Monday, July 20, 2009

Ragbrai-- Red Oak to Greenfield Iowa




This was a great scene of the riders leaving Stanton. They go on forever.


The big joke around here is "What is the biggest can in the world?" The answer iss "An Iowa corn field during Ragbrai.
Although every stop has a ton porta potties the lines are always 20 deep so there is a lot action going on out in the country.

When I first saw this I immediately thought of those scenes from "Field of Dreams" wherethose guys would walk in and out of the corn. Now we knowwhat they were doing in there. I admit that I used the field 4-5 times myself today and I had to be careful where I stepped in each one. It was tough to find an unused spot sometimes.


More Field of Streams. One thing should be noted about peeing when on a bike ride (at least for guys) is that the urge increaes when it starts raining. Yesterday it rained off and on several times so the number of stops increased accordingly.



Even more Field of Streams.
On a somewhat related note it is a fact that among serious bikers you will see very few hankies. All have perfected the art of blowing the nose using one finger and keeping the bike on course and up to speed, even on a 35 mph downhill. We are talk8ng about highly skilled marvelous athletes here.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Today's ride was 73 miles plus extra travel thru the various towns and there was over 5000 feet of climbimg. Some of the hills were attention getters and a lot of folks were walking bikes up inclines. Many other gave up riding part way thru and had sag wagons pick them up. On top of that there was a strong head wind for 30 miles or so and it rained steady for the last half of the day. It was interesting listening to people grumble about the conditions. I on the other hand felt good all day and finished strong. I would hate to think that all the miles since March 1 did not add up to something. Right now I think I am in the top 5500 of this bunch. Tomorrow is another 75 mile day and it will be interesting to see how folks hold up.
Posted by Picasa

No comments:

Post a Comment