What do you get when you combine a 104-mile bike race that starts with dodging cheering drunks stepping onto the race course, that requires a police escort for the first 17 miles, and that ends with a stripper dressed as a nurse helping you up off the asphalt? Well, it could only be “VIVA BIKE VEGAS”! This is one of Philip’s favorite bike...
The memorable stops on the way back all started with “S”: Springfield; Santa Rosa; Show Low; and of course, the final, final stop: Scottsdale! The last four days of our journey home were slow … and made slower by my toxic meltdown after a 10-hour day of nonstop driving in high winds and heavy traffic. We “recalibrated”...
Our four-day journey back to Scottsdale included stops at places that were deemed by the Diversions Committee (President, Philip Miller) to be important or memorable, and (most importantly) were directly on the route home. One such city was Pontiac, Illinois (visitpontiac.org), home of the National Route 66 Hall of Fame and Museum. A majority of our...
RAGBRAI was over but the fun would continue … we woke up early Saturday to get rolling (last bicycling pun, I promise) … for today we would drive all the way to Culver, Indiana to visit our 14-year-old son Max at summer camp! He had been gone for five weeks now and we were excited to visit the Culver Academies, where he had spent the past three...
Today would be Philip’s final day of the RAGBRAI ride, and we awoke with mixed emotions. Yay … it’s almost over! Boo … it’s almost over! Today’s planned ride was from Oskaloosa to Fairfield, but Philip would ALSO be doing tomorrow’s planned ride from Fairfield to Fort Madison … a total of 118 miles...
Day Five of RAGBRAI. Kinda like “Hump Day” in a regular workweek … the worst is behind you, but you still gotta make it to the end. 273 miles in, 165 to go! One guy is running the entire RAGBRAI route. That means he is running at least two full marathons (back to back) every day, except Monday when he ran three full...
Today’s fourth day of RAGBRAI took Philip 54 miles from Des Moines to Knoxville, Iowa on what could only be described as a roller-coaster of a ride. Up a hill at 7 miles an hour, down a hill at 30 miles an hour, up a hill, down a hill … rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat. Whew! It was extremely crowded today because a lot of Des Moines...
Day Three of RAGBRAI: after today, we are halfway done! Today’s route goes to the “big city” of Des Moines, whose marketing department has decreed itself “Des Moines: Even Better In Spandex.” A little obvious; everything is better in spandex, right? (Maybe not Chris Christie.) Today, riders were encouraged to wear a...
The longest ride day began with the same enthusiasm and get-‘er-done attitude as the day before … but the tides would be turning before the day was done! (More on that later.) As Day Two of the ride began, RAGBRAI’ers were sharing stories of the fun they had in the “Tent Cities” in Harlan the night before. Of course...
Day One of the RAGBRAI Ride started with a time-honored tradition, like all of the 40 previous RAGBRAI rides, with a “back tire dip” in the Missouri River. All of the riders take their bikes down and baptize them for good luck, hoping and praying that the Bicyling Gods will keep them safe until they can dip their front tires into the Mississippi...