RAGBRAI - Day 1 - Glenwood to Shenandoah (49.7 miles, 2614 feet of climb)

Addendum:

I forgot to add the following bits:

• We saw Ghost Busters in Shenandoah.  Ming was pretty sure we could skip it because he had promised to go with his family, but it was the only thing starting.  His family went without him during the ride. It all worked out.
• I was on the shuttle bus with a drive who told a few of us his life story about being born in the town 63 years earlier.  He left for a woman.  Those women can make you do whatever they want.  You can't do a thing about it.
• We were told to meet the shuttle at the tennis courts.  The shuttle didn't stop at the tennis courts, so we sprinted to a nearby stop with a man and his wife - the guy was very cranky about the directions.  We met him a few other times during the ride.  He was just sort of cranky.  At one point on a tractor ride later during RAGBRAI someone was surprised at the turn radius of the tractor shuttle.  He noted, "That's what tractors do."
• The spaghetti dinner below as at the Knights of Columbus.  The highlight...the ice cold iced tea - all you could drink.  Later in RAGBRAI Ming would come to judge other dinners by their lack of all you could drink beverages.
• I got lost.  I got up in the middle of the night and wandered the quarter mile or more to the bathroom down by the stadium.  When I came back, I couldn't find our tents.  I wandered from tree to tree looking for one with a lot of dead branches with no luck.  Then I wandered from (same) tree to (same) tree looking for my bike.  After a few rotations, I finally found it.  I was probably walking around the same tents multiple times at 2:00 a.m. for almost 20 minutes.

Day 1 - the heat isn't exactly gone, but it's not as bad as 3:00 a.m. on Day 0.



Still..everyone is very careful to ensure they have enough water.


It was HOT in Tabor.  But we were functional.  So I took this sweet, sweet photo of me on a stand in front of a cutout of Iowa. This is the very first spot Adam accused Ming of eating watermelon just so he could get a boner.  That lasted the whole week.


Bikes.  There were a lot of bikes.


Breakfast in Malvern.  I didn't eat pancakes all week as I have in the past.  We mixed it up a bit.  Although I had more pancakes than Ming or Adam.  I tend to meet nice people sitting down for some flapjacks.


All this tech and I can still get my finger in the picture.  Adam's in this photo.



Cyclists! In motion!


We were generally up by 4:40 and on the road by 5:15 a.m.  EARLY AS FUCK.  I didn't even have lights because I'm used to getting up early, but leaving with first light.  So wherever we were, it was relatively sparse.  I think Ming may have missed out on a bit of RAGBRAI by not rolling along with a group of 1000.


In Shenandoah, it sprinkled on and off.  But never enough to have to find shelter.


Here's the other half of that rainbow.  But wait for it...it gets better.........


IT'S A MOTHERFUCKIGN DOUBLE RAINBOW!  AND MING HAS ONLY ONE ARM AND YET HE FINISHED RAGBRAI!  Amazing.  You can barely see him, but Tun is in this picture.  Ming met him in the bleachers and we saw him every day for the rest of the ride.  Nice guy although fuck all faster than we are on his loaner $8500 carbon fiber bike (he's only faster because of that expensive bike - I'm sure on my bike, or Ming's bike, he's actually slower than we are).


At one point a bunch of guys hauled this tent to the middle of the field as a joke.  The volunteer in the stands told us the groundskeeper would NOT be amused.


TENTS!  This is a tents-centric post.  There were a lot of tents.  Look for the one with broken poles.  That's Ming's tent.  Adam could have helped him at any time with his pole repair kit.  He wisely chose to refrain until the end of RAGBRAI.


We had a spaghetti dinner in Shenandoah.  Delicious.  The "pick 2" homemade dessert bar was excellent.


Shenandoah is the home of the Everly Brothers. (All I Have to do is Dream and Cathy's Clown).  It wasn't an exciting historical site other than the fact that their house was MICROSCOPIC.  One room.  And not a big room.


This is it, including a jukebox they probably didn't have.


I said this was a tents-centric post.  Ming's tent serving as a dryer.  My tent is in the foreground.


Adam looks like he's going to puke.  He got a new tent for this ride.  No pole issues like last time.


TENTS!


MORE TENTS!


SO MANY MOTHER-F-ING TENTS!


It was one of the few days it rained.  But we were already in the end town, so we were caught under the Casey's canopy for a while, but not much more.  There are people smoking next to the gas dispensers in this photo.    Seriously.


The live version...



We spent quite a bit of time in the Shenandoah museum which had a bit of A/C and lots of displays.  Adam thought this lady was creepy.


They had a sense of humor.  This mastodon skull is ready to ride.  I had some ice cream across the street before taking my second tour of the museum.

RAGBRAI XLI 2013 - Perry to Des Moines, 49.9 miles and 1,308 feet of climb

I don't think I mentioned that when we were in Perry it rained.  Hairball was playing that night and we were thinking of going, but first we went and found some fruit and turkey and vegetables at the grocery store.  On the way back Adam asked some of the locals sitting in front of a house near the campgrounds, "Have you heard, is it going to rain?"  To which one of the women replied, "Why, are you a witch?"  Apparently Adam looks like he might melt.  We closed up our tents and then went in the community center where we'd paid the extra $2 so in addition to a shower, we had access to the pool, which we didn't use, all we could eat A/C, and any facility we could break into including the senior area with some tables.  We were still eating when people began rushing in from outside absolutely drenched.  The rain continued for quite a while and included some hail.  Nothing tent damaging and not even noticeable if you were inside eating strawberries and cucumbers.  Hairball was cancelled, so we didn't miss anything.  We'd have probably just gone to sleep anyway.

I also forgot my Day 1 quote that Adam enjoyed: "My pocket is really hot. Is that my phone?  Oh, no, it's just me."

It was also in Perry that we stopped for fast food, only two days into the ride.  We hit the McDonald's for lunch.  To give you an idea of why, it was so hot that we heard the rider who had been in our area of McDonald's right before us had passed out and had to be hauled away in an ambulance.  A chocolate shake was definitely in order.

So where were we?  Day 3.  Perry to Washington Township.  Washington Township to Minburn.  Minburn to Dallas Center.  Dallas Center to Van Meter.  Van Meter to West Des Moines.  West Des Moines to Des Moines proper.  A true city at over 200,000 residents.

A version of this was what greeted us most mornings because of the dew.  A lot of people cover their bikes with a tarp or some piece of cloth and a seat cover.  For the most part we just wiped down in the morning, hoped there wouldn't be excessive rust, and got pedaling.  But this is the result of the rain.  Everything had to be put away or ridden wet.


Chris Cakes at Washington Township.  This was the only real Chris Cakes place we stopped, sponsored by the local Lions.  Real in that there was someone in charge of the pancakes who had obviously made a lot of Chris Cakes.  The pancakes on the ground are the result of folks who are scared of pancakes and can't quite figure out how to catch them on their plate.  Admittedly, he was blazing fast with the flipping, but I caught all four.


Adam didn't have breakfast.  He chose to embrace the out aspect of PIPO (pancake in, pancake out) while he had access to indoor facilities.


We were behind this guy at one point during the day.  The funny thing isn't just the muffin top and shirt, or the jeans shorts, or the sandals, or the lack of a helmet while 29,999 other people are wearing one.  The funny thing is he looks like Boss that I work with and bike with and geocache with.  Enough so that a good friend of his wife's who saw this photo today asked if it was him.  If you look up the hill, the guy that's off his bike is actually pushing a woman on a hand-driven recumbent up the hill while pushing his own bike as well.  It involved push, let her do 3 or 4 rotations while he pushed his own bike, go back to pushing her.  He didn't want to leave her behind at the top, presumably because she seemed developmentally disabled, so he coordinated all of it simultaneously.  Some definite dedication, and a caring human being.


Minburn.  Not so important for this sign and the cycles...


...but for this piece of raspberry pie ala mode.  The Methodist Church lady that made it (could have been a guy, but usually they're mid to older age women) layered an extremely thin layer of crust between each layer of raspberries.  It removed some of the tartness of the raspberries even without the ice cream.  A supremely well architected piece of pie.  And delicious.  I sat right there on the sidewalk and ate it, despite having seven pancakes not much earlier.


Dallas Center.  The meeting town.  This was near the color wars, a more localized version of the colored powder runs they have in these parts.  Later, there were a bunch of guys near our tent watching people walk past on the sidewalk (more about them later) and one of the color war guys walked past with green powder all over his head.  They asked him if he'd been in a fight with a leprechaun.  To which he good naturally replied that he'd thrown down with a pile of leprechauns and it had turned into a real orgy.  AND IT WAS GREAT!  That orgy was slightly to the right (viewer's right) in this picture.


In West Des Moines.  I stopped for a cup of coffee.  Excellent Americano, but the bathroom was out of order.  All I wanted was to make space for the coffee.  But I fully understand the desire to hang a sign on your precious bathroom to assure that half a dozen clenching RAGBRAI-ers don't overload its capacity.  This was an interesting store because the owner was taking old truck parts and turning them into sofas.  Great idea for trucks that might not be repairable.


In Des Moines, we decided to find a laundromat and wash clothes to avoid a last minute search later in the week.  No one really knew where to go, but the bus driver helped us narrow in on the safest laundromat he knew of based on our directions via smartphone.  This was the safest one.  In the Latino district with a couple of guys who didn't speak English.  They were pretty cool and loaned us two loads of laundry soap when it became obvious there wasn't any for sale and wouldn't even take payment.  It was a haul to get there, but there were plugs for recharging phones near the mural, so we managed to do multiple chores at once.


After washing clothes we headed downtown to find food at an Italian restaurant and then to the river to check out the booths and people and watch the bands.  Live, Sponge, and a couple of other sort of big name bands were playing.  We left before they were done because, for the most part, they were sort of boring.  The only exciting part was when the sprinklers on our hill went off and about a hundred people sprinted off the grass.


Here you can enjoy the not-so-exciting concert for yourself.


And some more of it.  The venue was cool.  It was a great place to sit in the shade and watch the river.  According to the Des Moines police, no riders were arrested this evening.


Back at camp.  A very patriotic tent.  I hope that rope was really long if he was doing the same thing in the high school football fields.


One of the many buses.  We were seeing new buses right up until the moment we pulled out of the luggage pick up on Day 7.  There are what seems to be an infinite number of teams.


Some teams, like The Donner Party, went with trailers instead.  I was worried about tenting right next to a team with that name.  There was another trailer on the ride that was half this size, but the side opened into a luxurious two bed bedroom with all sorts of amenities built into the walls.  Sort of a hard top tent.  It was beautiful.  Reminded me of those wooden boats the Kennedy's drove.


I think this was near the Dream Team.  A group of high school students Iowa picks to do the ride.


Big pole, little bike.


The shower line.  I can honestly say the only time we were ever in a line of this size was at the Community Center in Perry, and that was inside, there were chairs, there was A/C, and there was a big fan.  The Perry experience traumatized Adam.  He did not like the single temperature showers with about 100 naked guys in a space designed for 10.  And the Harlan shower had been hot water only, which was bad in a different way.  To be honest, we didn't even take a shower in Des Moines.  The 49.9 miles, 1308 foot climb, day didn't lend itself to much sweat.


More buses!


Our campsite for the evening.  That's Heather's tent to the right, through the wheel.  Heather was there with her dad, brother-in-law, and sister.  To the other side of us were the sidewalk-walker taunting guys who made fun of leprechaun man and anyone else walking past.  Mostly in a good natured way.  Heather was over talking to them for quite a while.  It is entirely appropriate to use the phrase, "Feeding the bears."


So later that night.  1:45 a.m. to be exact.  The guys came loudly crashing back into our area, yelling about the lake, how they got back from the lake (running), a variety of other things that had us worrying they were going to stumble over or tents or worse, puke on them, finally punctuated by "HEATHER! HEATHER!!!"  After a number of neighbors told them to shut up, it finally quieted down.

Which leads to the following story that happened two days later in Fairfield.  I may be paraphrasing, but it's very close.  I call the story, Heather's Midnight Stretching.

Me (with Adam, surprised after turning around at the water hose near the tents): Heather! We owe you a thank you!
Heather (with her sister, neither of who knows us): For the late night stretching? 
Heather’s Sister:
Adam: ….
Adam: ….
Me: Um…no. We were in the tent between you and the guys in Des Moines who came back drunk to yell about the lake and scream, “Heather!!!!!” at 1:45 in the morning. 
Heather’s sister: We’re so sorry about that. 
Me: It’s ok. It’s funny now. We were worried they’d fall on our tents at the time. 
Sister and Me: Have a good ride!

I'm Two Tents!

With a tent pole splintered on the tent I took to RAGBRAI the last two times and two failed attempts to repair it because both repair kits had poles that were too big (1 mm in my wife's case, .1 mm in my case - still not close enough for horseshoes) I just gave in and bought a tent at Target.  However, the setup time was excruciatingly slow compared to my little dome tent, and several times it almost blew away while I was setting it up in a light breeze.  That's no good if you're trying to pack up quickly at 5:00 a.m. so you can get riding and avoid at least a few hours of 90 degree temps in the Iowan Outback.

While the footprint is only 9x7, the same as my small dome tent, it's considerably heavier and clunkier and doesn't breathe well without the doors fully open.  As in unzipped and allowing bugs to cohabitate.

Here's the Coleman 4 person tent from the front.


And from the side.  Getting the rain tarp on was a serious challenge.  The height makes it difficult to keep a corner clipped while you're clipping the opposite corner.  It was almost impossible with one person.


My wife was shopping today and stopped to find me an alternate tent at Rick's.  This was what she brought home.  A little more survival than my old dome tent, but incredibly easy to set up with only two poles and a little wind safety is useful during storm season.  Won't protect me from a tornado, but I won't blow away in a thunderstorm which was a possibility the last two RAGBRAIs I was on.


The windfly rolls back on one side to allow a breeze in the tent.  Or a moth, as is currently the case.  Weightwise, it's less than half the weight of the other tent which I really like.  There's a lot of stuff to carry on RAGRAI to make it through a week, so saving weight where you can is useful.  It'll give me some spare capacity to carry an iPhone recharger and extra snacks.


The end result is that my backyard is starting to look like a tent city.  I'm keeping both.  That leaves me with two four person tents, one one to two person survival tent, and a one to two person small dome tent with a busted pole that I'll still repair right after RAGBRAI now that I'm homing in on the pole circumference.  I know there are only three people in my family, but I need a place for my folks to stay when they finally need assisted living and I think they'll want separate tents with a lot of space.  My mom for her sewing.  Dad for his old car parts.  That'll leave the survival tent for me to use for camping.  I'm all about conscientious planning.