RAGBRAI Part 2

This year RAGBRAI started in Glenwood and ended in Davenport. Overnight towns included Atlantic, Carroll, Boone, Altoona, Grinnell, and Coralville. Team First Pump arrived in Glenwood Saturday afternoon. The excitement in Glenwood was contagious. Everywhere had signs welcoming bikers. We setup tents on the lawn of the elementary school and went exploring. Bikes were everywhere. Even navigating the tent city took skill weaving between tents and bikes. My excitement about the ride grew.

We attended a safety briefing. I hoped I wouldn’t die. I took a sacred oath to ride right. I promised to drink before I was thirsty, eat before I was hungry, and call out my intentions when riding. I took the oath pretty seriously; after signing I decided I better eat. You can’t bike 450 miles on an empty stomach.

The first food we found was a sloppy Joe dinner at the elementary school. Students were raising money for their after prom party. It was a good cause so I got the extra sandwich option. Dinner was followed by a brief appearance at the night’s concert and an early night back to my tent.

Saturday night I had trouble sleeping. The lack of sleep probably had something to do with the humid weather, hard ground, and excitement about the pending ride.

Sunday morning the trek began out of Glenwood. We started packing at daybreak and were on the road before 7. Holy crap RAGBRAI was actually happening! The sheer number of bikes was incredible. It is a complete understatement to say that bikes were taking up both lanes as far ahead and behind as the eye could see.  Locals were along the route cheering us on as we left. Where else can you get such awesome hospitality?

The opening stretch was tougher than any training I had done. It was only 8.9 miles from Glenwood to Silver City but the ride included 690 feet of climb. Only my 50+ mile training runs had that much total climb.  The hills were unforgiving. As soon as I finished one another was ready on the other side. The ride was physical. My breakfast of Gatorade and peanut butter crackers wouldn’t stay down.

Silver City, like many of the towns we went through, was awesome. The welcomes to the pass through towns were amazing and would take me all week to get used to. Having lost my breakfast I was worried about being able to finish the day. Luckily the Silver City volunteer fire department and boys scouts came to my rescue with the perfect food to fuel the day: breakfast burritos.