RAGBRAI XXXVII Tribute

It is time once again for the Des Moines "Register's Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa". This marks the 37th year and my 6th. This year's bike ride takes a southern route and begins in Council Bluffs and ends in Burlington. This will be my first go at a southern route. I hear they are usually very hilly (especially southwest Iowa).

The other overnight towns are: Red Oak, Greenfield, Indianola, Chariton, Ottumwa and Mt. Pleasant. The total miles will be around 445 and the feet of climbing around 23,000. The amount of climbing puts it in the Top 10 for the history of RAGBRAI, while the last day also makes it in the top 10 for the least amount of climbing and easiest day.

In addition, RAGBRAI adds a number of first time towns to the family: Williamson, Macksburg, East Peru, Truro, Oakley, Honey Creek Resort, Hedrick, Martinsburg, Pekin, Pleasant Plain, Germanville, Geode State Park, and Indianola as our overnight host on Day 3!

I will be going with the Muscatine Cycling Club again this year. We have two large buses with about 50 locals and 50 out of towners going this year. We leave at 7am tomorrow and usually we stop for breakfast in West Des Moines at the Cracker Barrel, which should put us in Council Bluffs around 2pm. Sunday morning the ride begins.

And this year, if all goes as planned my wife, Patti will be joining me for the last day with our tandem. How she gets down to Mt. Pleasant is still being worked out, but my sister lives in Burlington and my mother is also coming up from Missouri to be there for the last day as the peleton makes it's way through the streets of Burlington.

I am fresh back from my Colorado ride and should be in good shape for this year's RAGBRAI. Also joining me from my Colorado ride are: Jim Bixler, Dave Humiston and Steve Geering. Jim and Dave will be accompanying the Muscatine club, while Steve will be with the Quad Cities club. And Dave Benson, Steve's friend in Colorado where we stayed the last night is also coming on RAGBRAI. He will be with a group out of Oskaloosa called BrewHaHa. Dave said to look for their big green bus.

The weather is looking great for this year's ride with temps in the 70's and 80's during the day and 50's and 60's at night. There isn't much rain chances at this time, but as we know this can change. Here it is at 3pm on Friday before RAGBRAI starts and it is only 66 degrees. I think Iowa had a long winter, extended spring, 3 weeks of summer and now we are into fall already. I guess we shouldn't complain-I would much rather ride in mild weather like this than the heat we have experienced on previous RAGBRAI's. Council Bluff's here we come-----and Burlington--you are not far behind.

Day 1 is from Council Bluffs to Red Oak. The route takes us through Mineola, Henderson, and Emerson. The day starts with about 10 miles of flat running along the Loess Hills. After this warm up, the route turns east and starts hopping hills to Red Oak. All total, the day clocks in around 54 miles and a little over 3700 feet of climb.

Day 2 is from Red Oak to Greenfield. The route takes us through Stanton, Villisca, Nodaway, Dickeville, Corning, Prescott, Williamson, and Fontanelle. This day will get your attention as I'm showing almost 73 miles of riding and over 5000 feet of climb. Fortunately, there are plenty of through towns during the day and they're spaced about every 10 miles.

Day 3 is from Greenfield to Indianola. This will be our first time overnighting in Indianola! The route takes us through Orient, Macksburg, East Peru, Truro, St. Charles, St. Marys, Martensdale, and Prole. This day will also get your attention as I'm showing almost 78 miles of riding and over 4400 feet of climb. Like Day 2, the through towns are nicely spaced.

Day 4 is a a short ride to Chariton passing through Ackworth, Sandyville, Milo, Lacona, and Oakley. It will be only 45 miles of riding and ~2100 feet of climb.

Day 5 is from Chariton to Ottumwa and we return to some long miles. The route takes us through Millerton, Bethlehem, Confidence, Iconium, Honey Creek Resort, moravia, Unionville, and Blakesburg. We'll do about 77 miles and almost 3400 feet of climb.

Day 6 is from Ottumwa to Mt. Pleasant. The route takes us through Hedrick, Martinsburg, Pekin, Packwood, Pleasant Plain, Brighton, Germanville, and Lockridge. This will be the longest day at almost 78 miles and the climb is relaxed a bit to a little over 3000 feet.

Day 7 is from Mt. Pleasant to Burlington and takes us through New London, Lowell and Geode State Park. As I mentioned in above - easy day at 44 miles and 1175 feet of climb.

West Liberty Fun Run

Yesterday I got up early before Church and drove to the Muscatine County fairgrounds in West Liberty. I entered in the 5k run along with about 150 other runners. The temps were ideal at 8am and the course was pretty flat and went on streets through the town.

I set a fairly brisk pace on the 1st mile (sub-7 minutes) and heard that my 2-mile time was 14:05, but on my last mile I had to slow down a bit. I finished with 22:04, which was good enough to give me 3rd place in my age group (31st overall).

My time was about 5 seconds slower than my performance in the Hayes Hustle back in April and the race in April had a big incline at the finish. Guess I hadn't completely recovered from my difficult bike ride in Colorado last week.

Go West Young Man

Isn't that quote credited to Horace Greely?

In the morning I along with 4 other bikers from the Muscatine area will be heading for Colorado to bicycle through the mountains. The biking portion will be 5 1/2 days and will be centered around Frisco for the largest share of our riding and at Estes Park for the last day of riding. Three other riders from Colorado are going to join us for part of our ride.

My writing will switch from this blog to my web-site I use for my bike trips: www.iowacyclist.crazyguyonabike.com

The weather is going to be 30-40 degrees cooler where we are heading and we may run into some hail and snow flurries at the higher elevations this time of year.

I am looking forward to this trip, but wish I didn't have all the driving out and back (28 hours).

St. Malachy Steeplechase 4.65 Mile Run

After being in Vancouver all week on a business trip, I decided to run a race this morning. The race is sponsored by the St. Malachy Church. They have a country church located about 8 miles west of Muscatine. The run was essentially all on gravel with a short section on blacktop. One stretch of gravel was very difficult to navigate due to the large pieces 2"+ in the road bed.

I have never ran a race of this length and for that matter never ran any training runs of this length. Most of my runs are 1 to 2 miles long. I paced myself during the race and kept about the same speed for the full length of the race.

I ended up finishing 4th in my age group (50-59). They didn't have a separate age group for 55-59 or I would have taken 1st. Last year my time of 37:34 would have been good enough to finish 1st, but this year there were some faster runners that didn't participate last year. My legs feel pretty good this evening, but we will see how I feel tomorrow.

Only 8 days until the Colorado bike ride and I have been off my bike for about 2 weeks with an infected cyst on by bottom last week and this week I was away on business. Will spend the next few days back on the bike to get ready for my long ride in the mountains.

Julie's Restaurant-Albany, Illinois

For the last several weeks I have been taking off one day a week (since our business is a little slow this year) and it gives me a chance to pick a day when the weather is decent and get in a long ride to help my training for the Colorado mountains. Today the weather was going to be excellent and I convinced Patti to go with me on the tandem.

Last week I did a breakfast ride to Gin's Bar & Grill in Lone Tree, IA to try their $1 pancakes. You can read my entry on June 4th for the details of that trip. Today I decided to head in the opposite direction to my favorite breakfast location, Julie's in Albany, IL. The ride to Albany is all on the bike path-so we didn't have to worry about highway traffic and the trail is not very busy on week-days. We were on our tandem at Sunset Marina in Rock Island at 6:30 this morning and headed east and north on the bike trail. The wind was out of the northwest 5-8 mph with the temps in the mid-50's.

We had a good ride to Albany and were ready for a hearty breakfast when we arrived. Of course we ordered their special pancakes with eggs and coffee. The cost is a little higher than Gin's, but the pancakes are bigger and tastier. (this is a 14" pancake-ok I may have coaxed Julie into pouring a little more batter on this one)Upon leaving I talked to Julie's husband about the status of this landmark restaurant in Albany. I have been coming up here 3 or 4 times a year on my bike for the last 6 years and I learned 2 years ago that they were trying to sell it. They had no viable offers and have decided to retain the restaurant and keep it open. It used to be open 7 days a week and this was detrimental to their family life, since Julie did all the cooking; so now they are only open Monday through Friday. Last September they were still open on week-ends and our Savanna ride stopped here.

After our appetites were taken care of it was back on the tandem. The wind had shifted to the north and we had a tailwind coming back until we got to Moline where the trail veers west. We ended up with 73 miles for the day, which was a new personal best for Patti.

Gin's vs. Julie's:
Gin's is cheaper and closer for the Muscatine group.
Julie's has a better view (overlooks the Mississippi River) and their pancakes are better and bigger.

I like my pancakes--so if anyone has another good place for a breakfast ride, let me know!

Gin's Bar & Grill-Lone Tree

Last Saturday (see my May 30th post) our cycling club had a ride that went out to Lone Tree for breakfast. They stopped at Gin's Bar & Grill, which is noted for their large pancakes for $1 each. Patti and I didn't have the time last Saturday to make it all the way to Lone Tree, so today I decided to take half a day off and make the trip.

I parked at Wild Cat Den around 6am and went through Muscatine on the bike path and headed west on G28 past the elk/buffalo farm and then north into Lone Tree. I entered Gin's around 8:15 and there were several patrons there playing cards and some farmers at another table talking over the weather. The waitress/cook/bartender was playing cards and she got up and took my order. The pancake was big (around 10" diameter) and fairly thick. I also ordered 2 eggs and had coffee, which was self-serve. My total cost was $3 including tax, what a bargain. I have always been partial to the pancakes at Julie's in Albany, IL, which is on the bike path that runs between Rock Island and Savanna. Julie's pancakes are just a little larger, but not as thick; so probably about the same volume.

After leaving Lone Tree, I headed north for quite a ways and then east into West Liberty. I went past several turkey farms and as I came into town took this picture at the Louis Rich Turkey processing plant. There were several trailers of turkeys waiting to be processed and they had rigged up a bank of fans to help keep the birds cool. As if they are going to know the difference in a few minutes. I stopped at the Casey's in West Liberty for a sort break before heading east through Atalissa and Moscow. East of Moscow there was a train crossing the road and it had stopped to drop off some cars at Gerdau's steel plant in Wilton and had to wait about 15 minutes. Then it was east through Wilton and Durant and then south back to Wildcat Den. I had 82.5 miles for the trip.

RAMCO-Ride Across Muscatine County

The Muscatine Cycling Club had it's first RAMCO ride this morning. And there was such a great turnout, around 50-60 riders. We left Discovery Park at 7:45 this morning. There had been some sprinkles just a few minutes before we left, but no more rain the rest of the day.

Our first stop was at Julie Evan's parent's house about 11 miles west of Muscatine. A nice breakfast buffet was set for us and we all dug in. The rest of the riders headed to Lone Tree where they were going to stop at Gin's to get their famous $1.00 super large pancakes. Patti and I had to get back for a graduation party and a wedding this afternoon, so we went to F70 then up to Nichols and back on Hwy 22. We ended up with 36 miles on our tandem. It will be interesting to hear how everyone else's day went that compelted the whole ride (62 miles).

Last night Patti and I went out to dinner and celebrated our wedding anniversary (38 years) and what a great time we have had looking back and will have looking forward.

Swing Into Spring Duathlon

Our Muscatine Group
Sunday-May 24: I competed in the Swing Into Spring Duathlon in Davenport, IA this morning. This was a short duathlon with a 3k run/17k bike/3k run (1.8 miles/10.2 miles/1.8 miles). The weather was great but we did have a 10 mph northeast wind that impacted the biking leg.

There were 97 participants. In my age group (55-59) there were 6 and I ended up with 5th place. Not as good as I expected, but we had two very fast competitors come down from Sterling Illinois to compete and they took 1st and 2nd in my age group. I missed 4th place by 3 seconds.

I ended up with a total time of 58:22 for the complete race. My 1st running leg was at a 7:19 pace and my 2nd biking leg was at a 22.8 mph pace and my last running leg was at a 8:03 pace. There were 6 racers from the Muscatine area and my time was 2nd in that group.

This was my first biking competition of the year and should improve as the summer moves along and I enter in a couple of other duathlons.
This is Julie from our club. With her husband Mark they competed in the team division with Julie doing the running. This is before the race started and I had just placed my bike on the rack next to Marks.

Iowa Bicycle Coalition Ride

Today our advocacy group-Iowa Bicycle Coalition came into Muscatine to have lunch with club members and local officials to discuss bicycling in and around Muscatine. The following paragraph describes their mission.

The Iowa Bicycle Coalition will be taking a number of trips this year to explore different areas of Iowa. We will ride the trails, roads, and streets. We'll investigate safe routes to school, work and shop. We'll be spending time talking with cyclists, bike clubs, organizations, bikes shop folks, elected officials and businesses. Let's explore Muscatine and talk bicycling.

We had lunch at the Button Factory and sit around the table for a good hour and half discussing local issues and then got on our bikes and headed down the bike path and out Hershey Ave. to the new bike path section added there and then it was back to the Button Factory. I believe we had 11 in total at the luncheon and 7 of us biked afterwards. All in all-a great day to be out on a bike (80 degrees) and some good discussion on biking issues that face us in Muscatine.

Training Ride In The Wind

Today was one of those days that it would have been much better to stay home and stay out of the wind and cold weather. The Midwest is still getting cold, raw weather. This morning it was in the mid-40's and the wind was coming out of the northwest at 20+ mph, which made the windchill about 7-9 degrees cooler than the actual temp.

It was going to be the first ride where all 5 of the Colorado riders were going to be together (Jim, Dave, and Bob from Muscatine, Steve from Blue Grass and myself). We met at 8:30 at the elementary school in Blue Grass. Steve's wife, Gina called me a little before eight to tell me that Steve was not going to make it. His daughter-in-law in Kansas City had a baby and he was heading down there to be with them.

Our goal was to head north on Y-40 through Walcott and Dixon and then on Y4E northwest to Wheatland. It was a miserable ride to say the least. Bob, who has ridden for many years told me that it had to be one of the hardest rides he has been on due to the heavy wind. Since the wind was coming out of the northwest and we were mostly going north, we couldn't get any draft from the person in front so we were all exposed to the wind all morning.

After taking a short break at the Phillip's 66 station in Wheatland we began the tailwind portion of our ride and it was truly enjoyable and made up for the first half of our ride. We ended up with 49.5 miles for the day and with the wind and hills we felt like we got in some serious training for our Colorado ride which is coming up in only 6 short weeks.This picture was taken in Walcott on the return trip at Casey's. Bob is on the left, Dave in the middle and Jim on the right. Notice the donut sign. After seeing it Bob brought to our attention that he might have some donuts to snack on when he gets home.

Riding In Mid-May

The weather in May has been very un-predictable with lots of rain and cooler temps. I have been getting in some training rides (short to medium) length and some running. Today it rained all day and I took a day off from the bike, but did do a 3 mile run. The weather tomorrow is suppose to improve and am hoping to join the Thursday night pace-line ride with the Muscatine club.

A Nice Day For A Century

We are getting ready for the first ride of the day at 8am. Jim has his back to the camera and Dave is on the left and Greg is on the right. The others are behind Joe's van.

Since I didn't get a century in yesterday, I went out today to try again. Joe was doing a 150 mile ride today broken into 3-50 mile rides. There were 7 of us that showed up for the first ride at 8am. Two of my Colorado riders: Jim and Dave also showed up. We left the riverfront in Muscatine and headed into the wind (westerly). It was a fast paced ride and our average was 17.2 for the 49 mile ride. After a 10 minute break we headed out again, this time north and then west. About half the riders quit after this first 50, but we had 4 new ones join us. Dave and I rode out to Atalissa and then left the group and returned back to Muscatine. I ended up with 79 total miles and after a short break decided to ride around Muscatine for a while until the group returned. At 2pm I joined the group for the 3rd ride of the day and went about 7 miles with them before returning to Muscatine, which gave me exactly 100 miles when I got back to the truck.