Prelude: One fine spring day I was talking with a couple of friends at work about their previous adventures on an organized ride across Iowa called RAGBRAI. (Register's Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa) I thought "What a great way to force myself to get in shape, riding a bicycle!" Before I knew what was happening I was signed up and on my way to "Survivor on Bicycles" or "A Tour de Corn."
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7:00 a.m. We left Davenport Iowa on our way to Sioux Center, the city where the ride begins. We are riding along with the Quad Cities Bike Club (QCBC). The club provides bus transportation to the starting city and back to Davenport from the end of the ride, plus trucks to lug our baggage from town to town along the way. There are eleven of us from the Chicagoland area riding with QCBC. Me, two friends from work, Meg and Dani, her sister Wilma and another friend Kathy. Also in the group, Dan, who rides a recumbent bike - where you sit on a regular seat - Lee, a cycling nut who just completed a similar ride across Wisconsin, and two couples on tandems, Julie and Biker Joe, who owns a bike shop, and Shan and Don. The ride is long and boring across rolling hills of farmland.
1:00 p.m. Got on the bus after a stop for lunch and came to a
startling realization that I would be riding a bike all these
miles back. I wondered what I was getting into, but was not yet
worried.
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For the first time I realized how many people there were on this ride. Everywhere you looked there were tent cities set up. Some people even had RV's that followed them across the state, and the whole family came along. There were busses for the many bike clubs that make the pilgrimage to Iowa for RAGBRAI every year. These teams dress alike, ride together, and have team stickers that are apparently supposed to be stuck on as many surfaces (including people) as possible. In the beer tent on the first night, some rather inebriated members of these clubs were climbing the poles of the tent to see if they could get their team sticker higher on the pole than anyone else. As you know, it's all fun and games until someone gets hurt, and one hapless naked fool fell from the pole, taking down the wiring for the lights as he went. He was carried from the tent on a stretcher, the first casualty of the ride. This was a side of RAGBRAI that I was not prepared for. Some people come to ride, and others come for the party.
5:00 a.m. Got up to pack up camp and get on the road. It was going to be another hot day and we waned to get as many miles under us as possible before it became unbearable. At 53 miles, this was to be the shortest day of our week. It was quite a sight seeing a never-ending stream of bikers heading up the road. At around 15,000 riders on any given day (some people chose to do 1, 2 or 3 day passes rather than the whole week), this is the largest bike ride of this kind anywhere in the world. Our first town was eleven miles away so we decided to warm up our legs and stop there for breakfast.
6:00 a.m. Arrived in Orange City, a small Dutch-influenced town. The good citizens greeted the hoards of cyclists with a warm welcome. Townspeople sat in their yards in lawn chairs, many still in pajamas, to cheer as we passed by. We opted for pancakes at a stand set up in the park. I was still feeling pretty good, not tired or sore and was keeping up with Kathy and Meg so far. Kathy found out the hard way that another tradition on RAGBRAI is that the pancakes are tossed to you and you have to catch them on your plate. She caught them on her head instead. Meg laughed at her, and was pummeled with pancakes herself by the servers.
7:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. We breezed through the next two towns, and before we knew it we were in Marcus, the last town before the overnight town. It was getting hot out and I was feeling good. I could have gone on, but since it was only 11:30 and we were 17 miles from the end of the day, we stopped in at the Bud Party (held each day around the halfway point). I mentioned team stickers - and that the goal is to stick them on as many places as possible? Well, I was surrounded by men dressed like bees (yellow and black striped bike shorts and yellow shirts) and stuck all over with "I've been stung by the Killer Bees" stickers. They then gave a me a group hug and chanted "Who's your daddy? Who's your daddy?" while my friends stood by and laughed. It seems that wearing a yellow shirt was a bad idea -
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1:00 a.m. Left Marcus to head for "home". It had already become very, very hot, and we would be traveling during the hottest part of the day. We rode through every sprinkler left on by nice Iowa folks, even stopped by one place that had put together a makeshift pool from plastic and hay bales. We soaked our feet, ran the hose over our heads and really wanted to stay there until it cooled off. But time was ticking away, and we need to press on to Cherokee. Now it was just Meg and I riding together. The rest of our group had scattered based on riding speed and number of stops. I think we were at the tail end of the group. Another place a few miles down the road had a mister that Meg & I found close to heaven. We stood under it until our clothes and hair was soaked, then squished on our way.
4:00 p.m. Finally, after a long hot few miles, and more stops for drinking water and Gatorade, we made it to Cherokee. The ride into town was a nice steep downhill, but we had to go at least partway back up to get to our campground. Our campground was another three miles - a trend we found continued throughout the week. To find your campground, you have to follow signs left by the guys that drive the truck. The showering facilities at this stop left a lot to be desired as we showered in a big Army tent with plastic piping and sprinkler heads. It became apparent that showering would also require a wait in line as well. At least the water wasn't ice cold. I also realized that modestly has no place on RAGBRAI, as this was definitely a group shower.
6:00 p.m. Hitched a ride into town in a van that was taking people to a church spaghetti dinner. However the driver told us there was no more room at the church, so we found another restaurant that was serving spaghetti and had a great meal. We were warned that a bad storm was coming with hail and high winds, so we headed back to camp to hunker down in the tents. The worst of the storm passed us by, but the storm did cool things off.
8:00 p.m. Meg and I sat in the tent and talked until it was dark, then drifted off to sleep, tired from the long day.
6:00 a.m. Awoke feeling good. I had slept well and was ready for day two. However, as soon as we got out of town, we saw that we were starting the climb out of the river valley today. The ride began with a long, long hill that seemed to never end. Even when we thought we were at the top, we came over the ridge and saw more hills. Finally we made it to the top and Meg and I high-fived and almost ran into each other. Decided not to high five anymore.
11:30 a.m. Stopped at Pastafari - the best pasta on RAGBRAI for lunch. It was very good, but it was too much food and I felt sick riding immediately afterwards. We are now travelling north against a tough headwind. I'm getting used to the biker terminology of the ride. "Car up", means there is a car coming ahead; "car back" is a car coming from behind; "rumbles!" means there are rumbles strips on the road ahead (hit a few of those when I wasn't paying attention). I also heard someone call out "sun up" when the sun was rising over the horizon, and "road kill" to warn others of, well, road kill.
12:30 - 3:00 Stopped frequently, but drank only water and Gatorade today. We ran into some guys from QCBC drinking Jack and Cokes in Webb around 1:00. I wondered how they could drink and still ride. The bastards passed us a few miles later as we were struggling up a hill. Maybe there's something to those Jack and Cokes.
3:00 p.m. Ayrshire. The last town on today's ride. We have already ridden more miles today than we did on the whole ride yesterday. I am no longer feeling so good and chipper. I am tired, and sore, but not ready to give up yet. Dani, Wilma, Kathy and Meg & I went into a bar, but it was too hot for me. I found some shade to sit in for a while, then Kathy & I decided to head for Emmetsburg and our camp while the others stayed to party. Those last 12 miles felt like 50. My butt is so sore I can hardly stand to put my full weight on my seat. We met another rider who recommended chamois cream or "butt butter", as it's known, to help with the chaffing. I decided to find some at the "tent shopping center" that is set up in every town. These vendors follow along the ride and sell everything from bike parts to energy food.
5:00 p.m. Made it to town and rode through a parade that was going
on downtown. Most towns greet the bikers warmly, with cheering
crowds and decorated streets. You feel like you are a part of
a parade. This town was actually having a parade and we rode with
bagpipers and waved to the crowds and high fived little kids that
just wanted to touch the riders.
The camp was at a community college so the shower facilities were inside. However, the wait was over an hour, and I was too hungry to wait, so I opted for the outside showers where there was no wait. I now know why there was no wait. I showered in the parking lot behind plastic sheets. It just gets better and better. Had a baked potato with spaghetti sauce on it at the school cafeteria. They had just run out of pasta. Didn't complain too much, I was hungry and it tasted good. Saw a guy that took a nasty spill over his handlebars. Decided I didn't want to do that.
9:00 It was dark by the time the others got to camp. Meg came home injured from a fall - off a bench, not her bike. I would have to hear the story tomorrow, I was exhausted and fell asleep.
7:00 a.m. The day started off good. We all had breakfast together in the cafeteria, then hit the road, and took it easy. After all, it was my birthday, I was not going to ride too hard! Not too many hills today. I rode with Meg and Wilma most of the day and Kathy was with us part of the day. Meg told all passers by that it was my birthday so I got lots of greetings. Heard someone else say it was their birthday the next day. So I'm not the only idiot that does this for fun on their birthday!
When we got toward the top of the ridge, you could see these gigantic
wind generators in the distance. As we got closer and closer,
you could imagine how large these things were. We went right under
them when we finally reached the top of this ridge. According
to the information I read on Iowa, this area has more of these
than any other state.
3:00 p.m. I got the nickname "Rain man" from Meg because
I kept track of mileage on my bike computer and always knew how
many miles we had gone and how many were left. I took it one step
too far when trying to compute how many miles we had to the next
town. Meg: "How far is it to camp?" Julie: "Ok
let's see, today's mileage is 72 miles, we've gone 54, and there
is 12 between the last town and the next town, so that means…"
Meg: "OK, rain man, just give me the number". Julie:
"It's um, I don't know." Also lost the rain man title
when I thought the second to last town was the last town. Found
out when we went through that we had 10 or so miles to go. oooops!
5:00 or so p.m. Got into town only to find once again that we
were camped on the far side of town. So the 72 miles was more
like 75. Riding a bike all day is getting old real fast as well.
The campsite only had one shower for women and the wait was over
an hour. Men outnumber women on this trip about 5 to 1, so many
of the facilities were set up to accommodate more men. Unfortunately
that meant we were left standing in line almost every night for
a cold shower. This night while we were standing in line, a man
came by on a golf cart advertising that there were free showers
with no wait a short distance away at Heritage Village - a mock
up of an old fashioned farming town. We thought that sounded like
a good idea so Meg, Kathy and I hopped on a horse and wagon shuttle
and headed over. When we saw what we were supposed to shower in,
we had to laugh to keep from crying. (see picture). A big sign
with "Poor Man's Shower" on it was hanging over a tarp-enclosed
square in the middle of this mock-town. One showerhead hung from
a wooden tower that had a wheel and pulley system of some sort,
which was powered by an engine operated by men throwing in firewood.
It was a group shower holding up to four persons, and because
we didn't want to go all the way back and stand in line for the
other showers, we took our turn in the Poor Man's Shower. Not
only did you have to shower in a public square, with your feet
showing beneath the plastic curtain, the water was icy cold. You
had to masochistically pull a chain to get the icy water to come
out of the showerhead and onto your head. We took turns using
the water and screaming.
Julie's tour team |
Got to bed around 11:00 and had no trouble sleeping.
6:00 a.m. Woke up and couldn't move. Actually hoped I was paralyzed so I wouldn't have to ride. Alas, was able to move my toes, so paralyses was out.
Meg groaned from the other side of "Bellagio" (the tent) - "Hey can we start a little later today?" I was happy to comply. We named the tent Bellagio because it was a huge tent, like the hotel in Las Vegas. Boy would I kill for a night's stay in a hotel right now!
8:00 a.m. Finally got on the road. Today is 9/11 remembrance day, and the ride out of town was awesome. The town had lined both sides of the road with large American flags for about a half of a mile. It was beautiful. Tomorrow was supposed to be the day everyone wears the 2002 RAGBRAI Bike shirt, but I had to wear it today because I was very sunburned on the back of my shoulders, and I need to wear a shirt with sleeves. So add sunburn to my other miseries. Yippee.
8:00 to whenever. Rode in headwinds most of the day. Fell behind Meg and Kathy and rode by myself most of the long, long day. More hills, more headwind. I passed the time by thinking of ways to permanently damage my bike - like throwing it in front of a truck - and talking to bikers I kept seeing on every hill.
I met Tom from the Quad Cities who was riding a recumbent. He had been on RAGBRAI before, but had not really trained for this year and was struggling along with me. I thought the day would never end. I was cursing the wind, the hills, Meg for talking me into this, me for allowing myself to be talked into this, Iowa, corn, and just about anything else I could think of to curse. Iowa like heaven? I don't think so!
4:30 p.m. When I finally reached Charles City, they had a big welcome. Fire Trucks formed an arch with their ladders and the streets were filled with cheering citizens. Main Street was decorated with an arch made of bicycles and balloons. I tried to hide the tears steaming down my face as I rode by. I arrived at the campsite and was ready to collapse.
Meg and Kathy got a massage after we showered (in cold water again), but my sunburn hurt too bad to have anyone touch it. I got some pizza from a vendor in front of the school we were camped at, and holed up in my tent for the evening. Called Lee and told him I wanted to come home. I had had enough biking, sun, cold showers, no toilet paper, disgusting port-a-potties, bad food and camping. Was asleep by 8:00 dreaming of my own bed.
7:00 a.m. Woke up and was not in my own bed. I'm in a tent in Iowa. Damn! I started out the day as miserable as I was the night before, despite a great pancake breakfast at the Elks, and, for once, good coffee. Let Meg and Kathy get ahead of me because I didn't want to talk to anyone. Felt like I was on the road to hell, or in a bad Stephen King novel. Riding, riding, every day, riding until one by one we all dropped dead in our tracks. Thought the only thing that could make it worse was if there were snipers taking shots at the slow ones. I thought that the team The Donnor Party, would surely get me today. Their motto was "we eat the slow ones". I was feeling very slow. This truly is "Survivor on Bicycles".
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Every day was a new challenge to survive, forage for food and make it to the next town. I arrived at the first town about 15 miles into the day and stopped at the Little Brown Church landmark. I decided to take it slow today, be a tourist, and try to enjoy myself. I poked my head inside the church in time to see one RAGBRAI couple getting ready to get married, and several more renewing their vows. I couldn't believe people do this thing year after year. Some of them had met on previous RAGBRAI's.
I ran into Joe and Julie on their tandem and rode with them for most of the rest of the day. It made the day go fast to chat with them on the ride. They also stop frequently, which coincided with my plans. We met up with the rest of the group in Tripoli, which was about 30 miles from camp.
Somewhere along the ride today I decided that I could make the whole ride - not just today, but the whole ride. I had only two days left and knew that I could do it if I took it at my own pace and got enough rest.
Seeing an old man riding a bike with no gears, some riders with bikes specially made for the handicapped that are operated with arms only, and one rider that had only one arm, made me realize, that as a mostly healthy adult, I should just stop whining and do this thing!
It is a hard ride. It's harder than you can imagine if you are not doing it. Physically, you hurt everywhere. My thighs are on fire, my knees feel like they are about to burst, my hands are numb from leaning on the handlebars, and I can't even describe how bad my rear end hurts. I'm hungry and thirsty all the time, and am sunburned to boot. But some part of me (the crazy part) just keeps me going over that next hill, around the next corner, through the next town. This is a mental challenge, an internal fight between my body and my mind, which won't let me give up and get on the Sag Wagon.
In Sumner, I had the best fruit smoothie I had ever had and rode the rest of the way to town in a determined state of mind. When we got to Oelwein, my bad mood was gone and I was ready to go on. The icy cold shower somewhat dampened my mood, but I treated myself to a massage afterward and that was WONDERFUL.
Ate a baked potato and opted for another early evening. I'm still feeling somewhat emotionally fragile, and find myself near tears at all times for no apparent reason.
6:00 a.m. -- Throw out the daily route maps. Ignore the weather forecast and the total feet of climb for the day. It doesn't matter anyway. By this late in the game 60 miles feels like 80 and we just keep pedaling rain or shine. We wake up. Ride. Eat. Go to sleep. Start all over again. Somewhere in another life, I had a boyfriend, lived in a house, and was comfortable. Now I just sit on a bike all day. I have found some inner strength that had keep me going today.
Meg and I decided to ride as straight through as we could so we could get to camp early and have plenty of time to rest before the last difficult day. We had heard that the hills coming up on Saturday would be killer and wanted to rest our legs as much as possible. Didn't really stop much at all except for necessities like water and what they like to call "bathrooms".
Had an energy bar and a banana for breakfast and I finally got to see what the fuss was about when I stopped at the famous Mr. Pork Chop for lunch. He is a staple on RAGBRAI with his pink bus and loud Pooorrrrkkk Chhoooppp yell. The chops were large, thick and grilled to perfection with an awesome flavor. By this time, eating a big, meaty pork chop with my hands at 10:30 in the morning was not a problem for me. I just didn't care anymore.
I lost Meg somewhere along the way and assumed she was it front of me.
The rest of the day was a blur of towns, bikes and corn. The day was getting progressively hotter, so I didn't stop long anywhere. However, I couldn't resist stopping for homemade pie and ice cream 8 miles from Anamosa. Yum!
2:30 -- Made it to camp after a brutal hill in town caused me to stop and curse the people that pick our campsites. Talk about adding insult to injury, just when you think you are done, you hit a hill that goes straight up.
Once I got to camp, I realized that I was the first one from our group there. This was a first for me. I had thought that Meg had gotten in front of me, but she must have stopped and I passed her by without realizing it.
I staked out a good spot for Bellagio and found a place in the shade to rest. Meg arrived shortly thereafter and we decided to shower early to see if we could get some at least luke-warm water. Not only was there water as warm as you wanted, but there was no line! I stood in the shower for what seemed like hours. You don't know how much you miss the simple things in life until you are forced to live without them for a few days.
We felt so good after the shower we decided to go into town to see if we could find a real restaurant, with a menu, silverware, chairs, and salad. Found a great place called McOtto's and had not only salad but the best pizza we had ever had. Food tastes better on the ride, so pretty much everything was the best we had ever had. The pizza could have tasted like cardboard, and we would have still declared it the best pizza ever! I had a couple of Margarita's to celebrate the fact that we were almost finished. Meg admonished to guy next to us for sneezing without covering his mouth and earned to admiration of others sitting around us. We felt great and relaxed. We got back to camp and went to bed early again. We planned to get up at 5:00 the next day to get an early start. The last bus left Belleview at 4:00, so we didn't have time to waste the next day.
5:00 a.m. Woke up to a thunderstorm and hoped it would stop before we had to leave. It didn't. Left town in a downpour with thunder and lightning all around us. Thought this was a really bad idea to be riding a metal bike in a lightning storm, but at least we weren't under trees. One good thing about this state being full of corn, there weren't many trees.
The rain wasn't bad at first, but soon became a torrential downpour. I was soaked through instantly. Water ran into my eyes, off of my nose and down my back. My shoes squished with each stroke of the pedal. I just kept my head down and tried to think of ways it could be worse. That didn't keep me entertained for long, as I had trouble thinking of ways it could be worse.
I don't know why, but RAGBRAI makes us do things we would never think of doing in our "real life". Ride your bike in a torrential downpour? Are you nuts? Ride in a thunder and lightning storm? Are you crazy? Apparently there are thousands of us who are.
I found out in the next town that it could get worse when a Sheriff's car came by announcing that we needed to be on the lookout of tacks and nails on the road ahead. Apparently some kids thought that would be funny. It was dark, and it was hard to see, but we escaped the trap. We found out later that around 200 bikers had tires flattened by the sabotage. The pavement was slick and we saw quite a few bikers down.
Once the rain stopped, we thought it would get better, however, our hopes were short-lived as we arrived in the Mississippi valley around Noon. Meg and I stopped to commemorate our miserable day with a picture. Just in case we ever forget how miserable we were at that moment and think about doing this again.
Although the scenery was the best yet, the remainder of the day was hill after steep hill. With each hill I prayed that I would not see another one when reaching the top, yet there was always one more, then one more after that and endlessly it went on and on. One particularly steep awful hill got to my tired legs and aching knees and I had to get off and walk. Meg waited for me at the top an we christened this hill "Bad Hill" and took a picture to remind us NEVER to ride this hill again. This hill was the only hill on the ride I had to walk up. %$@ hill!
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Around 2:00 we ran into others from our group and decided to wait in the last town so we could ride the last eight miles to the river together. Somewhere between there and Springbrook I lost sight of Meg. I waited in town until the others showed up, then knew that she must be out in front of us. The other's decided to wait to see if Dani, Lee and Wilma showed up while I went on ahead. I thought the last eight miles were to be a nice downhill ride, but there were three more horrible hills waiting for me.
When I topped the last one, a group from Army, who were waiting for their buddy to arrive, let me know that it was about 4 miles to go and that there were NO MORE HILLS. I wanted desperately to believe them, but was skeptical that I would ever see the Mississippi.
Thankfully, they were not messing with me, and after a nice downhill glide, I saw a glimpse of what I believed to be water between the trees ahead. Is it, could it be, the Mississippi? YES! Although I was ready to throw my bike into the river, instead I rode to the finish and watched the traditional front tire dipping in the river with a lump in my throat. I made it. What I relief, a joy, a feeling of accomplishment. I can't describe the emotions washing over me as I stood by the river, watching the celebrating riders. I really was a mind over body experience. I think my body had given up on Thursday, but my mind kept me going for two more days. Every bit of inner strength I had found within me to finish vanished by that river and I felt weak and drained, almost unable to walk to the staging point for the busses.
I followed the QCBC yellow signs for the last time and the trucks never looked so good. I wanted to kiss the drivers I was so happy to see them. I found Meg and Kathy waiting for me and collapsed in their arms as we had a group hug to celebrate all of us finishing. Within an hour, the rest of the group showed up and we caught a bus back to Davenport, and HOME. Looking back at the trip, I am glad that I did it. I am proud that I finished one of toughest physical challenges a person can go through. It's a great feeling of accomplishment. Although I don't think I'll attempt it again next year.
We made it!
