Although the membership changes slightly year-to-year, the whole Team Satisfied experience becomes more and more satisfying with each passing RAGBRAI. The 2008 edition of what I consider the best week of the year took riders from Missouri Valley to Harlan, Jefferson, Ames, and all the way to LeClaire. Per Team Bylaws, the road stopped for Team Satisfied on Wednesday afternoon.
Thursday and Friday: Making Preparations
Though convincing Curt that we wouldn't ruin his new trailer by taking it on the Ride was no easy task, he did eventually relent. He and I spent a couple hours on Thursday getting things ready to go. The main challenge was retro-fitting the parts and pieces we'd previously used on the old trailer to make an equally functional home-away-from-home for the Team. We laid the wall-to-wall carpet, mounted new screens for the doors, and loaded some of the furniture. Honestly, I think Curt ended up really getting into the modifications - he went above and beyond the call.
Sparkle arrived on Friday afternoon and was the most hyper I've seen her in a long time. We finished up the final touches on the trailer: mounting the dresser, loading the sofa, futon, toilet, and all the tubs with the essentials. Tami and Doug were stuck in Chicago traffic, so the first team meeting was a little on the light side, but we made final plans over dinner at the Cafe.
Saturday: Ames to Missouri Valley (via truck and trailer)
The goal was to leave Ames at noon, but due to a few circumstances, we didn't roll out til 1:30pm. We had lunch in the truck and pondered what our first stop might be. Initially, we entertained the idea of stopping in Polk City, but Sparkle and I always have a difficult time figuring out how to get there, and we ended up too far west to stop there.
We continued south to I-80, then west to Stuart. We found a great little bar - Ruby's Pub - and had the whole place to ourselves. The women's restroom was voted best bar ladies' room by Team Satisfied.
Not long after leaving Stuart, the traffic on I-80 came to a complete stand-still. At one point, Sid got out of the truck and went out to talk to the truck drivers and others milling about in the median. He quickly concluded that we would exit the interstate as soon as we could.
The next exit took us southwest to Anita. As soon as we pulled in, we could easily spot the hot ticket for RAGBRAI cyclists. The place was packed with Team Toe Ring. There was dancing on the bar, leg-wrestling, and a couple of TVs. Le Tour + Pure Country = A Very Satisfying Stop for Team Satisfied!
The final stop would be Marne. The party was in full force, and there were clearly some folks who had spent the better part of their Saturday there. Free koozies and a "Pam" spotting were highlights of this stop.
The rest of the drive into Missouri Valley followed the early miles of Sunday's route. Sometimes this isn't the best idea, as it gives you a pretty decent taste of the following morning's hills. The town of 3000 is built on a hillside - not very conducive for camping and hosting 15,000 people. Armed with an address and little else, we failed miserably in trying to find the lot we were to camp upon. It's not a good sign when none of the locals or friendly police officers have ever heard of the street you are looking for... The geniuses that we are, we did eventually find the spot, but there was no way that Team Satisfied (or anyone else with a brain) would be happy camping on a 10% grade.
We decided that if we looked like we knew what we were doing, we could probably get away with parking in a (flat) lot just up the hill. We pulled in like we owned the place and set up camp at the school's bus barn with a bunch of other RVs and tent campers. We shared a couple of kybos and, rather than setting up a dumpster, the fine folks of Missouri Valley left us our own garbage truck!
The skies began to turn dark and ugly as we unloaded and prepared for the first night. In talking to some of the other campers, we learned of a house nearby that would allow us to come inside in case of bad weather, which was forecast. We ate some dinner, then headed downtown.
I was keeping my eyes peeled for the familiar white shirts of Team Emerson, friends we met on the 2005 RAGBRAI. They all have connections to the Atlanta Old White Rugby Club, and we ALWAYS run into them. Of course, a watched pot never boils, so I never saw them and was convinced (and very disappointed) that they weren't going to be there at all. They have become good friends over the years, and it felt like it could be a long week without them on the ride.
It was a slow start to RAGBRAI compared to previous years, but I think the weather played a role in the events of the evening. We had the dark, rolling clouds, the big gusts of wind, and a severe weather watch, but nothing ever materialized out of the sky (thankfully). The band at the beverage garden was pretty good, but the dust blowing around and multiple trains a few feet away chased a lot of us to other locales. Of all the people we met that night, most had been moderately over-served and were not very satisfying to spend much time around. As soon as we were able to convince Sid, we headed for home.
Sunday: Missouri Valley to Harlan
We awoke feeling pretty fresh and took care of all the morning's business of getting packed up and creating a game-plan for the day. While inflating tires for the team, I noticed a familiar issue with Tami's tire. There was a pretty healthy bit of cracking near the bead on her rear tire. Recognizing this as a potentially dangerous (and possibly inconvenient) problem, we made our first stop of the day at the familiar Rasmussen's Bike Shop truck 0.9 miles into the day for a new tire.
Happy to be done with the mechanicals of the day (we hoped), we headed east into the hills. Caffeine and food were the first order of business in Beebeetown. A very tasty ice tea and lemonade for drink and a sloppy joe for breakfast hit the spot. While enjoying the sloppy joe, a passerby asked where I got my "tavern." After asking him to repeat himself a number of times, I figured out he was asking about the sandwich. Have you ever heard it called a tavern?? Must be from out of town...
We continued the climbing to Underwood. Doug was on a mountain bike and Tami was riding her Bianchi that she purchased in high school (15-20 years ago...), so they were getting a little fatigued. I'm sure that it didn't help that their ONLY training miles were 15 miles the week previous along the lakefront in Chicago. Sparkle and I determined that we would put them in Sid's sag wagon after 30 miles in order to get them through the day without dying - they could still enjoy the evening in Harlan and be willing to get back on their bikes the next day.
After a quick pit stop at a (very nice) kybo under threatening skies, a familiar jersey rode past. It was Team Emerson!! They pulled off a few yards up the road to determine what they should do with one of their riders. He is a native of the island of Fiji, where apparently bicycles are not a usual mode of transportation. The rider was having a pretty rough time of things, so I think they were gonna put him on the team sag wagon, too...
We all met up in Neola, the meeting town of the day. Soon, it was like old times, Team Emerson and Team Satisfied hanging out in the (air-conditioned!!) bar and Sid hitting on girls from other teams. Eventually, Sparkle chose to sag in with Tami and Doug, and I headed down the road in the Team Emerson pace line. By now the skies had cleared and the sun was in full force - just like Iowa in July, it was hot and sticky! I stuck with the Emersons until the next town. While they waited for a couple people we dropped, I continued on at a more reasonable pace. I got hit on by some girl, and I can easily say that made me ride about 5mph faster, just to get away from her!
The rest of the ride was great - hilly, but great. I cruised into Harlan and easily found the host home. We showered and headed into town for supper, an ice cream treat at the gas station, and some pull tabs. No one won the lottery, so it was back home for us.
Bad weather was forecast again, so Sparkle (who really doesn't care for tornadoes) decided to just go ahead and start her evening by sleeping inside. I tried my best to sleep in the trailer without cooking myself in the heat and humidity. At 2:30am, I heard the familiar sound of the police making their rounds telling all the campers (via squad car loud-speaker) that a severe storm was going to hit within 20 minutes and we needed to seek shelter. I had the trailer sealed up in a matter of minutes and alerted Tami and Doug that they needed to get out of their tent.
We'd been through this once or twice every year we'd been camping in the trailer and had been caught in some pretty bad situations, so we don't risk anything anymore. I found an empty futon inside, so we got a decent night's sleep after that!
Stats:
58.9 miles
3797 feet of climb
Monday: Harlan to Jefferson
Saucy and the Shaman opted to start their day with a ride in the truck. They wanted to finish up the day riding into Jefferson, and we all knew that 82.9 miles could easily kick your butt!
The ride out of Harlan was good. We missed the century loop again this year! We joke about it each year, but it is one of the by-laws of Team Satisfied. Scientific studies have proven that riding the century loop on RAGBRAI is not at all satisfying.
After 15 miles, we arrived in the first town of the day, Kimballton. It isn't much more than a bend in the road, but we were ready for a little treat. After a granola bar under the shade of a parked pick-up, Sparkle and I walked our way to the other end of town. Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a guy with a sign on his bike that said "Spoke Bracelets $5." Sounded intriguing (and not very expensive), so we circled back to get a better view. Basically, this guy does a quick eyeball of your wrist, pulls a spoke out of his bag, and bends (with the help of a pair of pliers) a perfectly sized bracelet to fit you. It's understated and yet says, "I ride a bike." Sure to be a hit on the runways in Paris this fall.
It was another very hilly day. I heard someone say that if you had done the century loop (only an extra 17.1 miles), it would be the hardest day in RAGBRAI history. Sparkle and I agreed early on that we would stop for Pastafari this day, since we were both craving veggies, as one tends to do after eating RAGBRAI food for 3 days. We would ride together some, then we would get spaced apart for a little bit, but would always wait for each other after a few miles.
As I was riding, I was asked by a fellow rider about my cycling sandals and how good they worked for riding. We ended up chatting for quite a while, and, as it turned out, Stuart was meeting his brothers at Pastafari as well. The three of us had a great little meal on the porch of little cabin on a hill. In the shade! We rode from there to Coon Rapids to meet up with Saucy and the Shaman. When we found Snake with the truck, Sparkle decided that she'd had enough, and joined her mom for the rest of the ride into Jefferson. Stuart and I, after being well nourished by cookies and Pringles, headed out to chase down Saucy and the Shaman.
Along the route, we saw evidence of what the previous night's storm had done. The corn in many areas was blown nearly all the way over. There were tree branches everywhere. At one point we came upon a grain bin that had been blown to pieces. Next to it was a wide swath of corn that was smashed to the ground. It was either crop circles or a tornado had been through!
We took another break in Scranton, because it looked like rain (and we were really ready for another break). As we left Scranton, it started to rain. With only 10 miles to go, we forged ahead. The rain would have been fine to deal with, but the accompanying lightning was not. Our two choices were: keep riding or take shelter. However, the only shelter was large groves of really tall trees - not really where you want to be in an electrical storm. We kept pedaling our way to freedom and arrived safely.
I'd never heard of this, but (leave it to the out-of-state guy riding his first RAGBRAI to tell me) many of the bike manufacturers allow riders to demo bikes for a day on the ride. We checked that out, then made our way to our accommodations for the night. I told Saucy and the Shaman about the demos, so they went downtown to see about new rides for Tuesday. The team was blessed with a great host for the night - good showers, supper, and beds (!!!) for the night.
We had a big team that night with Snake and Pete, the Senator and all the riders in the same town. My favorite RAGBRAI band was playing: the Johnny Holm Band. They all dropped me off at the expo on the way into town, as I needed a new helmet. Mine fell victim to some accident that, thankfully, my head was not a part of - I'm still not sure what happened, but it ruined my old one. At the concert, we enjoyed some good beverages, great music, and the always interesting spectacle of the Senator working his constituency.
Stats:
82.9 miles
5239 feet of climb
Tuesday: Jefferson to Ames
Tuesday greeted Team Satisfied with another glorious day. Saucy and the Shaman had some sweet demo bikes to ride (and they wanted to go the whole distance!!). Soon after leaving Jefferson, Sparkle and I lost Saucy and the Shaman after a quick bathroom break in Grand Junction. We ran into Team Bad Monkey and one of my Team Vardo running friends. By the time we were through visiting with people in town, we came to realize that a train (damn trains!) was blocking the only route out of town. After waiting for a little bit, riders started throwing their bikes over their shoulders and hiking up the track until they could cross. When in Rome...
The next stop was just outside of Grand Junction. We spotted the homemade ice cream sign long before we became aware that everything at this farm house was Iowa State cardinal and gold. The ice cream was awesome, and Sparkle dunked a little kid dressed in University of Iowa clothes in the dunk tank.
We moved on quickly as I know Sparkle was excited to get to the next town: Dana! Unfortunately, Dana was not in Dana, but we did get a picture of her with the town water tower, er, stick. In Dana, we hatched a plan to bypass Ogden. We've both been to Ogden, and neither of us could remember seeing or doing anything there that we wanted to do again. We mapped out a straight-shot to Boone. The new route took us through a surprisingly nice part of Boone County and got us out of the crowds for a little while.
We met up with Saucy and the Shaman (who were VERY satisfied with their demo bikes) just before the BIG hill into Boone. Following their hike to the top, we all rode into Boone for some lunch and a quick visit to Details - all three of us used to get our hair cut there. We made another quick stop for a beer, then pedaled on into Ames.
Saucy and the Shaman had to parade past their niece and nephews in town, but Sparkle and I took the shortcut to the house. Already waiting there was Matt (Team Emerson) and his two boys. We helped get them unpacked and into the house, then I met them at the airport to drop off their rental car.
The rest of the Emersons were in the midst of numerous rounds of showering and getting ready when I came back. One over-served Emerson even napped on my kitchen floor while we made plans for the evening.
We all loaded up into a couple vehicles and headed to Sid's for some chow, then to the Styx and Nadas concert. The concert was good, but the fireworks show afterwards was better.
Stats:
57 miles
1377 feet of climb
Wednesday: Ames to Tama-Toledo
It appeared that I was the final remaining member of Team Satisfied who still wanted to ride, so I headed out of town by myself, helping a few wayward visitors with the best way to get through town. Sid called and surprised the heck out of me saying that he was on his bike and headed east! I met up with Stuart in Nevada, and I did my best to give him a different view of RAGBRAI than what he had seen over the previous 3 days. We hit the 6th Street Pub for a vodka lemonade and waited for Sid to arrive. The place was hopping after about 30 minutes, and I almost thought about spending the rest of the day there!
Sid, Stuart and I left after a little while and kept motoring to Colo, then State Center. A text from the Emersons said that Road Hawgs was the place to be there. I had my first tenderloin of the ride then settled in at Road Hawgs with the Emersons and the Monkeys for a few more lemonades. Stuart wanted to keep riding, so, after a high-five, he was off.
After listening to the Bad Monkey's plan to go to Marshalltown (off-route), I threw out the idea to the Emersons who embraced the idea whole-heartedly. Sid had ridden 27 miles (27 more than he'd ridden in about 20 years), and he'd been slightly over-servedso we put him in the Emersons sag-wagon to meet up with us in Marshalltown. A few well-paced draft lines later we rode into Marshalltown. As we rode into town we passed a building with a message board that read, "Welcome Emerson." It was a sign that couldn't be passed without taking a picture. I didn't have my camera, though, so you'll just have to take my word for it...
We found a fun little bar under a bridge and started in on the Red Bull and Vodkas. They were tasty! Following a bunch of BSing on the patio, Sid then Sparkle showed up. It was getting late, and none of us needed any more Red Bull. Sparkle packed Sid and I into the truck, and suddenly RAGBRAI 2008 was over.
Stats:
40-ish
2000-ish feet of climbing
I was bummed out for the rest of the day about having to stop the ride mid-week, but when I awoke Thursday morning to rain, I was feeling like a genius!
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