The local flavor

To understand RAGBRAI you need to understand Iowans. If a ride like this went through the western suburbs of Chicago there would be some people that were angry about the mob of people on bikes swarming their town by the thousands but in Iowa I did not find anyone that seemed mad, in fact I found they were thanking us for coming.

As we come into towns throughout the ride we see lots of people sitting on their porches or parkways cheering and clapping yelling out things like "Where are you from?".  They take the day and just enjoy the controlled chaos, like you see below.  Thousands of people all at one time rolling into these small towns across Iowa and there is plenty to do.  Whether you are having breakfast at the fire station, lunch at the V.F.W. or just having a smoked turkey leg at one of the vendors there are plenty of food options.  Also you may see the town park full of music with a DJ or a band playing in the beer tent for more than enough people.  There are generally 3-5 of these towns between each overnight town, which puts on an even bigger party at night (Brett Michaels was there one night), and they're all very welcoming and hospitable.

As I think back about the ride I keep going back to the amount of graciousness and kindness of the people I met over the week and it makes me long for July 19th, 2015 so I can do it again!!!

The last day

There is a vortex of time that is also called RAGBRAI. On Tuesday it seemed that the end was so far away but now on the last day it seems like it went too fast and whatever day it was you couldn't figure it out unless you looked at the daily map.

Saturday was an interesting day. We began in Edgewood instead of the regular overnight town, Independence. This happened because of a housing choice to be made. There were no houses with the team's specifications in Independence and there was a team family friend in Edgewood and we were glad we did. The house is on over 200 acres of wooded land and had a gigantic yard for my tent with plenty of room inside who are not as insane as I am and sleep indoors when presented with that choice. But the most important perk was that were almost at the end of the ride. This house was right on the route but almost 50 miles ahead of the other 9975 other riders so we had only about 25 miles to ride. This was great for the obvious reason, its the last day and my ass is sore, as well as an important reason, being very hilly towards the Mississippi so the huge hills were nicer (almost enjoyable) not having to ride 45 before tackling them but most importantly, it gave us a huge jump on the mass exodus out of Gutenberg with our choice of all the services. We found a great bar to decompress while we waited for the bus and had food, drinks and listened to music (I still back you on yhe Katy Perry Art!) until our 1 pm departure that was still far ahead of most of the other riders.

As I write this on the bus, which is way less raucous than the ride at the start, I am reflecting back on the week with a huge a smile on my face remembering the great time I just had with Team Cuisine and how wonderful it has been in Iowa. I will have a few more posts about this week as I remember more but for now I need to sleep and begin to adjust to life outside of the RAGBRAI time vortex.

This one wasn't fun

Friday's ride started a little rough and ended up kicking my ass. The rain started about 3:15 am and since I still insist on renting I was outside. My tent was a champ and I was dry as a bone, but not for long. I set off about 6:15 with skies promising rain but nothing yet. After a short 10 miles to the first town we began slowly riding through and the skies opened up. A soaking downpour kept us busy but mother nature was not done with us yet. The winds shifted a little and came from the north with a nice biting chill. While heading south on some decent hills the 22 mph sustained winds were tough but the gusts almost stopped you cold. To make matters worse I got a flat but fortunately it was in front of a church that was inviting people in to warm up. With the flat fixed I was dreading getting back on the bike until I saw my saviors. There are a group on Team Cuisine that are from Washington D.C. and I saw two of them, Lynn & Tom, just as they pulled up to the church. They asked .e to ride with them and they had a way better attitude about the ride than I did which, in turn, made mine get better. After a couple dirty jokes, I was beginning to enjoy the day.

After an unusual whole team SAG we arrived at our overnight host house for dinner. Dinner Friday was a black tie affair, a item I was unaware of until we were in Iowa, so $5 trip to goodwill got me a jacket & tie to go with my shorts, t-shirt, sandals combo. I looked good but the pics attached show I was severely under dressed.

Dinner was sockeye salmon with a mango and cherry salsa, Orzo with garlic, a green salad and green bean almonds with Spanish almonds that were the best I'd ever had. This was the first meal in 5 years Devotay repeated a dish and I see why. This was my favorite meal of the week by far.

After dinner is now time for the Spokesmen, our traveling band consisting of John "Red" McCabe on drums, Tom Tallman on bass and Jeff Teppema on guitar, vocals and all around keeping this mess straight. And speaking of the band, they're on so I have to listen but I will post from after tomorrow's cake walk 25 mile ride to the finish.

The art of the SAG

The first year I did the ride I felt it necessary to ride every last mile and I did. From then I realized that I am on vacation so why work so hard. So Thursday I hopped in a SAG (support and gear) vehicle and started just short of halfway.

Another awesome day on the road that equaled about 40 miles and I relaxed and rode with Mr. Tom O'Brien, another Team Cuisine teammater. We stopped in several towns and since we were so far ahead of the rest of the pack we had no lines.  I got to try Beekman's ice cream, Tender Tom's turkey tenders & had a smoothie, all things that would normally have about an hour wait.

Dinner was pork, pork, and more pork. We had a Berkshire pork loin, a bread pudding like no other I have ever had and a red quinoa salad with beets, radishes and corn. That was one of my favorites of the week.

Looks like rain for Friday but we will head on and see what happens.

A perfect RAGBRAI day

So I have done about 18 days of RAGBRAI and Wednesday was about as good as it gets. With no wind, almost no hills and a perfect temperature for a quick 40 mile ride.

Because of the way the team works, rolling into the overnight town before noon will do you no good and with a short day and a 6:30 am start we would have been in too early so we had to lolligag for the day. We stopped in every town from Forest City to Mason City and saw what they had to offer. My favorite part was the Surf Ballroom. The Surf Ballroom is the last place Ritchie Valens,  the Big Bopper & Buddy Holly before the plane crash that took all of the, also known as The Day the Music Died. The picture attached to this post is of the stage.

Despite sightseeing and dragging into town we still got in pretty early and enjoyed the relaxation for an afternoon.

Dinner last night was something our chef for the week,  Kurt from Devotay in Iowa City & Edible Iowa, made us an amazing lasagna (possibly better than my wife's so I hope she skips this blog post & doesn't read this).  There was also foccaccia bread, rattatoullie and a salad. Kurt did joke he was told not to ever make a dish that we could get in town, which lasagna is at every church in all towns, but this was, as Kurt put it, "not church lady lasagna" and he was right.

Decisions

Today was a day of choices. Do I do the 100 mile route? Do I take a nap? Do I tell anyone I skipped the extra 26 miles?
The answers, no, yes & yes.

An early start this morning got us on the road by 6 & finding us heading into a gale force headwind that was bringing with it some menacing looking clouds. These black blobs left as quickly as they came in with no rain at all so I felt as though the day would turn out to be a good one, and it did.

On the third day of RAGBRAI there is always an option of doing some extra miles at one point to equal 100 miles for the day. I have done this once during RAGBRAI and got a patch but would like another, if not for any other reason other than to rub it in Schultz's face. This year was going to be that year until I decided a nap was in order. I got to the halfway point of the 87 mile day I had to make the call and after biscuits and gravy at the American Legion for breakfast. I made the right call. The rest of the day was filled with heat, rolling Iowa hills and a wind that wouldn't quit and I was getting a little tired of it so the extra 26 miles would have been a mistake.

We rolled into Forest City about 4 and got cleaned up for dinner. Tonight was an Asian beef stir fry along with a pea pod salad, crab & mushroom wontons, lamb wontons,  grilled zucchini & a clear Chinese noodle dish that was phenomenal. I am still full and very grateful that my dinner didn't come from a food vendor in town that would have been on a stick, and not like we had last night.

Tomorrow is an easy day with short miles, good forecast (hopefully with no wind) and relatively flat ride but its after 10 and I need to go to sleep or I'll fall off my bike tomorrow.

Monday meal

This is going to be a short post. I just need to update all with the menu from last nights dinner.

In keeping with the Iowa tradition of eating food off a stick we had a skewered meat fest for dinner. Marinated Brazilian skirt steaks weaved perfectly on sticks, ground lamb with rose water and spices shaped on a stick and bacon wrapped grape tomatoes on a.......fork. No, wait. A stick. Those were all out of this world but that wasn't it. We had a green salad with radishes that almost tasted sweet and two types of grapes and a rice dish that had orange peel in it. To top off everything there were marinated, grilled Michigan peaches. Also there is wine but I'm not going to drink it so I kinda don't pay attention but it was an Australian cab/something mix that made people rave about the pairing.  Its a good thing I'm burning

What will my marriage survive? Apparently anything.

With day one under my belt Monday, on paper, was gonna be a piece of cake. On paper. With our location from the start of the route we were already 10 miles to start but not an issue, yet. I had the tremendous pleasure of having my wife ride with me because I told her "you can do 40 miles easy!" and she did but there was the 10 miles at the start and, as it turns out, another 10 at the end to get to the next house bringing the total to 62. A mark that is considered to be a metric century (100 km), an honor my wife did not care about one bit but she was a trooper and pedaled her ass off & rolled into Emmetsburg with a smile on her face. The other great part was we took our time in the towns to get to enjoy what Iowans are capable of while extending their welcome.

After bidding my wife goodbye for the next couple weeks I was able to shower and get caught up here but I have to cut short because dinner is about to be explained and I can't miss this. I will regale you with tonights menu in tomorrow's post. 

Goodbye for now from Emmetsburg.

Day one. Whatta day it was

Nothing is as easy as it seems. A relatively flat day that started out in the 60's turned out to be a scorcher with some challenging winds but the day turned out to be perfect.

First was the riding. With my family waiting at the end I pretended I was in the tour de France for a day and blasted through the 86 mile ride in less than 5 hours. I made it to the house to see the family before noon, a feat that was surprising to most, including myself.  This riding style did, unfortunately prevented me from tasting the local Iowa fare, a habit it will not continue the rest of the ride.

That is where the day got better. My family was excited to see me and after a quick shower to wash the filth off I spent some quality time with the wife, kids, mother in law and various other cousins, aunts & uncles.

And then the topper, my first official team dinner with Team Cuisine. Beer battered,  deep fried whitefish with  baked beans, cole slaw,  potato salad and a spectacular tartar sauce. It was so good my finicky son even ate everything.

Over, a very eventful day, the main reason this is a day late, but one surrounded by great family, friends and delicious food.

On the road

The bus arrived at 7 am and were all loaded and on the road before 8. This team is one incredibly well oiled machine that may not quite knkw what they have added to their mix but this is truly a great group of people I am riding with this year. Don't get me wrong, riding with Matt, Matt, Chuck & Tom was great but we didn't ride out on an air conditioned bus with a bathroom so Team Cuisine has the edge already.

This day so far has been getting to know everyone and catching up. Even though I am a newbie to this team I have been around them for the last 5 years so I am a familiar face (& sense of humor).  There is a true newbie on the team this year who has never ridden RAGBRAI before and he is doing it in style although I may stretch a few stories a little about rides past to make him think things won't be perfect like they always are.

We are just about to our first town of Rock Valley, a town that was devastated by flooding only a few short weeks ago, for a hero's welcome that will have all the townspeople chanting our name "TEAM CUISINE.  TEAM CUISINE." After we are heralded,  the unloading begins. I have heard the first unload is a lot of work but I am afraid they mean because the newbies do it all.

Tomorrow's ride will take us to my family in Okoboji and will be the only day this week I plan to put my head down and fly (& to me flying is going to average about 15 mph which won't get my wheels off the ground) through the day so I can hang with the wife and kids but the rest of the miles after that, I plan on taking my time to enjoy the corn.

Another year, another ride 2014 RAGBRAI

Here we are less than a week away from the Des Moines Register's Annual ride across the great state of Iowa and I am already packed, totally excited and nowhere near trained well enough but that is what day 1 is for right? Training?  We shall see but keep your fingers crossed for me!!

After taking a year off from RAGBRAI, 2012 was brutally hot and almost cost me two long time friendships, I have decided to return to Iowa to ride across its majestic corn fields.  This year, however, I will be riding with a well established team, Team Cuisine, instead of trying to figure it all out on my own every day, which was fun its in its own way but this way but this way will lend to a more stress-free ride.

Looking ahead to this year we have a relatively flat (YES IOWA HAS HILLS!!) and pretty short at only about 420 miles so this is shaping up to be a great year.  On top of the ease in the route this year I am fortunate enough to have the first overnight town to be Okoboji and, as many of you know, this is where my family is for most of the summer so I will get to spend the night with them, plus I have talked my wife into riding day two with me, and for those of you who picture my wife struggling to finish the 42 miles from Okoboji to Emmetsburg you are sorely mistaken because she is in WAY better shape than me and will probably kick my ass all 42 miles.

As I have for the last couple rides, I intend to blog throughout the week and with housing set for each night I will have a better chance this year but we shall see.  With the lack of training I may need to go to bed at 5 pm every night and not even open the computer.