Friday, July 31, 2009

RAGBRAI Review


For those of you who don't what it is, read up about RAGBRAI on Wikipedia.



To learn even more, enjoy Ellen's recap of her family's experience doing RAGBRAI in July:
The Aster/Tarr clan make their first family RAGBRAI (Register's Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa) appearance this July. Rick and Julie smoked the entire ride on a tandem (although one day I did catch Julie with her feet up on the frame and a grin on her face while Dad was huffing and puffing up a hill), Mom rode Dad's "old" Trek road bike (complete with shifters on the frame) and I took my new Specialized bike. While making our two-wheeled way across Iowa, from the Missouri River to the mighty Mississippi, our family learned many things:

  1. Iowa, contrary to popular belief, is NOT flat.
  2. Do not leave your older sister's biking gloves in a Kybo (Iowan for "porta potty")
  3. There is no such thing as a comfortable biking seat, especially after several days of biking.
  4. Iowans pride themselves with 4 things: livestock, great pies, friendly "homespun" folks, and HyVee Supermarkets
  5. When you have a flat tire, it is most efficient to pull over on the side of the road and look miserable until Dad comes to fix it for you
  6. Cornfields make excellent bathrooms
  7. When skillet-tossing in Fontenell, take care that you don't throw the skillet past the target and onto Harry's $3,000 Trek bike
  8. Rain before 7 does not necessarily mean it will be gone by 11
  9. Frantically shoving your favorite, gorgeous, first bike inside a tent via vestibule during a tornado warning in the vain hope that somehow it would survive is a very difficult, not to mention sort of pointless, task
  10. Julie likes very large, very furry, very pink and purple tiger-printed hats

15,000 bikers, one week of camping in rather obscure Iowan villages, 442 miles of biking, approximately 22 pies, 5 flat tires, and one tornado warning later, our family returned home, safe and sound.

1 comment:

Ford said...

Ahh, Hyvee. I remember the glorious days of 89 cent boxes of soy milk.

Shop Hy-Vee!