Posted a few comments I received from others.
Saturday, July 25
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5 comments:
2 wheels, 6 beers, 3 renditions of bohemian rhapsody, 2 renditions of Country Roads Take Me Home, and a total of 122 miles for me. It was nice to see some other green jerseys and some Kaos guys out on the route.
I was on the ride with Cramer, Poulson, Cassiday, and Wilson. I was advised there was a tradition of people wearing costumes on the ride, but we did not see so much of that. There were some with helmet decorations, but not costumes per se. That said, we did ride past what appeared to be Little Bo Peep and this was the only true costume I saw. Actually, to be honest, I did not see the whole costume for reasons that will become obvious as you read on. Little Bo Peep was riding a recumbent, I think. She was wearing a blue billowy dress with white stockings. Not sure if she was wearing a wig as I did not look. Someone must have said something to her as they rode by as I was approaching because she suddenly lifted her dress and flashed those of us around her. Fortunately(?), she was wearing bike shorts under the dress. Anyway, my RAGBRAI story is that I got flashed by Little Bo Peep and I’m sticking with that story!
With thousands of riders, I don’t know what the official count was, I was amazed at the ease at which we saw/found people we knew would be on the ride. Our group was passed by Spence and Lambie of Team Kaos with Ellis in tow. We ran across Fenster and Larsen in Red Oak. We saw Perry Mitchell enroute twice and at Red Oak. Cramer’s first ex-wife and daughter were on the ride and we ran across them in Red Oak. His second ex-wife was on the ride and we ran across her in Malvern. Thursday morning Bob was also in Red Oak.
I am still out here. Today is day 3 and it was all rain all day. Clear tomorrow. I saw three crashes today due to the rain.
Rich and I tried a new experience!! We decided we would haul all our stuff in Bob trailers . . .all stuff included a stereo, beverage cooler, and all our gear plus running gear (in case we had any energy to get a run in!). We parked a car in Des Moines early Saturday, drove back to our house with the other car, packed our bags and were off. The first hill out of our neighborhood to downtown I was like 'this is a lot of weight' but once the old legs warmed up . . . life was good. We made it the whole way with only a short ride from a team when Rich's sidewall blew. We arrived in Des Moines at our car on Tuesday just in time to celebrate our ride. Pulling our own stuff was definitely a new thing - you don't average those high speeds but you get really strong legs :-).
I’m not a blogger. But what I saw was a lot of bikers and lines for every conceivable thing.
· We lucked out and had a “Top 10” day for weather, mid-70’s, calm/no wind (flags straight down), blue sky.
· I’ve never had to brake on a steep uphill climb because of biker traffic before Sunday.
· We had to get off our bikes and walk through Mineola. It took more than 10 minutes with no stops.
· The people out selling to the masses was something quite different… bananas for $1. The longest distance between stands was probably about ¾ miles. One could easily make this the most profitable week of the year by selling water or gaterade (or porta-potties) on the side of the road all week.
· Doug jokingly kept taking offense by the “Heavy Biker Traffic Ahead” signs because he has lost a lot of weight.
· The number of old school busses converted to team / club support vehicles was astonishing.
· The headgear was also interesting, every conceivable thing worn on the helmets…orange construction cones, tiaras, tutu’s, Vegas dancing girl feathers, Roman style helmets with the red bristles, turtle shells… you name it, somebody was wearing it.
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