RAGBRAI - Day 7 - Washington to Muscatine - (49.7 miles, 1314 feet of climb) - End of Ride (+420)

Day 7, the last day.  Washington to Muscatine.  Our goal was to finish before noon.  The only downside to that was we beat the truck set up in again and Ming didn't get to experience what the end of the ride is like when there's a crush of thousands (or at least hundreds at a time) of people trying to dip their tire in the river.  That's something to be experienced, if only once.



One more picture of packing in the dark - I think we were on the road by 5:15 a.m.on the last day.  Adam looks like he's packed fissionable materials.  He had a new tent this time, so he didn't have to worry about trying to pack up a jumbled collection of busted poles.  Ming, however, had a fiberglass pole tent that didn't survive.  He was generally patching it together with duct tape and sticks until Tun loaned him a pole repair kit.  At which point Adam remembered he had a kit as well, he'd just been reserving it in case his own pole broke before loaning it to Ming (actually, he forgot he had it).


My sandals.  Pictured solely to remember they gave their life.  During the trek to the laundromat, one of them lost the grip on the bottom.  Only an issue on the slippery morning baggage truck ramp and when trying to walk evenly on two shoes of different heights.  I pulled the bottom off the other one.  And then it's strap broke.  However, I could velcro the straps together which kept them functional for an hour or two at a time before re-jiggering. Farewell, sweet princes.  May you rest in the Washington landfill peaceably.


Time lapse photo of a bunch of riders.  Adam makes an appearance and there's a fun rider who gives me the peace sign and a big smile.  Made me wish I'd had her on regular speed filming.  That was someone who was certainly happy to have done the ride.

The Columbus Junction swinging bridge.


Ming on the bridge.  He accused me of shaking it on purpose.


Another view of the bridge - total strangers.


Here's me crossing the bridge with some wobbling only to find Wisconsonites on the other side.


More bridge video, just because I had it.  Filming was sort of dubious - I was worried I'd tip over a side or drop my phone.  Those people in clipped shoes crossing the bridge - very daring.

When we pulled into Muscatine, this was taped to the ground  Must be a bicycling team - I just hadn't heard of them before.  Yep - looked 'em up.  25 members.  But no one I know.  I was familiar with Team Roadkill and Team Loon.


End of the ride - tire dip in the Mississippi River.


Ming took this nice action shot of me within a few dozen feet of the finish line.


The three of us dipping our tires.


The luggage as Jen came to pick us up.  I didn't take a picture of it, but my bag, which I've had since RAGBRAI 2007, took a beating getting dumped off the truck each evening.  This reminded me of it because it was one of the first bags on that morning, but we had a hard time finding it as it had rolled down the time scale.  I used Adam's duct tape liberally to patch up four big new holes, not including one that ripped through the handle area and bent the handle.  It lived a good life.


And that's all he wrote.  2016 RAGBRAI come and gone.  Ming's looking at another non-Iowa location next year.  I'm conflicted.  I like the every-town-has-something nature of RAGBRAI and the 8500 week riders + day riders aspect.  You're never far from trouble.  You're never far from a fix.  You're never far from food.  You're never far from another bicyclist, even if you lose track of your own team.  I figure in another few years another friend will ask me to go again and I'll reassess then.  In the meantime I'm going to take a look at one of the mountain rides and get a taste of something different.

RAGBRAI - Day 5 - Centerville to Ottumwa - 57.6 miles, 1999 feet of climb)

ADDENDUM: I can't believe I forgot to add this, but Adam reminded me I left out one of the best parts of RAGBRAI Day 5.  While we were at the Ottumwa bridge, a nice couple on a golf cart offered to give the three of us a ride back to the camp site.  We piled onto the suicide seat and....the golf cart just sat there, the front wheels almost lifting off the ground.  With dozens of people watching, the cart slowly moved forward about a foot.  Then another.  Then just wouldn't do it anymore, much to the amusement of a few who shouted encouragement and advice.  That's what precipitated our long walk back past the McDonalds.

Day 5, Centerville to Ottumwa.  Other than the last day, this may have been our fastest day of cycling.  We flew through the route and ended up getting to the campground in Ottumwa ahead of the truck.  We spent a lot of time just hanging out where we intended to camp and talking to Tun about his $8000+ loaner bike.

Here's Ming using the porta potty in Rathbun.  These seems obviously to be color coded for men and women.  Sexist porta porties.  Ming defied color convention and used the pink one as Adam was already occupying blue.  A following day one of the stops had multi-colored porta potties - much more PC.


This is the Rathbun Dam on Rathbun Lake.  Beautiful.  But I couldn't get cyclists not to pedal in front of me and stop to take photos as they didn't want someone in their photo taking a picture.  Sort of dickish behavior. I was tempted to just wander ahead of this guy, but then I decided if I ever need a better picture I can just crop him out.  A beautiful place to catch the sunrise.  Reminded me a bit of the really long bridge Adam and I crossed during the 2013 RAGBRAI.


We stopped in Moravia for breakfast.  It was a nice little town.


Ming and I were excited to have something different for breakfast and the biscuits and gravy at the church with fruit was delicious.  Adam wasn't having it - he went for lighter fare.


My geotags aren't doing this service because this probably wasn't Troy, IA. I think it was Unionville.  This is the pie spread that greeted us.  One of the ladies had made something like 113 or 130 pies leading up to RAGBRAI in the last 24 hours.  $2 for pie.  $1 for ice cream.  Endless coffee was free.  An amazing set up - fruit pies, cream pies...I wish I hadn't eaten that heavy breakfast and could have done seconds.  Ming later opined that he should have just eaten half of two slices instead of a whole slice.


Look at it.  It is beautiful. That's the RAGBRAI pie experience you hope to find.


The campgrounds in Ottuma were excellent.  Huge park with old trees near a loop in the river.  Cool.  Quiet (comparatively).  Shady.  So nice compared to the open hot fields we usually inhabited.  After our tents were set up and we found a shower truck, we told Tun we'd meet him at the local BBQ place.  He biked over there - we chose to use the shuttle.  In retrospect, waiting 30-some minutes (or more) for the shuttle to go about a mile wasn't the best plan.  By the time we got to the BBQ joint, Tun had eaten his food.  But he stayed to chat while we ate.  And if we hadn't taken the shuttle Ming wouldn't have struck up his friendship with the Hyvee lady and we wouldn't have seen the guy who sat down at the shuttle stop in his bibs with a whole large pizza, and folded two slices in half like a sandwich and ate them, rinse and repeat, until he had one piece left he gave away.  That was a big appetite.

After BBQ we headed over to the local theater.  Ming and Adam went to the Star Trek flick I'd already seen, so I went to Lights Out, which was boring (and reminded me of a story in my George Saunder's book, just longer and with less capable acting). Lot of cyclists came in to use the A/C.  One guy came in speaking another language and the teenage ticket guy started talking to him in an Eastern language.  Apparently the guy was Polish and the ticket taker knew Russian and Ukrainian.  They talked, remarked how stupid each other sounded in their own language selection, and then got down to figuring out for the price of a ticket how the Polish guy could optimize his movie-watching experience so he didn't have to leave the theater for the next six hours.  Some very good natured theater staff.


This was a bigger town, so they had bigger entertainment.  On their bridge, Rick Springfield performed later.  We didn't catch that, but we wandered around, shopped for t-shirts for kids (found Eryn a tie dye one to replace the Elroy Sparta one she had as a little kid), found some food, and watch the entertainment prior to Rick.


The number of people downtown was fairly sparse, but if you got over to the bridge it was pretty solidly packed.


The pre-Springfield show was a bunch of folks dressed up like famous entertainers (Adam had to point out to me that the woman in the skirt was Katy Perry).  We watched them and all the "dancers" (quotes intended for irony) on a big screen right near where they were playing.  I think we could have turned around to see them if the food vendors hadn't been behind us.  At one point one of the guys sitting near us said (paraphrase), "Is it just me, or have they been playing the same song for the last 20 minutes?"  I don't think he was wrong - they were sort of jamming and dancing for a long time at one point.


We took the long path back when we got routed around the river and stopped at a McDonald's for a cone and fries.  They were out of cones, so I settled for more soda than any human should drink just to rehydrate.  A lady on RAGBRAI stopped at our table and asked why we were eating at McDonald's given all the RAGBRAI options.  She was there for a cone as well, so our goals were similar.  We told her we generally hit the churches and stands or local places.  We saw her again a day or two later and noted we were eating local.  There were a lot of people we saw multiple times - Dan K from Minneapolis who pulled a trailer behind him every morning, the McDonald's Lady, the aeroshell bike guy, MBA Trek woman, Ms. San Antonio, Ms Panties (Adam's nickname), the not-dressed-as-much-as-other-riders-and-very-tan pair (of women), some of the Cuisine riders, Tun (almost every day - he finished near the front of the pack)...sort of like being in a new town for a week.

RAGBRAI - Day 4 - Leon to Centerville - 65.1 miles, 2708 feet of climb)

ADDENDUM: I missed pictures from breakfast!

Day 4 - Leon to Centerville!  65.1 and only 2708 feet of climb, but it was hot and there were some bigger hills.  This is the day Adam and Ming made their gentlemen's agreement that you would wait for someone at a stop for only 30 minutes before all bets were off and they could move on.



I said we got up early.  This early.  Damn that's early.  That's Adam headed to the truck.


And Ming, getting his stuff loaded.  He's facing the other direction because he's got morning wood from all that watermelon.  At least that's what Adam says.


Our first stop was Garden Grove - a Mormon town.  They weren't really ready for us so early in the morning.  They were still getting the tractors and wires adjusted for parking bicycles.


This guy was actually pretty good. I liked his foot pedal that allowed him to sing with himself.  I hope he got a much larger audience later.

We ended up stopping for breakfast in Humeston, Iowa.  This gigantic bull's head greeted you to town.


My sister was dubious of our breakfast.  It wasn't typical RAGBRAI fare.  We ended up in a sit-down cafe with a waitress, the Grassroots Cafe,...


...eating quiche of a glass plate and drinking coffee from a ceramic cup and following it up with custom baked bread and grape salad dessert.



Almost looks like one of those French paintings of a bicycle outside a cafe.  Ming, Adam, and I are all in this photo.  Ming paying the bill and flirting with the teenage waitress.  Ming and I reflected in the window.


I spent a chunk of the day sprinting ahead of Ming and Adam trying to find a bathroom without a line.  Something wasn't sitting right.  Most of the towns on Day 4 were unincorporated, so they were just a bar, or a corner, or a church.  Every single one of them with porta potties with a big line.  Finally, in Mystic, only 5 miles from the end, I found an unoccupied pair.  It was a good place to stop - goat races, pinch pies (like you'd get at McDonald's but better), a smoothie, pulled pork sandwiches, and a big hill leading out of town.  A lot of folks rested before the hill and commented that once they got up it they were stopping again for the craft beer tent.


I didn't actually see the goats racing.  I was talking to a guy from the lower midwest and a woman from San Antonio.  But I did see the goats getting ready.  The little one wasn't ready to race.



Ming texted me to shoot ahead and I found us a spot at the community college right near the fence and truck.  It was an interesting time to pull in as about the only other riders pulling in at the same time were many attractive young women.  They're FAST (as was the woman from San Antonio in Mystic).  I'm not sure if they've got something to prove to male riders, or if they're just staying ahead of the pervs.  I talked to one for a while who was interning in Madison at Trek and was headed out West to work as management for another big outdoor firm if she got the chance.

It was our day to wash clothes.  This is the laundromat I found on Google.  There's a problem.  We talked to a woman who was going to give us a ride to the other laundromat, but then I just started walking.  Sometimes you just have to assume you'll get there before the details work themselves out or you'll be waiting all day when the rest of the riders catch up.  There was a tractor shuttle in town, but the guy was from out of town and didn't know if he went near the other laundromat.  He did.  Within three blocks.  We probably walked at least a mile.



The other laundromat was a bit dicey.  The shower trucks were washing loads of towels and many of the dryers were broken.  You can't see it in this smaller panorama, but if you click into the original you can see that every single washer on the side where Ming is sitting is out of order.

Original Size (huge)


Someone doesn't trust Carl to fix them anytime soon.  But we got our hands on a few and a few dryers and talked to a guy riding unsupported and another guy supporting the Air Force team.  We'd passed a church on the way there, so we went back for dinner.  There was an elevator.  But that was a mistake because a.) it was hot and b.) you'll note I didn't mention a shower for us prior to the laundromat.  It was a hothouse of stink.  This other guy on the elevator made a face.


Centerville had a nice setup.  I got to see a lot of it as I forgot my clothes on the way to the shower truck.  We had waited for quite a while to catch a shuttle as they kept stopping before the stop and people would run over and fill it up that weren't in the line.  So once I was back to collect my clothes, I stopped at the other location.  And it promptly switched to the correct location.

They decorated their porta potties with themes.  You can't see her, but behind me in this photo is Ms. Pancake Day.  Madison Moorman, Miss Pancake, is over on the Facebook Pancake Day page if you really need to see the details about Pancake Day - she explains it in depth.  We didn't have the ham ball dinner, so no photo for us.


A close up of the yellow brick road porta potty.


Here's the tractor transportation.  We spent some time downtown just wandering around visiting the stores and taking in some air conditioning.

RAGBRAI 2016 - Day 0 - Glenwood (-420 miles)

2016 RAGBRAI.  My fourth.  First one with my Dad.  Second one with my Dad, sister, brother-in-law, and mother/daughter/nieces in an RV.  What Eryn affectionately refers to as "the most fucked up trip I've ever been on."  I put words in her mouth, but she wouldn't disagree. She's not a fan of family RV trips.  Third one with Adam - aka PukeDog, aka Teenage Data, aka Toussaint Charbonneau (a distant relative I imagine having facial hair exactly like Adam).  Fourth one with Adam and Ming - aka French Dip aka the multi in Pan-Universal Multicultural Peddlers (although perhaps I'm the multi).

420 miles to go.  Here's the profile.  Lots of climb those first days with a general elevation climb.  That's what you get skirting the foothills of Missouri.  Although it gives you something to look forward to on the east end of the state.



The more concerning issue was this...the weather report for Sunday.  You can't see it here, but it doesn't go below 80 degrees until AFTER 3:00 a.m.  And that potential for rain...I think you get an inkling of the humidity.  It was not 71%  It was more like inside an aquarium.  You moved.  You sweated.  I remember after sleeping almost not at all that if the ride was going to be like that for the next 7 days, I might actually crack.  Sad to think the weather would break you, not the pedaling.

Know what else breaks you?  A guy driving over you tent in the middle of the night.  That happened.  As Adam says, it was one of my first rules on RAGBRAI #3, don't camp near the road.  We camped closer to the road than I liked that first night, but I made sure there was a (big!) truck between us and the road.  The guy who was run over lived, but needs several surgeries.  Still, he fared better than the guy who went the reverse direction in the morning in order to dip his tire in the river (we were far from the river this time) and was hit and killed.  Two deaths on RAGBRAI this year.  Him and another guy who had a heart attack.  Happens when the average age is 49.

While we didn't have rain the first night - this is what it looked like on the way down.  Those cars are all pulled over to the side of the road because they can't see the road.  That would have been a fun ride.  But we actually saw no rain except once while we were under a gas station canopy until the last day despite some dice rolls with the forecast.  Even on the last day we only saw some sprinkles despite flash flood warnings only miles from our campsite.  The RAGBRAI site shows riders hiding from the rain under picnic tables, but they must have come through later than us.

The first bus we saw.  They separated the buses from the baggage truck campers this year most nights (Ottumwa was an exception).  Which was nice.  Quieter.

We stopped for lunch at Fong's Pizza in Ankeny.  Delicious.  I hope they move up here.  However, I asked for a local Ankeny drink and when the waitress asked 10" or 16" I replied 16", because who wants a 10" drink?  She was referring to the pizza.  That was a lot of damn pizza.  Eryn ordered these cinnamon-covered bites for dessert which came in a gross.  Crazy amount of food.  This is from the mural by their bathroom.  Reminds me of Tsuro.

Here we are on our official start of ride photo inside the school.  We're standing there because it's next to the spaghetti dinner room which is heavily air conditioned and sometimes it leaks out.  Shortly after this photo Pooteewheet and Eryn bugged out.  We kicked ourselves for not having them take us downtown in the air conditioned car.  Turns out they took some total strangers downtown in their air conditioned car.

Me and Eryn.  I think we've had a start of ride picture every year.  Some of my favorites.  That look is "holy cow is this hot."

We went into town.  I posed as an Iowan pork chop.

Ming posed as corn with a vagina.  Seriously.  Click into that picture and get a good look using a larger photo size.  Corn.  With.  A. Vagina.  I don't know what he was thinking.  Corn has tassels.  It doesn't need a vagina.

My first food on RAGBRAI.  Pie.  I found the Methodist Church in town with pie and A/C.  Ming and Adam went across the street to spaghetti.  Remember, I'd had 16" of Fong's Pizza.  I didn't really need anything else to eat.

My pie.  Yum.  I did not obsess about pie as much as I have at past RAGBRAI's, but the two days I found ice cream with my pie were THE BEST.  This is not one of those days.

Walking back to the campsite.  Bikes everywhere - just like every RAGBRAI.  While we were headed back there was a couple at the bridge where the wife/girlfriend could barely walk on her clippable shoes.  Her husband/boyfriend took her bike away and she was incensed.  So she stomped off into the street which we all agreed was preferable to her being anywhere near the edge of the bridge.  Drunk to the point of not really functioning and having an argument with your significant other at 8:00-ish on Day 0 - poor life choice.

I forgot - this is from the church.  Even bikes need A/C.

ANGRY BEAVERS! I should have been wearing my "Fear the Beavers!" t-shirt.

I saw Freedom rocks everywhere in Iowa.  I know they're supposed to be patriotic, but mostly they made me think the towns couldn't afford a real statute.  They remind me of black velvet Elvis paintings more than anything.