RAGBRAI

Registrar’s annual great bike ride across Iowa was a real treat.  After seven days of riding I ended up with 460 miles on the bike.  On a trip like this, it is not the miles on the bike, but the emotional endurance that you must fight through.  This trip the fight turned into sleep deprivation.  The more I tried to get to bed early the later the nights would become.  Ear plugs helped on some nights but the echo in the trailer vibrated until close to midnight most ever other night.  Early morning wake up calls at 5 AM followed by long mile days was difficult. 

RAGBRI is about the party.  You ride stop and drink. Repeat. For me, I rode to the trailer early to get out of the sun and wind with plenty of time to eat, nap, and recover.  Not much drinking for me. My routine was messed up with late nights. Over all I had a great week of riding, memories, and stories to share.

The first three night of camping, we ended up parking next to the same motor home.  The three riders hired two twenty year olds to drive the motor home and trailer around. In the trailer were two mopeds.  You have to realize that once you are in camp, you are in camp; and limited to where you can go by foot or bike.  If I learned anything from Mr. WWW, it is to procure a mode of transportation.  So when I was invited to hop on the moped for ride to the corner store, you better believe I jumped on without hesitation.  A mile down the rode I noticed I did not have a helmet on. Really, what was I doing? I have all these safety rules and there I go breaking all of them. I do have a spontaneous side that comes out every once in a while.

At the end of the week, I had no takers on the leg massage. To my best knowledge, everyone wants to stay married. It is for the best as I would not know how to respond if someone really said yes. I am all talk anyway.

A crazy idea entered my head.  Since I have already rode across America, why don’t I ride my bike across each state in the United States?  I just started with Iowa. Who knows which state will be next.