June 24, 2013
"Training for RAGBRAI, are you?"
Day 1: Berkley, Iowa to Manteno Park, Near Earling, Iowa
It was an eventful first day, so this is a little long and probably boring. Feel free to skip down to the picture of the anatomically correct "Albert the Bull" statue unless you are easily amused.
I slept fitfully the night before, partly due to the usual nerves before the start of a tour, partly due to some medicine I was taking, one of whose side effects caused me to get up multiple times in the night to go to the bathroom. We were staying at Joy's mom's farmhouse, and one of my middle-of-the night trips downstairs coincided with the beginning of a storm. Barely awake, I encountered Joy's mom, who instructed me to "close the North window." I'm no good at all with directions, plus this
seemed like the world's most boring dream anyway, so (I was told the next morning) I brusquely ignored her request. Awkward!
It was sprinkling as I left around 6:30, and as I continued to ride, the skies got darker. I had resolved to break my bad habit from previous tours of waiting (sometimes for hours) under various forms of shelter until the rain stopped, so when it did start drizzling for real, I kept on riding. I congratulated myself on this marginal increase in my toughness.
About twenty miles into the day's ride I glanced in my mirror and saw one of the few cars I'd seen all morning. As it caught up with me it slowed down. Would this be my first conversation about RAGBRAI? Iowans love their RAGBRAI, and *every* time I've ridden in Iowa I've been asked if I'm "training for RAGBRAI." No - that would have to wait a few more miles. Instead, this was Joy, surprising me by bringing a new iPod charger (I had left mine in Illinois), and my favorite Iowa Dutch pastry! I'll add this to the list of the many, many reasons my wife is the best person I've ever met.
As I approached the charmingly named town of Coon Rapids I pulled off into a cemetery to eat part of the Dutch pastry and indulge my morbid habit of reading gravestones. A pickup truck passed, then turned around and pulled into the cemetery. The man leaned out his window.
"Training for RAGBRAI, are you?"
There followed ten minutes of pleasant enough conversation about the Register's Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa. I kid a little about the Iowans' obsession with RAGBRAI, but it would be nice to live in a place like that, where virtually everyone knows at least something about cycling.
Later, in downtown Coon Rapids, where I had somehow become lost in a town with a population of 1,305 people, my rear tire went flat. On the first day?! I wheeled the bike into a church parking lot, and began my slow repair process. Halfway through, the pastor walked up behind me and startled me by asking if I was "training for RAGBRAI."
As I had been preoccupied with fixing the flat, the skies had gotten
dark, the temperature had dropped several degrees, and the wind had picked up. I ducked under the awning of a shop in the downtown and watched as the rain started blowing sideways and tree branches started coming down. As I cowered there, a red pickup pulled up. It was the man I had talked to in the cemetery. "Put your bike in the truck! Let's Go!" I immediately assented, although I had no clear idea where we were going.
The destination was his garage a few blocks away, where we continued the RAGBRAI discussion from earlier, and the man, Reed, apologized for the smell in his garage, which was due to the unfortunate (and belatedly discovered) demise of his neighbor's cat in the garage. Yikes. Later his mother stopped by. She seemed slightly disappointed that I wasn't riding "for a cause", but was instead riding "for fun." I've never understood that reaction, but I've heard it a lot.
The storm didn't last long, and I soon found my way out of town. My destination was Audubon, which contained, I had heard, an enormous, "world famous" statue of "Albert the Bull." Albert has his own park, "Albert the Bull Park", so I thought I would check that out as my final destination for the day. I reached Audubon to see many trees and tree limbs down. Albert, who is made of concrete and steel, was still standing. I feel I must point out that Albert's testicles were enormous. My wife has informed me that Iowans are very proud of their (numerous) anatomically correct animal statues. I'm still not sure whether she's kidding about that. But based on my observation, it could well be true.
I skipped lunch in Auburn, and instead ate some Little Debbie Star
Crunches I was carrying in a four pound bag of snacks. This would prove to be big mistake later.
Irwin was a nice enough tiny town, where the lady at the gas station asked me if I was training for RAGBRAI. Several miles later the rear tire went flat again. This time it was in front of a farm with shade trees, so I wheeled the bike into the driveway. A little girl appeared and a conversation ensued:
"What are you doing?"
"I've got a flat tire"
"What's a flat tire?"
etc.
A twenty-something man and woman appeared. I asked if I could change the flat under their tree, but the laconic, competent-looking guy suggested we fix it in his shop. I could see the shop a few hundred feet away on a hill, but the man insisted on loading the bike precariously into his ATV, and the three of us took a slightly scary ride to the shop. I would have preferred to walk the bike myself, but that would have been rude. Guys who own these ATVs seem love to use them, even if walking is actually quicker and easier.
We got the flat fixed, and the woman apparently discovered the problem: A rough spot on the wheel that could have rubbed against the tube during the many bumps I had been hitting on Iowa's concrete county roads. We could have quickly sanded it off with a hand file, but the guy insisted on using power sander, which made me extremely nervous, but which did not destroy my wheel after all.
The rest of the afternoon and evening was a horrible slog. My
experimental Little Debbie-Only diet had failed miserably, and there were no restaurants or even stores on my remote route. I barely made it into tiny Earling, whose claim to fame is as the site of "America's Last Sanctioned Exorcism" (!) The internet had informed me that there was camping in town, but the internet was apparently wrong about that, and I was forced to ride another eight miles to a VERY remote county park which was completely empty and creepy.
I set up the tent in the dark, took a shower in some very smelly water, and finally went to sleep, as I wondered what sort of animal was making loud "snorting" noises outside the tent.
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2 years ago
Jeff
2 years ago
Today's ride: 107 miles (172 km)
Total: 107 miles (172 km)
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Still.... a Little Debbie diet IS tempting, and might be worth the "outcome."
2 years ago