAGBRAI ride:

·         RAGBRAI AC

·         Slow vehicles

·         Pink Direction signs

·         Spot the local media opportunities

It is across IOWA you know

Turn Here

Find the Local Media Truck ... I won.

We had to invoke the No Wrong Turns on a Girl Trip rule a few times before we found our next Casey’s. CaDiva bought the aforementioned ice, and washed out my coffee cup while I asked the local county farm queen, replete with sash and tiara, for directions. 

Ask directions

Trust but verify

Farm Queen across from Casey's will know.

We are currently waiting in a shady spot for HRH. We are several blocks from a facility, unless we take up the offer from the nice young man directing traffic to use his house. But, HRH is only 11 miles out, so we will wait here.

She made it all 70 miles, more tomorrow.

Ready or not, here we come.

We have the carbs and hydration in the fridge/freezer. The luggage is in the car. Tomorrow is going to come very early. But, HRH is up over 40 miles per day on her training runs (I only ever got a mile in at the most, I have some balance issues) any way Fort Dodge is the first leg tomorrow.

I'm going to bring the laptop and try to blog in the car as we wait for her in the meet town. We still have the wedding camera so I'm hoping to add some classic pics. Will see, the battery is only about and hour and a half at best. If this works, we'll look at getting a car charger.

If your wondering why she rides, click here.