Before the cycling had even started and before I have even had the chance to unpack my pathetically inadequate camping gear I ask myself what the hell have I let myself into? This was after by far the worst nights sleep I have ever had in my life. Our journey up to Iowa can only really be classified as a disaster. What was supposed to be a nice 10 hour drive up to the end town of Lansing (where we would load our bikes onto a bus and depart for the start the following day) turned into quite the expedition through small town Wisconsin as we were desperate to find a way across the angry and impassable flood waters of the Mississippi river. I'd had enough of the journey before even reaching Wisconsin, road trips in my experience are not as fun as advertised, just hot, long and uncomfortable. In Illinois google inexplicably sent us through downtown Chicago which involved seeing more of Chicago O'Hare airport than even a plane spotter would enjoy. Google clearly doesn't consider things like traffic and floods when calculating routes, why she thought it would be a good idea to send us through the biggest city in the Midwest at 4pm on a Friday is beyond me. It soon became clear to us that we were not going to hit the 9pm deadline to load our bicycles on the bus in Lansing and the fun had only just begun. In another very ill conceived shortcut google decided it would be a great idea to cut a corner off of our journey by sending us through the back roads of Wisconsin before crossing the Mississippi at Prairie Du Chien which can only be described as a mythical city on the river which you'll see signposts for everywhere in Wisconsin yet it proved to be impossible to reach thanks to the floods. The scenery along the Mississippi river valley is beautiful yet ominously hilly as I had no intention of cycling up large hills on this holiday! The weather was hot and steamy and some mighty storms had passed causing the Mississippi to burst its banks. This meant all the stupid little county roads google insisted on sending us down were flooded out leaving us at a complete loss as every time we turned around google would simply direct us down another county road which at some point would throw the 'bridge out' sign at us before we would have to turn around and repeat the process all over again. We stopped at a petrol garage for some Wisconsin cheese curds and crackers (which were bloody delicious!) and directions before finally crossing the river into Iowa at gone midnight.
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| When you need to do a tinkle on RAGBRAI, simply drop your bicycle and walk into the corn! |
Things just got worse from there. The trucks where we were supposed to load the bicycles were locked and deserted, the long term parking had shut for the night and the humid, steamy weather and the bright lights of Lansing had brought every mosquito form a hundred miles away into the 'city' with a population of just 999 people. We had no idea where to camp or park so decided to just sleep in the car which in hindsight was a awful idea. We could finally get some shuteye after about 14 hours on the road but unfortunately as soon as we turned the engine off the air con shut off as well leading the temperature in the car to shoot up to approximately 2 million degrees. Unfortunately opening the windows proved impossible due to the air being thick with mosquitoes and it made for a miserable night. Turns out we may as well have opened the windows as a couple of bugs did get in and compounded my misery by eating me alive from head to toe.
The excitement for the night still wasn't over, as at about 1am all of a sudden a fleet of police cars, fire trucks and ambulances with sirens whirring came racing through the town heading in the direction of some thunderstorms to the east, this was followed a couple of minutes later by a floatilla of cars full of screaming people and a school bus packed with ecstatic kids racing back down the main street in the other direction. Wes sent a shudder down my spine when he looked over and said "Tornado" before getting out the car to see whats up and disappearing into the sea of bugs, leaving me sweating and sitting in the car extremely hot car wondering what the hell to do!
In the end it turned out there was nothing to worry about, the local high school had just won the state softball competition sending everyone into a state of delirium and I guess the town decided they needed to let everyone know it.
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| The SAG wagon will pick you up and take you to the finish sound if it gets tough |
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| The fire fighters putting on a show, the bucket is suspended form a wire, whoever gets the bucket to the opposite end of the wire first wins! |
The Registers great annual bicycle ride across Iowa or RAGBRAI for short is a bicycle ride starting at the Missouri river on the West of Iowa before moving East to finish at the banks of the Mississippi. The ride is basically a huge bicycle party, with around 15000 bicycles cycling across the state. Over the course of the week I encountered lots of unique bicycles and characters like the wounded warriors who've lost legs and are riding with hand spinners and one mans quest to do a wheelie across Iowa, I have no idea if he succeeded, but I cycled behind him for a couple of miles and did not once see his front wheel hit the ground. There were big wheel bicycles, fixies (no gears) penny farthings and even a unicycle attempting the trip! It is a depressing feeling when you think you're flying along and yet a old lady riding a rusting bicycle with tires that haven't been changed since Greg LeMond last won the tour de France comes whizzing by you.
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| HEre I am playing table football! It didn't go well, I kicked the ball off of the ass of my team mate and it rebounded into the goal before I then managed to thwack my knee into the poll in front of me while attempting a kick! |
She was certainly not the only person to go whizzing by me last week, the excitement on the last day was palpable when whispers were heard amongst the cyclists that 'Lance is coming, Lance is coming' to soon after be followed by a sssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh sound Lance and his cronies, seemingly breaking the Iowa land speed record went flying by followed by a increasingly desperate, profusely sweating and never ending train of mamil (middle aged men in lycra) riders who hopelessly tried to catch his wheel while poor old Lance desperately tried to get away.
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| A cool water filling station concocted by the local police department |
Over the course of the week you see lots of different cycling groups and teams making the trip, I bumped into team hello kitty, team cow and my personal favourite the team Donner Party with the slogan 'we eat the slow ones' in homage of the American pioneers who became stuck in the Sierra Nevada mountains and eventually resorted to eating members of their own party. Something I never managed to get my head around was the trust all the riders have for each other, at night we'd all go to bed and simply leave all our gorgeous bicycles laying on the ground outside our tents unlocked. I didn't hear a single story all week of someone having a bicycle stolen. Bearing in mind some of these carbon fiber jobbies are worth thousands of dollars I think that is amazing :)
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| A viking longboat bicycle |
The RAGBRAI is a big deal in Iowa, with towns competing for the chance to host the ride. Having 10,000 cyclists descending on a town where you happen to own the only coffee shop with free wifi is certainly going to cause a spike in your sales! Our ride started in Orange city, a small town founded by the Dutch who brought their culture and windmills with them. I can see why they settled in this part of Iowa, as if you switched the Corn for Tulips and the paved roads for cobbles you would practically be in Holland as North West Iowa is really flat. Although the town was located just in from the Missourri river the town had replicated a Dutch canal complete with many mini windmills in a park and filled it with water from the Missouri enabling the riders to dip their back wheel in the Missouri river. It is a RAGBRAI tradition to dip your back tyre in the Missouri before you start, and your front Tyre in the Mississippi when you finish! Here is my buddy Wes dipping his tyre!
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| wes dipping his tyre in the Missouri canal |
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| reading Bill Bryson in Iowa, his home state! |
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| After a hard days riding! |
Every day the route sends you to some unique places, on the 2nd day we visited the town of Britt which is home to the hobo art gallery and museum. Each year since 1900 the town plays host to a hobo convention where a hobo king and queen are elected by the attendees.. Anyone can enter for the chance to be King and Queen, so long as they have been riding the rails for at least 5 years and can make a coffee mug out of a old tin can! The hobo kings and queens are then immortalized with a hobo portrait in the gallery next door. The artist of which has gained some international acclaim for her work and has had the hobo portraits shown in galleries from Los Angleles to London. I was greatly honored to meet the Hobo King Redbird who was set up on a stall outside the museum, telling stories and signing whistles for anyone who was interested. He found it especially funny that the whistles he was signing were all made in China!
On the thrid day I became aware of the lifes work of Father Dobberstein. He was a very eccentric character who happened to be a great American priest and architect and who chose West Bend, Iowa as the perfect spot to build the grotto of the redemption, A cathederal made entirely out of coral and gems complete with caves containing different religous scenes also all made out of gems and coral. The site also has a museum next door containing his rock collection, one of the most extensive in the world! It was a beautiful and frankly bizarre cathederal and it just seemed so out of place in the middle of the Iowa corn fields! Check out these pictures!
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| Father Dobbersteins cathedral made entirely from rocks, gems and coral |
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| A bizarre place slap bang in the middle of the corn fields |
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| Inside father Dobbersteins cathederal |
Where is the most diverse community per capita in the USA located? In the tiny town of Postville Iowa with a population of 3000 people of course! It is an incredible place, the town is home to a huge Meat packing factory run by orthodox jews (Who when the RABRAI passed through had positioned themselves in the center of town and were walking up to all the men asking 'Are you Jewish?' before prompltly vanishing into the crowd when you answered no, I should have said yes, I bet they would have given me free cake!). The jobs in the Jewish kosher meatpacking factory were originally filled by Ukrainians and Russians, however when they moved on to bigger and better things the Mexicans, Guatemalans and most recently Somalians moved into town for the work, creating a surreal melting pot of starkly different cultures all in a tiny traditional Iowan farming community which now finds itself home to several Mexican restuarants, supermarkets, Jewish synagogues and even a Somalian restuarant, quite a change to the other towns in the area!
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| Mexican pop in Postville |
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| A band playing on their front porch |
The food on the ride was fabulous, with food trucks following the ride from day to day you become very familiar with the options available to you. One of the most popular had to be Mr Pork Chop, who operates out of a pink pig food truck and cooks pork chops on corn kernels. Mr. Pork Chop has been following the ride since the 70s and the sounds of "Pork Choooooooooooooooooooop" yelled out by the owner would resonte across the Iowa landscape, inspiring riders to hurry up to pick up their por. From miles away. This had become one of the most familiar and welcoming sounds on RAGBRAI till Mr Pork Chop passed away last year. Now the truck is managed by Mr. Pork Chops children and they released a patch in his honour for this years ride. I didn't get a patch because the line was so long, but I did get to try the pork chops, which are huge, about the size of your foot (yes Tim, even s big as one of your feet!) and go down very nicely especially with a little hot sauce sprinkled on the top! Other food highlights included the Amish pies and some rather wonderful chocolate and peanut butter ice cream sandwiches. They say that if you lose weight on RAGBRAI you are doing it wrong, and although I was hoping to shed some pounds with all the cycling I have to admit I succumbed to the tasty food and my weight may have gone in the opposite direction to which I had intended. Cycling is hungry and thirsty work!
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| look at that line! |
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| Mr Pork Chops van |
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| Ice cream sandwich |
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| Amish Pie |
Cycling back into Lansing on the last day was a really special experience, the ride itself was tough, we climbed about 4000 feet in just 45 miles but when you cycle round the last corner and see the Mississippi in front of you it really sinks in what you have achieved. The US Air Force sends a team of about 180 riders to RAGBRAI and they ride the route, helping people out who have crashes or mechanical incidents, well at the finish line all 180 of them were lining both sides of the road giving riders high fives as they came past, it was a wonderful feeling. I loved the riding and the experience but never got into camping. It had been many years since I had camped and I was quite excited about being under the stars however this feeling dissipated after about 60 seconds of opening up the tent bag and painfully stubbing my toe on the first tent peg I managed to get in the ground without it bending or breaking. We spent most nights on the grounds at local high schools which at least meant I could use the showers along with five thousand other smelly men and then being charged 5 dollars for the privilege! I'd be happy to never spend a night in a tent again, it was horrible, you'd put the tent up and immediately my tent would break Iowa temperature records meaning you go to bed sweating before waking up a few hours later in the shivering cold (the temperature in Iowa drops dramaticaly at night, or at least it felt like it did to me) and itching the latest bug bites while rummaging around in the dark trying to find the blankets before waking up sweating again at seven am. The temperature was well into the 30s every day of the ride. At least it only rained once! Besides the camping it was a fantastic week, and I am forever in awe of Wes who managed to make it up all those hills on his recumbent bicycle and for letting me accompany him on the RAGBRAI :)
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| Camping on the high school baseball field |
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| Rolling countryside |
Here I am at the Mississippi!
I cant remember.... Did I mention how terrible camping is?
