The last day- on to the port and the Mississippi

Off to a good start in the morning- the earliest I've gotten going all week. I did wake up several times during the night, but just briefly, mostly from people coming in late from the concert and tramping around camp. Got everything loaded and ready to go, then realized I had no idea where to go. On one of the first days, someone was asking about the route and got the reply, "There are 10,000 other bikes going there- just follow them". Good point, I thought, so that's what I've been doing all week. This time, nobody happened to be leaving our camp at that moment, and the PBV camp was apparently not on the route directly. I headed into town, and picked up the normal endless trail of cyclists soon enough. The usual tour of food- Chris Cakes first thing, a few miles out of town. They put on quite a show with a large griddle and batter-pouring device that creates long, perfect grids of pancakes. They also have this thing of throwing their pancakes- they'll yell, "Incoming" or something similar, while pointing at an unsuspecting customer. Next thing you know, there are 1, 2, 3 pancakes looping through the air towards them, which they are expected to catch in their plate. It's a lot of fun, though many pancakes end up on the ground. Today, they were throwing them down the line of people, some of them twisted and turned through the air like some crazy frisbee, and landed maybe 125 feet back in line- and a few of those were successfully caught. It's a good, quick breakfast to get the carbs going for the road, and despite a long line, it moves very quickly.
Only a few towns along today's route, including Dyersville, the site of the "Field of Dreams" from the movie of the same name. But mostly, with it being a short day mileage-wise, I enjoyed the towns briefly and moved on to get where we were going. The hills were ongoing and more gradual than the ones we saw near Sioux City, but they certainly produced some dramatic landscapes. Few stops along the way got us there quickly, and once we approached Dubuque, we started getting some really big hills, resulting in another new high speed personal record- 46.4 MPH. I don't really think we're going much from there, but some areas here were perfect, fresh asphalt roads, and the riders were spread out enough to have little problems. On the other hand, they did start bunching up around a number of the uphills, producing quite a crowd as we reached the legendary Potter Hill. A 19% grade for 1 mile, this was more of a challenge than any previous hill on the ride, by quite a ways. It starts for .1 mile with a more gradual grade, then up the hill it goes. It was a bit intimidating, and the locals were having some fun with us- a few encouraging, and a few sitting by the side of the road with a "Welcome to Potter's Hell- 19% grade 1 mile" sign. Even those guys were encouraging, though you could tell they were slightly amused. Many people got off and walked barely into the lower, flatter portion of the hill. I was feeling like this was a challenge I should really push to achieve, so I tried my best to get up the hill with my usual strategy- keep it as high as I can still comfortable manage, and pull/push hard to keep rolling. This worked on the lower section, but I started losing momentum in the steeper area. I decided to downshift, and somehow it didn't work right. It spun and wouldn't engage on the lowest gear of the rear derailleur. I fumbled, shifted it back up and pulled, then eased off and downshifted again- same problem. Got the front downshifted and tried one more time for the back. I was still moving, but just barely, and had made it about 2/3 up the hill. At that point, the chain slipped a time or two, refusing to engage "granny gear" for me, and I almost fell over because I couldn't clip out in time. I managed to catch myself, and started walking the bike up the hill. At that point, I stopped for a minute to take a few pictures back down the hill, then I decided to try it again. I was only in 3rd gear, but I really needed first to make it up, so I'd have to start on that uphill, pull hard to get a little momentum, then quickly downshift and hope it worked. I tried, and it worked, so I headed up the hill at 2-3 MPH, and it soon started to flatten out. This eased the trouble, and I topped the hill, puffing hard. Tender Tom's Turkey, one of the food vendors I hadn't tried yet, was at the top of the hill, so I stopped for a marinated turkey breast sandwich (excellent, like all RAGBRAI vendors seem to be). Then I headed up the last section of that road before we turned onto another. Some locals were there congratulating everyone for surviving it, and claiming that they all stop and walk their cars up that hill. Then we began the million hills that start settling into Dubuque. Not quite as steep or long as Potter Hill, but not much less on either measure. There was an endless stream of people sitting in their yard, congratulating everyone on their ride and welcoming them to the city. They also kept saying that we had 3 miles and two hills to go. And two hills later, it was still 3 miles and 2 hills. Not sure how they coordinated that. A few final breathtaking downhills (38MPH with the brakes on)and we made it into downtown Dubuque and on to the dip site at the port. Some great live music was going there, a welcome banner overhead, and many, many more people shouting encouragement, "You made it", "You did it", and "Congratulations". I headed into the dip site thinking about that- I did do it. Guess I can stop worrying if I can make it now. Even though I knew I was heading to the end, it hadn't fully registered. It was done. There were logistics left- getting the car, bags, traveling home- but the trip itself was done. I got out my trusty Olympus camera to get a good picture of my final dip-and dropped it on the pavement. That camera has been a great one for many years, but I think that finished it. I got a cell phone picture, and headed out for cleanup.
Since it's my birthday, I thought I should at least have a nice meal before starting the trip back. I ended up in the Star Restaurant in the Star Brewery at the Port. It's a nice place, had good "American Grill" kind of fare, and some decent beer. Along with an internet connection, ot let me get the blog up to date while looking out the window at the river. They have a nice riverfront here, and the RAGBRAI party is going on downstairs, so it's fun to watch. I've hogged the table long enough, however, so I think I'll finish up this post and head out. I do have a bunch of pictures which I'll post later, along with some of the stories from the ride that I haven't had time to write up so far. There are too many storied to tell quickly, but I'll try to bring a few more over the next week or so,along with the pictures and their stories. Guess it's off to either shop for a replacement camera or just plain head home. Not sure which, but we'll see. Thanks to everyone who's been following along and sent me congrats and encouragement along the way. it really means a lot to me to be sharing this experience with you. More later.

SAG ride and exploring Manchester

Friday opened with me waking up to discover that my numb toes were still numb. This led me to worry that I shouldn't ride today, in case this was something that could turn into permanent damage with further aggravation- or could get worse and guarantee that I couldn't ride the last day. I was almost decided to take the PBV SAG bus to the next campsite, instead of riding, when I had a look outside. It was raining, and really didn't look fun. It seemed clear that I shouldn't go out in that with this problem already there to worry about. I packed everything up and went up to see if I could pay the $25 for the SAG ride straight to the next town's campsite. They had room, so we loaded up and headed out. I spoke with the woman next to me on the bus, who had a problem that prevented her from riding, so she would go get camp set up while her husband rides today. Another woman had experienced a fall and broken her arm, so she wasn't riding. I was mostly excited to get a good camping spot and have a relaxing day. When we arrived, it was still a bit chaotic. Manchester had experienced some flooding with the amazing rain in the previous weeks, and our original campsite was still too wet. They had moved us across the road, and were still working out how to lay out that campsite. I found a good spot for my tent, set it up, got settled in, and decided that I might as well take a nap while they got things organized. This apparently was just what I needed, because I woke up a couple of hours later, and felt much better. It was just about half a mile into the downtown festival area, so I got my bike and headed on in. Another nice little Iowa town with its own personality and all sorts of interesting stores. As I walked around, I found the Castle Theater, celebrating its 75th year. Apparently, it had fallen into disrepair, and they decided to make it a community-owned theater and get it restored to its former glory. They had done an admirable job, and it was a very nice theater restored to like-new decor appropriate to its era. They were showing Toy Story 3, which I hadn't seen yet, and that sounded like a great idea of a way to spend the afternoon, so in I went. Classic popcorn and movie treats were available, and they were doing root beer floats as a special RAGBRAI thing. It was fun to watch the movie and enjoy the theater. I wandered around town a bit after the movie, then headed back to camp for another massage (focused on those toes this time, along with the sore legs), and another nice evening of socializing. I met a young woman who takes pictures every year, and then creates postcards from them to sell during the next year's ride. She says that more than anything, she likes the excuse it gives her to talk to people and hear their memories of the ride.
From what I heard from those who actually rode, it was a miserable day and a difficult ride. Many of them ended up holed up in some farmer's barn to wait for the lightning to susbside enough to continue fighting the headwinds and rain. I guess I'd like to be able to say that I went out and was up for that challenge, but I'm not really that disappointed that I didn't do this day's cycling. Settled in for some final clean-up and packing to be ready for the short ride to Dubuque tomorrow- and its killer hills. Dubuque isn't the rolling hills we had at the beginning of the week- you often can't carry over the downhill speed into the next hill. And they are a bit larger- including "Potter Hill", this year's longest/steepest hill, though there are several into Dubuque that we would be mentioning if Potter Hill hadn't overwhelmed the interest in them. That elevation map is all ups and downs, so hoping for a good night's sleep and more recovery for those feet before tomorrow. Those feet do feel better by bedtime, though not completely.

More Food- It should actually be called the Great Bike Ride & Eat across Iowa

I continue to be fascinated by the overall experience at RAGBRAI. As I mentioned in one of the first posts in this blog, I've been monitoring my activity and calorie expenditure / intake quite closely for about a year and a half now. I use the Body Media Fit armband (also called GoWear Fit) and the BodyMedia Display Device that goes with it.

These are a combo that I have found to be invaluable in moving myself towards this healthier lifestyle. This device records steps like a pedometer, but that is really a secondary function- it primary purpose is to record your body's actual data- how much activity do you do each day? How vigorous was it? How many calories did you actually burn? And how many did you eat? What kind of nutrition was in the calories that you did eat? If you use the BodyMedia Fit system, you know all of that. And it's there reminding you of where you stand minute to minute, right there on your wrist. So- I believe in this one, and I've gotten into the habit of logging my food fairly regularly, even now that my primary goal isn't weight loss.
So, what's this have to do with RAGBRAI? Well, it's very difficult if not impossible to do this. I'm eating whenever the opportunity presents itself, and eating a higher-carb, and probably higher-fat diet. And I have no easy access to an internet connection to upload my data and log my food. So, I'm trying an experiment- just try to choose what seems right, and allow myself to have some treats I never would otherwise. After all, I'm riding a bike all day, so my burn rate should be fairly high, right?
We'll find out- because there is some of the most amazing food here. It's probably not hard for you to picture the Mr Pork Chop Iowa Chop, and to imagine that it might be a little higher fat than I would want on a daily basis. And you can imagine that much of the food set up for the ride is basically a traveling summer festival, so there are funnel cakes, etc, in many of the towns. But, how about Pastafari's Penne Ariabata Pasta with Rosemary Encrusted Salmon? Does that sound like something you'd expect to be made in some corn farmer's front yard? Do you think if it was made and served there that it would be any good? Well...
It's amazing. A nice spicy tomato-based sauce, on top of perfectly-cooked penne pasta, with grilled veggies and well-cooked grilled salmon on top of that. It's a good-sized serving, and amazing stuff. When I stopped this afternoon, and tried the Pastafari pasta for the first time, they had set up in the same yard with Mr Pork Chop- and there was no line for a Pork Chop! While their line usually goes fast, that was very unusual, so I was forced to have both. And then, I found myself quite full and having that after-meal sleepiness, so I laid down in the grass under a huge shade tree, and took a little nap while being serenaded by the Pastafari Reggae music mix. I have realized that it is quite possible to gain weight on RAGBRAI, though I think that the level of activity would make it easy enough to make enough good choices to lose. Even without that, my legs are definitely getting in shape rather quickly.
In addition to the vendors, today there were a lot more farmers who had clearly set up just to support the race and show off their stuff- in particular, their baking- sugar-free homemade muffins that were as good as any muffin I've had, and some pretty good Zucchini bread had to be tried.
At camp at the end of day, it was the usual hanging out, having a couple of beers, and enjoying some music. They had a different band tonight, that covered a lot of classic pop/rock tunes, and they were pretty good.
One problem surfaced at the end of the day. When I took off my cycling shoes, I noticed that several toes on my right foot were numb. It seems that I had that shoe too tight, and it cut off circulation or pressed on a nerve. Probably it was like that all day, but I really didn't notice until I removed the shoe. Not good. I made sure to give it some massage, leave the shoes loose, etc. Hoped it would be better before morning. It wasn't. Now, what to do?

On to Waterloo

Up in the morning, packed, and on the way for a long ride to Waterloo. Got a little breakfast at camp, then stopped about 15 miles in for an Orange Julius fundraiser for the local Boy Scouts. While I was enjoying that drink, another rider started a conversation with me about the Wright Brothers, having heard me say I was from Dayton. Turns out he works in a University in Storm Lake, where he is working on writing web content for their web presence. He's dealing with a lot of the challenges we deal with, though on a smaller scale, so we had some interesting conversation. Guess you still find us computer geeks just about anywhere. Then on to Clarksville, and a stop at the library to use their internet connection to get the blog up to date. So many nice little cities around here.
They are predicting that today will be the nicest day of the week, weather-wise, so we'll see. It would be nice if we had good weather to balance out the longer 82-mile run. So far, it's fairly cool- but the skies are clear and I won't be surprised if it gets hot soon. My supply of sunscreen is running low, too, so I'm going to need to go shopping in Waterloo. Better get going...

An easy ride to Charles City

After a tough start packing up a wet tent, the morning went fine. Partly cloudy and a little cooler, it was great weather for a ride. Had a few more hills than yesterday, but it was still pretty fun and fairly easy. I managed to slow myself down a bit to enjoy it all, so I spent a lot of time today going along at 15-18 MPH, and stopping to enjoy the food and sights. Had a great breakfast pancake meal at a Chris Cakes location along the route.Later, a good Grilled Chicken and Sweet Corn Lunch in Rockford.Many of the cities today really did the festival atmosphere up well, and I still made pretty good progress up to Rockford, where I enjoyed the music they had going. The last 14 miles into Charles City went fairly quickly, but turned into almost 18 before I made it to camp on the "far side" of Charles City. The Elders performed evening music again, and they are on great band. They play an irish rock music and put on a great show, making everybody want to get up and dance. We had them for two nights this week, and I could have handled more. Got their live CD, so I'll enjoy that on the way back home.
I settled into the tent for a good night, and it once again got cold. Really, uncomfortably cold. I put on several layers of clothes and did my best to keep warm, but I really need to have a blanket along. I'll try to pick one up along the road on Thursday.

Tuesday- A nice, hot ride

Wasn't a bad ride this day. I was trying to balance taking an easier day with my need to get to Clear Lake as early as possible. I had prepaid for a massage appointment, and it was at 3. Since it was a relatively short day, I thought this would be no problem. The ride into Wesley was nice, but towards the end, I felt the bike "wiggling" a bit, especially when I stood up to pull hard. Eventually, I figured out that the cargo rack on the back had lost its bolt on one side (probably on one of those rumble strips I couldn't avoid). I was lucky that it hadn't fallen over enough to run into the spokes, which wouldn't have been fun. I figured it would be no problem to get fixed at one of the bike repair places that they set up in every town. Wesley is one of the smaller towns of about 500 people, so it turned out that there was only one bike repair place set up there- the Trek guys. They didn't have the bolt and nut I needed, so now I was worried. I asked one of the citizens about if there was a hardware store around where I could but a bolt and nut. He responded with, "Let me take you there- I'm not sure if he's open, but we'll find him"- and off he went. As we walked, he told me that this was an amazing crowd to have in town- they had all worked all day the day before to get ready, working until 7PM. Next thing I know, I've got the Lumberyard being opened for me ( the place to buy bolts here ), and we find the bolt, nut, and lockwasher I need. Before I can even start to dig my tools out, he's handing me all of them from his workbench. Help is everywhere.
I enjoyed the towns today, and stopped in at the hardware store in Hutchins to get more bolts- it occurred to me that there was no guarantee that it wouldn't happen again, and I might not be so lucky next time. I got 2 sets, then between Hutchins and Britt felt a wiggle again. The other side had snapped off- half of it was still there, but not holding anything. I replaced that, then stopped in Britt to go to the hardware store again.This time, I bought 4 more sets, just in case. No more problems with those bolts, though. But then it started getting hot.
Along the way, we have endless towns of friendly people. One town had laid carpet over the railroad tracks for us. Free water was everywhere, though a lot of people buy the $1 standard bottled water to support the local organizations that are doing that as a fundraiser. Lots of good food, and the "week-long party" reputation is holding up, though I'd say more like a week-long festival for me.
The last segment, we turned into the wind, and uphill, and thus began the long, slow death march. I'm always amazed at how much a little wind can take out of you, and I was on a mission. Had to get to my massage appointment, and the speed I was going with a headwind wasn't going to do it. I pushed hard, but ended up just worn out and still late. I showed up late, took a quick cold shower, and got a half-hour out of my scheduled hour massage. That did wonders for me, though my legs were still sore.
A group of my Iowa friends had agreed to drive up to Clear Lake and visit me on the ride. They showed up just after I had time to get my tent set up and finish getting settled in. The music act was going - The Elders- and it was a lot of fun watching them. We headed out, though, for some dinner. It was great to head out with them and catch up after all of this time. I think we decided that it had been at least 15 years, and probably more, since we had seen each other. Lots of news and stories to catch up on, but they are the same great guys I've always known. We had a nice dinner in some air conditioning, and then they dropped me off back at camp. We vowed to get together more often.
As I settled in for bedtime, I could hear the concert down on the lake quite clearly. Spin Doctors and some other bands were playing for quite some time, and it sounded like a good time. Then the fireworks started- only that turned out to be more lightning from a storm moving in. I hadn't planned to put the rain fly on the tent, but I went ahead. As it turned out, my tent had held up great to rain in my backyard a week ago, but that apparently finished its perfect waterproofing. I had several small leaks, and ended up with a lot of wet stuff. Quite a bit was protected (everything's in Ziplocs), but the mattress and tent itself were definitely wet. No fun to pack up in the morning, but I just dried them as best as I could, and shipped them off to the baggage truck.

Monday - Off to Algona

Up in the morning and off on the ride to Algona- with my legs feeling much better. After blasting up and down all of those hills on the way to Storm Lake, they were pretty sore and I was worried. After a great night's rest on the shores of Storm Lake, I was in much better shape. I expected things to slow down a bit, since we had a fairly flat day, but the speed stuck around- I was passing people most of the day. Not as crazy as those hills, and I started to relax into it a bit.The big decision of the day was whether to go for the Karras Loop- an optional loop that you could add on this one day to make it a "century ride" of 100 miles. This year, the loop itself was still just a bit shy of 100 miles, but since the Pork Belly campgrounds was farther back than the others, it balanced out. I wasn't really sure what to decide- until I arrived at the decision point, where you had to decide to branch off or not. At that moment, I couldn't imagine not trying it, so off I went and got my Karras Loop patch for this year. Just down the road into the loop, we had the rest stop in Rolfe, where they had some Calliope music going along with fruit, water, and energy bars. Oh, and some delicious Cinnamon rolls, too. It started to look like it might rain, so I buttoned everything up to make it as waterproof as possible, and headed off. We did get a few drops, but I was actually disappointed to miss the rain- I thought a nice little shower would cool things down. The loop took you back around to drop you before Plover, so I got to visit that town twice. Just outside, I discovered another RAGBRAI route food vendor- Kelly's Berry Pies. I'm not that into pie- but this stuff is in a whole different category. I had the Peach pie first- then had to go back for the caramel-apple. Both were amazing. Riding into Algona, there's a final short/steep hill, then on to camp. I had signed up to pay $10 to sleep in First Lutheran Church that night, and it was nice to be in the air, after the supper prepared by those church members. They had printed out a  handout with a description and their recipes- good stuff. And they had pie. More amazing pie. Good stuff. We slept on the floor in a large room, and it wasn't bad once we all got settled in. Packing in the morning was much faster with no tent to take down, and I headed out for Clear Lake.

And a little more on Sunday's ride

RAGBRAI seems to bring together all sorts of people and vehicles. I've seen "The Shark"- a fully-enclosed recumbent bicycle, Someone riding a high-wheel two-wheeler, a large-wheel unicycle, an elliptical trike, and numerous other interesting vehicles. There are $5000 bicycles, and the $100 ones that people still have from when they were a kid. There are also all kinds of people- several senior citizens, some serious teams, some serious drinking teams, and some just out to find out if they can do it. If you haven't ridden in a large group before, you learn fairly quickly- everyone is teaching with a lot of patience. Mostly you have to keep on eating, drinking (not necessarily alcohol), and riding- and it seems most everyone gets there.

  As I mentioned in the last post, I enjoyed the hill riding a lot, and probably missed out on a lot of socializing. On the other hand, I've still been settling into the ride and still socializing a bit in the evenings. There have been a lot of new friends along the way- and most everybody on the ride is your automatic friend if you need one. It's quite the experience. The food is really something, too, and I've been enjoying the stops on the side of the road for someone's drink and snack stands. If I had it to do over again, I might try to slow down and socialize more, but I still got some of that along the way.
The campground I was in with Pork Belly Ventures charter service was a beautiful park right on the edge of Storm Lake. I set up the tent about 50 feet from the water, a little distance away from the main service tents with Pork Belly, but I really liked that location. I got my shower and evening meal, as well as a couple of beers- one of the wheat beer and one of the pale ale. Those were refreshing, and after all of that I was feeling much better. I tried to get in to get a massage, but they were booked. As it headed into night and cooled off, the weather was perfect- cool but not chilly, with that perfect soothing feeling that you can only get on a lake edge. I left the fly off the tent, so I got plenty of gentle breeze all night long- and slept wonderfully. Packing up in the morning, my legs felt much better and ready to go for the day's ride. It started to feel like this would be one heck of a week.

And we're off!

Sunday-
    I expected the first day to be hell- it was very hilly. Actually, I loved the rolling hills of northwest Iowa. I don't know if it was the hills themselves, or the training finally kicked in, or perhaps I was doing a better job with my nutrition-  but I'm seeing a lot bunch more speed than I'm used to. I had noticed some improvement recently in my training. I noticed that it felt a lot better after I went through and did a little tune-up and lube of the whole bike also, but I really hadn't seen this big a difference. Of course, downhill runs are always fun, but I set a new personal best for top speed ever- 44.1 MPH. That was a long gradual hill- none of the hills on Sunday were that steep. And I found myself enjoying it so much that I had to push on the way up the next one, and most of the time I was able to keep it above 20 MPH all the way up the next hill. I made up for some of those with some 8 MPH uphills, but those were fairly few. I found myself running flats at 22 -23 MPH. Amazing. Then I spent the evening wondering if I'd done a little too much by pushing like that all day. Legs were pretty sore, and even had a few moments of feeling like it might cramp. I used to have some leg cramps at times that would cramp so hard they would injure the muscle and I would be a bit crippled for days or weeks. If that happened here, it would be disastrous, so I worried. After an evening of worrying and stretching, it turned out that there was no need to worry. I didn't have any more trouble, and my legs weren't hardly sore by morning.
    Sunday started with the ride down to the dipping site to dip my rear tire in the missouri river. It wasn't as much Chaos as you might expect- there's no official starting "gun", so there's a steady stream for hours, but not too much of a crowd at once, at least for me and what others reported. The campsite was only a couple of miles away from the dip site, so not a bad ride to get started. Then, it's off through the streets of Sioux City. There were people along the route for miles, just sitting out yelling encouragement or just saying "Hi". Some had free water or snacks for riders. Roads were pretty good, with no major problems, and the State Troopers and local police were out there to make sure everyone was kept safe- and could keep riding without stopping. At one intersection towards the end of the area, a driver of an SUV was talking on his cell phone, and started inching out like he was going to try to run through the endless stream of riders. The officer at that intersection jumped into action yelling like he had a bullhorn in his throat. He got the guy eye-to-eye and stood right in front of his bumper. "Get off the cell phone NOW!", he said. And the guy did. "You move when I tell you"- and his tone said, " ... or you're going away for a while". I'm sure the driver wasn't trying to be a jerk, but I was impressed with that officer's instant reaction. It might have even saved some lives, and was totally appropriate. People sometimes just aren't thinking- glad you were, officer. Thanks!
As we got to the edge of the developed area, it seemed like breakfast was a good idea. There was a church there having a pancake breakfast to raise money for their relief effort for Haiti, and I stopped. They had decent live music going, and were set up fairly efficiently to get everything served. It was a pretty good breakfast, and all of the church members were clearly there to help in any way they could. I was using a shelf inside the church to organize some things I was carrying, and a couple of people just walked up and got me a chair, turned on lights for me, and suggested a few other things I might need. Great place. Then, it was off into the hills.
   As mentioned previously, I loved the hills. I was surprised that I seemed to be one of the fastest people riding except for the really serious "pace line, heads-down, $3000+ bike" group. And there are some of those. I did have some good rides alongside people who rolled up to talk. RAGBRAI issues a "bike license" for you to hang from the back of your seat, and you fill in your name and town, and what RAGBRAI this is for you. It's a great idea- let's people call out "Randy, on your left" so I know they're talking to me. Important when there's a large, mixed crowd of riders of many different types and levels. It also let's people ride up and say "Miamisburg- I'm from Germantown", etc. Helps the social aspect. I've met a bunch of interesting people with interesting stories to tell. I probably didn't get quite as much of this as I should- nobody pulls up to talk at 25 MPH or more, and nobody wants to start the talk while someone is passing them up the hill. I just was having so much fun going fast, I know I missed some opportunities. Still, it was fun.
I'm actually writing this in the Church on Monday night, and they are about to get to lights-out, so I better sign off. Lots of stories I still haven't told, but I'll get to those when I can.

And I've Arrived at RAGBRAI

Hard to believe I finally made it here. Had to spend hours fixing each of several problems to finally get on the road much later than I had planned. The bike speedometer bracket broke a strange-o custom bolt, and I had to rework it to fix it. The lock on the house door wouldn't work. Got ready to head out, and one of the car's tire valve stems started leaking. Fun. Then, on the road all day Friday. Drove through a quite impressive squall line in eastern Iowa last night- had to slow to 15 or 20 MPH because I couldn't see where the lane in front of me was. Lightning was blasting every 5 or 10 seconds for several hours, so when the rain eased and you could see, the landscape looked like it was in a strobe light. Somehow, setting up my tent at nearly 2 AM in that weather didn't seem like a good idea, so I found an inexpensive motel and got a little sleep.
  Woke up at 5 AM, headed over to long-term parking and the bus to Sioux City, worked my way through a fairly disorganized parking system, dropped my luggage and bike off with Pork Belly Ventures (the charter service that I paid to help me through the week in several ways- including the bus ride). Parked and caught a shuttle back to PBV, got lucky and found my bus was the first one I checked out of a couple dozen that were there. Off we went to ride to Sioux City, where RAGBRAI starts. Nice comfortable bus, but seemed way too long of a bus ride.
  Arrived at the Pork Belly camp area- where they had all the rental tents set up, and all of the other services. Checked in, set up tent, got bike and put it all together. Tested it, and got a beer (free as a part of the services I bought). Life was good today, once I got to that point. Came down to the expo, had italian ice, and wandered around looking at every possible bike part/accessory/shirt/etc.People selling energy bars/drinks, all unique and better. All sorts of other unusual booths, including avoidthestork.com, http://www.artjersey.net/ and go-girl.com, as well as old standbys like www.apresvelo.com and  www.primalwear.com .

Coming up there's the Smash Mouth concert, which I'm sure is going to be a great show. Not sure if I'll stick around for it, though- might be better to go back to camp and see if I can get some sleep. Of course, I might also want to install the wireless ipod speakers I just bought for my bike, too....

More when I can...

Finally off on the Trip

Far too many issues to deal with at home, and a few problems, but I'm finally on my way and off to begin this adventure. Broke the speedometer mount on my bike, which wasn't easy to fix. Had to find a couple of things that had found new hiding places since I last located them, and used up all of the ziploc bags I bought in one size. Everything's nicely packages, and ready for almost anything. Now to get there...

A little slow posting- but off to RAGBRAI soon

A busy summer and life intervened, and I haven't posted in a while, so we'll give this another try. At this point, I'm about to head out to RAGBRAI, the Register Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa. This started back when I lived in Iowa growing up, and has grown and become even more of an event in the intervening years. They take registrations for 10,000 people to ride per day, and most estimates seem to say that at least 17,000 ride per day with the unregistered riders. Each day, the ride is a little more or less than 70 miles. It always starts on the west edge of the state and ends on the east edge, with a tradition of  "dipping your tires" in the two rivers that border the state- the Missouri and the Mississippi. I've been riding my bike from 40 to 130 miles each week, with my current total mileage for the year just a little shy of 1000 miles. Along with a little running and walking, I hope that makes me ready to do this. We'll find out soon. I'm taking tomorrow off to finish up everything I need for the trip, then heading to Dubuque by Friday afternoon. The car stays there, and I have a bus ride Saturday morning, with the bike and luggage, over to Sioux City to start the ride. From there, I'll update this blog as I find the time to do so and send occasional twitter updates from my phone. Hope to manage to visit with my Iowa friends and family, but still don't really have that arranged. Here we go...

What's this all about?

OK, so- this is me. I'm 50 years old. Don't think I'm having a mid-life crisis, but some might argue with that. I've been a computer geek since elementary, which makes me one of those "into computers almost before we had them" kind of guys. I both love and hate them. I went to some college, but didn't finish a degree. Went to a technical school for electronics, and finished that (non-degree) program. Never could decide if I liked hardware or software better, so kept working in a little of both. Enjoy science fiction in books, TV, and movies. In other words, I'm a fairly stereotypical computer geek.
   To go with that, I have been overweight since around the sixth grade. I had always been a skinny, weak boy, and I got picked on a lot.  I fought back mostly with words. The adults around me would keep saying, one of these days, if you keep eating your dinner, you are going to grow up to be big and strong. In sixth grade, I got tired of waiting. I started going through the lunch line at school twice each day, so I'd eat more and get bigger, and wouldn't get picked on so much. And I started eating without any connection to whether I was hungry or not.
  Serious history of heart disease in my family- my father and his brother both died from heart attacks in their 40s. Had always been told that I probably would have inherited that "bad heart", so I better take care of it. Nevertheless, I've been quite a bit overweight (classified "obese") for my entire adult life, and it just kept creeping higher. Finally, one day, I stepped on the scale and realized that I was on the threshold of 300 pounds. Somehow, 200-anything was not noticeable to me, but 300 seemed like too much. I'd been thinking for several years that I really needed to do something about that, but this seemed to push me over the edge to actually begin.
   That was in the fall of 2008. I put in a half-hearted effort for a little while, then started in earnest at the beginning of May 2009. Now, in June 2010, I have lost almost 100 pounds, and have made a lot of changes in my day-to-day lifestyle. I'm trying to live a new, healthier life. I'm starting this blog to record that story. I'll post some things about what I did in the last year or so while I've lost all of this weight and become much healthier. I'll also post things about what I'm still doing now, trying to finish the job I started. I hope I can work some things out for myself in the process of telling this story.I also hope that I can tell some others about the things I've learned along the way- and point you to resources that might help you if you are trying to do something similar.
   I'm definitely not an expert, so keep that in mind. I'm just offering up the information and opinions that I have gained through my own personal experience. Please don't take anything I say as expert advice- research it yourself, check with your own hired experts (doctors, etc.) and decide for yourself what's right for you.
   And the name? The people at work, commenting on the drastic change in my shape, have given me that nickname- "Beard on a stick". Seemed appropriate for the blog, so here we go. More when I have a chance.