A week to go

Here we are with 7 days until we will be on that loooong bus ride to the western border of Iowa.  For those of you have not done the full drive across Iowa, its a long trip.  Now, don't get me wrong, I am not complaining about the ride out there.  Team Cuisine rides in style!! We charter a pretty nice bus that is stocked full of all kinds of goodies, both food and drink!

When the ride is this close the thoughts of what 2019 RAGBRAI will bring run constantly through my head:

• What will the weather be like all week? HOT!
• Did I train enough? Not even close. Thank goodness for muscle memory.
• What will Art's design of this year's jersey's look like? Fabulous, I'm sure.
• Will someone uninvited lay in my hammock again? God, I hope not!
• What will I eat?  Everything our awesome chefs cook us!

Tomorrow officially starts the week of preparation with the emptying of the attic at the Irish Inn, this year for the final time!! The Irish Inn is the home of Red & Kate McCabe, our gracious hosts as the starting point for the team for over 10 years, but as we come back from this year's ride the equipment will now be stored at my house.  As of right now my house has not received its nickname but I am sure it will be appropriately named before the start of next year.

Of course, the prep for Team Cuisine is year round.  Whether it is meetings with board members about how much beer and pop we need or a quick discussion with the chefs outside a taco truck, we are always working on the ride but it is a total team effort and it is amazing to see 30 people work together so well!

I really am getting to that pre-RAGBRAI state where I am at work in body only.  My mind has already started to wander to the rolling hills of Iowa and all of the great pie I will be eating in just 7 days.  Maybe I should start thinking about training instead? Nah, that's what day 1 is for!!

The final recap

While the week of ragbrai is my favorite week of the year, the week after seems to be the hardest for me. That post-ragbrai hangover is a tough one. Whether it's because I won't be on my bike that day, having to get back to the real world, not seeing my teammates, not eating all day or any of the other 100 reasons I could list. I miss Iowa and the people of ragbrai.

Of course reality will set in and this will all be a distant memory. I will continue to remember the crazy stories, the funny stories, the heartwarming stories and the amazing stories until they fade into the back of my mind.

As far as the weather goes, last week could not have been any better. Nothing to hot during the day and nice and cool in the evenings. The wind seemed to be a little weird with headwinds heading north for 2 days and when we headed south, the headwinds were back. The only rain we saw were some little drops one morning and a 30 minute storm one of the nights I was in my tent. It was so perfect that I am afraid of what next year.

That seems to be it for this year's ragbrai posts. If I try to keep reliving more to block reality a little longer I may post more.

For anyone looking to see some of our photos you can check out the Team Cuisine Facebook page.

See you down the road!!

The food recap

After having time to digest the week I started thinking of the food.

This week our chef team of Beau, Dan and Morgan rocked, as usual. With kicking off the week with my favorite of 'breakfast for dinner" things just got better and better. We discussed on the bus home all of our favorite meals and after everyone argued back and forth we decided that there is no clear winner of "best dinner of the week" since we all seemed to enjoy every last bite. It is amazing that after a week like that I can come home heavier than when I left.

It is easy for me to discuss the dinners because of the talent we have in our kitchen but they only do dinner so we are on our own for breakfast and lunch. What we do for that is stop in the towns or the food trucks that follow us along for the week. Here are some of the memorable meals that we had this week:

Breakfast:

Reinhart family farms-egg souflee sandwiches on foccaccia with 3 different choices of cheese.

Slipstream-a bowl of yogurt with a homemade granola and fresh blueberries.

Farm Kids-a group of actual farm kids that make up a breakfast bowl with eggs, bacon and a host of other toppings. These kids amaze me with how hard they work.

Lunch:

Custom grilled cheese at a food stand. You could add bacon, which of course I did, and a fresh tomato slice, also did that. For something so simple these were really good.

Salad bar. That's right a salad bar! A new addition in the towns this year was new to us for sure and while I did not partake in this my teammates sure loved it.

Dessert:

Pie:
One tradition of ragbrai is eating pie. I did not partake every day on pie, mainly because I switched between that and the ice cream sandwiches. The last stop we made this year was just a quick stop at a church where there were some nice Amish folks selling probably the best peice of black raspberry pie I have ever had. If I had more time I would have had more.

The ice cream sandwiches:
Thelma's ice cream sandwiches is a food truck that seemed to expand this year. I saw them on the road and in the towns. I did only make 2 stops to Thelma's this year but that was more because the lines were so long. I did have my standard peanut butter cookie with chocolate ice cream in the middle the first time but then I branched out and got the peanut butter cookie with banana ice cream. I can't say which one was better because they were both incredibly good.

I think thay wraps up the food for this year. Next year I am really going to try weighing myself before and after just to see.

The final day

Day 7 was a really long day this year so taking Friday off may not have been a terrible idea. We started the day off with the team picture at 6 am. That was not really that bad since it seems like we were up at 5 am most mornings any way. After trying to muster up a sleepy smile we hopped on the bikes for a scheduled 71 mile ride. Of course with our bonus miles we ended up with almost 80 miles for the day to make my total for the week, even with the day off, to 413 miles. Not bad for a week!

We rolled into the meeting point about 2 pm and we were the last group in. It was nice to see so many teammates excited to see me but as it turns out, they were less than enthused to see me but they really wanted to get on the road. We did get rolling after a quick bite to eat at a local watering hole and the best part of ending in Davenport is the ride home is much shorter. We rolled into the "Irish Inn" about 6 pm with a quick flury of activity to get everything unloaded, although this year our incredible support staff of Don and Chris had everything off the truck already. That is when the hard part starts, the goodbyes.

After 5 years with team cuisine it amazes me how 25 strangers from incredibly different backgrounds can be so close after 1 week a year together especially when you consider all the riding and on little to no sleep all week. The goodbye is a little tough knowing it will be 1 year until we do it again and in most cases I will not even see them until we get back on the bus next year. Only 356 days until ragbrai 2019!

The art of the SAG

Being one of the youngest members of Team Cuisine you would think i would ride every day but when duty calls....

After a rough night in the tent I started to get ready for a relatively easy ride I found out one of the cars needed a driver. After 3 milliseconds I decided I would step up and take one for the team, at least that's what I was telling myself. So started the SAG.

After a gruelling 45 minute drive over hills that would make me wimper on a bike we had a great breakfast at Billy's High Hat in Iowa city. It was a neat little cafe lined with pictures of famous drummers throughout the years. It was a cool little spot. Post breakfast it was time to drive to the house for the night and unload the truck. Not really near as hard as riding. Wrapping up my day in the hammock getting caught up on the blog was really a nice way to "take one for the team" 

Dinner tonight was a special one because our hosts are Kurt and Kim who were the owners of Devotay, until recently, and were our chefs for a long time. Of course with 35 riders descending on their house they still let Morgan and beau handle the kitchen. It is what they do!  The dynamic duo of beau and morgan whipped up fish dinner! We had wahoo/ono that was so flaky that it almost melted in your mouth. Along side that was a kale & carrot salad, potatoes & onions, the last of the cucumbers with a vinegar sauce, more fresh baked local bread and a pineapples/onion mixture that may have been one of my weekly highlights of a team cuisine. For dessert we had a homemade pudding with coconuts. Pretty good way to finish up the week.

After dinner was time to head to the festival to see the Jayhawks, this year's big name band. It was pretty darn good and in have always liked this band but watching a concert in a setting like that just isn't the same. Too many people talking around you. Still a great night.

Thursday?

First off, I forgot to mention that Wednesday night in Newton we had some special guests, uncle jerry and aunt jo. Jerry is riding 3 days and jo is his support team. Jo has dined with us before but jerry was new to our world and it seemed like they both had a great time. It was really special to have them there!

As usual I'm lost in the week. I know there were no trees for the hammock Wednesday and rain in the forecast so it was tent for me. With the amazing houses we've stayed at this year I will not complain one bit. It did however adjust some body parts to add some more soreness to the body.

Thursday's ride may have been the toughest yet. A long day with a lot of hills I was physically fine but mentally wiped out. I never felt that great on the bike all day despite being physically ok but luckily, when thought all was lost we had a wonderfully paved road with a tail wind for the final 10 miles which really helped. The overnight house was close to town so that meant after dinner it was time to go down and see Pork Tornado rock out covers of pop songs with a heavy rock tinge. It was great to see these guys again and we had a blast. I did have to tent again that night and when we arrived back to camp late I realized that in left the sleeping pad in the truck and that was locked home or the night so I was a little concerned about the night but oh well.

Dinner was chicks night! Morgan came in to relieve Dan for the last few days and her uncle's family recipe for grilled/basted chicken was outstanding. Along with the chicken we had a green bean salad and an onion/yellow squash dish that made up in flavor for how ugly it was. We also had sweet corn for the first time at dinner (I have had it 4 times at lunches) as well as a wonderful bread baked by Dan's baker friend. To top off the meal Morgan made he famous chocolate cake. It was heavenly.

Hump day

Connection issues again. With no wifi and 20,000 texting at once I was not able to connect for the last few days. Honestly, it's been pretty nice.

Wednesday was culture day. Mike and I rolled into the town of State Center after about 25 of our 60 miles done and heard some good things about the town's library so we decided to add a little culture to our ride. On the way to the library we came across the grocery museum in town. It looked a lot like the western springs store did at the beginning. After that museum we went on to the library which is in an old Victorian house. We were thoughroily impressed with the library and after talking to a few locals we were sent to 2 other museums, the old schoolhouse and the newly opened train depot museum. We talked to the ex-history teacher/mayor and learned a lot about Iowa then we talked to his replacement as history teacher about the train lines. It was so crazy to have such a cool experience while biking.

Speaking of biking, it was a pretty decent day with a lot of stops for food as well as the culture bit we needed them. Turns out the elevation totals looked low for the whole day but it seems like it was all compacted in to the last 20 miles. Headwinds and hills were a bear and the worst part was the text from uncle jerry telling me how bad the last 20 would be as we had 22 miles to go. Turns out uncle jerry was right, it was brutal. I was really glad to off the bike.

Taco night! Starting with a beet salsa with edible flower then a bean mixture that was so delicious that's all I wanted to eat but then the 4 types of taco mixtures it was hard to choose, so i didn't. I had all 4. Again, flawless.