A Nod to Nothing: RAGBRAI: Red Oak to Greenfield (72.6 miles, 5096 feet of climb)

Sunday, August 02, 2009

RAGBRAI: Red Oak to Greenfield (72.6 miles, 5096 feet of climb)

That's right. 5,096 feet of climb. Damned unpleasant.

LissyJo Day 2 (where she claims we went 81 miles)
Flickr Photo Set

Don't believe me it was so hilly it sucked? Ask these people. Except for that lady on the little helper scooter. I don't think she cared too much about the hill.

Breakfast in Stanton. Chris Cakes as usual. Fast. Effective. Carby. The ambulances here look a bit daunting, but I believe they're associated with the Stanton Fire Department pancake breakfast. So more for food induced heart attacks than bicycling induced injuries.

The tunnel from the other side. I just missed the train overhead, which was cool looking.

One of the two things you saw all the time on RAGBRAI. Silos to put corn in. And the corn that goes into the silos.

Stanton from afar. They have an old water tower shaped like a coffee pot and a new water tower shaped like a cup to put the coffee into. Or perhaps it's vice versa. Some very famous coffee spokeswoman comes from Stanton. The Chris Cakes coffee in a Styrofoam cup captured none of this.

Pretty like bikes, all in a row.

There was far less Team Roadkill presence than in 2007. This isn't even them. It's a sticker from Team Cocktail. This possum smelled bad from zoom distance. I can't imagine trying to touch it with a sticker. Everyone assumed I was part of Team Roadkill after I stopped to snap a photo.

Look carefully... Stoner Drug. Ha! I suspect the irony is lost on Iowans much in the same way the word "fluffer" is lost on my father.

Some towns decorate. There were genii on bicycles all over the place.

Fontanelle, home of a powerful bicycling rooster. It was drizzling steadily on me by the time I rolled into town. Too hot for a rain jacket. Almost too cold for a t-shirt.

Faux Kybos. I wasn't sure what a Kybo was at first. I overheard someone say, "The line for the Kybos is short. They're good!" I suspected it was some sort of Greek dish, like a Gyros. On the contrary, it's where your gyros ends up in the end. At one place, I stood in line for a portapotty while people filed in and out, ignoring only the handicapped toilet. Every minute someone would notice it had the vacant sign on and cut out of line to use it, then would quickly exit and disappear. Finally, the guy in front of me decided to try it and came back out and stood in front of it, loudly announcing, "THIS TOILET IS FULL! TO THE RIM! TO MORE THAN THE RIM! YOU MUST NOT USE THIS TOILET! IT IS DISGUSTING!" That ended excursions into the handicapped portapotty for the next 200 people in line.

A pie sign I forgot to include in the pie post. The pie almost looks like a religious symbol equivalent with the United Methodist flame and cross.

I think this is supposed to be cheerful RAGBRAI decoration. I found it seriously creepy. It looks like it came out of the previews for that The Collector movie that's currently in theaters. Bicycling serial killer - it should be a movie.