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...
Day 3 … on to Iowa and the start of the RAGBRAI Bike Expo (largest in the U.S) … a bicyclist’s shopping dream come true … think Imelda Marcos at a shoe store … Kim Kardashian at a baby-clothes boutique … Tiger Woods at a porn convention, I mean a golf convention. You get the idea …. Philip was excited! We drove about 6...