RAGBRAI Day 2

Best day on a bike in a very long time! I woke up with the sun feeling refreshed and ready for a long day on the bike. After a couple of muffins, some fruit snacks and a cup of coffee, I was ready to go. The initial plan for the day was to ride the extra loop and earn century loop patch. The only catch was we had place to stay just outside of Whittemore (the second to last town of the day) so we wouldn't get the 100 miles in anyway. Either way, I decided to leave the panniers with the van. I know, that wasn't the most "self-supported" way of doing things but you have to admit, lining up someone to carry your stuff on RAGBRAI is (or at least sorta is).

I rolled out around 8:00 with Ben and Cody only to catch my friend Emily, her boyfriend Adam and Thad from Lincoln Velo, right outside of Storm Lake. I joined up with them and my day quickly changed from a long one to a leisurely tour of small town Iowa and it was awesome. In my opinion, today was the best way to enjoy RAGBRAI, ride fast between towns, then take your time at each stop, enjoy the food and beer gardens and take naps in the shade.

Met up with Ben and Cody again as they were making their second pass through Plover while riding the century loop (*it was only 90 miles).

Our bikes rested while we enjoyed some time in the shade.


Bikes and bikes and bikes and bikes and bikes and more bikes. Everywhere you look there are bikes. It's really a sight to behold.


While stopping along the side of the road for nature (as Phil Liggett calls it) we stumbled across an old barn with some kind of weird farm parts on a shelf. Emily was being creative and decided to set up a photo.

A candid shot of Adam and Em while trying to get the camera positioned correctly and the timer set.

We stopped in West Bend for a six pack of Mikes Hard Lemonade, oatmeal cream pies, doughnuts, and ice cream. Please don't pass judgement.

I saw some friends of Greenstreet on today's ride as well (sorry, no pictures). Omaha's own meteorologist extraordinaire, C.T. Tonklin passed me in a pace line in early in the day. I got to chat with Erin G. the ever charming Greenstreet ladies' rider in Plover. I also saw our friend Eric A. still recovering from a run in with a car last month, but riding for the week all the same. Last night a couple of other Greenstreet customers said hello as well (I can't remember their names but if you said hi to me on RAGBRAI stop into the shop and reintroduce yourself and I promise I'll never forget your names again).

Our host house for the night was great, the family cooked us an awesome dinner of lasagna and sloppy joes.

Later in the night our hosts drove us into the overnight town of Algona to check out the expo. Regional cover band, Vic Ferrari rocked the crowd with pretty good covers of artists like Bon Jovi, Bowie, and Guns N' Roses. The highlight of the night was their rockin' rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody.

It was a late night but our hosts had one of the softest yards in the Midwest and the weather was perfect.

RAGBRAI Day 1

So last night after a 30 pack of keystone light worth of flip cup, we broke our no Smash Mouth resolution. As you can imagine, ‘the mouth’ totally rocked Sioux City.

Smash Mouth serenading RAGBRAI with "All star"

Cody rocking out to 'The Mouth'.

This morning came early. My alarm sounded at 6:45 and I managed to catch another 20 min of snooze time. By the time I got out of the tent, everyone was up and packing up the campsite. I quickly took down my tent, put it away (still wet from dew) and loaded my panniers. After a quick tire dip in the Missouri River we were off.

From what I hear, it's not an official RAGBRAI until you dip your tire.

Team Greenstreet 2010 left to right: Molly, Eric, Clint, Mike, "Boca" Mike, Sean, Julio, Me (Andy), Cody, Ben, Paul, Beth

I was pleasantly surprised at how well the Masi Randonneur handled under a full load. There were even times during the first half of today’s ride that I forgot that I was riding a 60lb bike. It handled great, climbed pretty well and was super stable on the downhills.

Our first stop of the day was at the Farm Boys burrito stand for breakfast. $5.50 was a bit much to pay for a breakfast burrito but hey, it’s RAGBRAI and the burrito tasted awesome. We continued along the route stopping again for Lunch at Mr. Pork chop, also overpriced, also fantastic.

By about mile 45 or so, the weight of my bike started to take a toll and I had a hard time keeping up with the rest of my group in spots but as we approached the overnight town of Storm Lake, we all joined back up and rolled into town together.

Basically, the day consisted of a lot of food, a lot of people on all kinds of bikes, and a fair amount of beer.

In Storm Lake we were treated to a great yard to camp in and hot showers from our gracious hosts.

RAGBRAI Day -1

After a late night of packing and repacking my gear, I got up around 6:30 AM and by 7:30 or so I met up with Ben at his place to cruise up to Sioux City. We had initially planned on all riding in our trusty team van but space was a bit limited so Ben managed to talk his friend Matt into driving him, Julio and me up separately. We’ll see how things shake out for the ride home.

We arrived here in Sioux City around 10:00 AM. The ride was pretty uneventful. The soundtrack was provided by Julio’s iPhone but due to a lack of proper connecting cables, we were forced to listen to it via the iPhone’s built in high fidelity speakers. I opted for a nap and arrived relatively refreshed.

One of the more intriguing features of the RAGBRAI Expo (aside from the free Smash Mouth show of course) was the “World Tire Changing Championships”. I stumbled across this booth while exploring the Expo and decided to make a run for the rainbow jersey. Seeing as how I change a fair number of tires on a daily basis, I figured I’d have a valid shot. Going in I was told that the top 5 times would be called back for the finals. The top time was 1:20 and the fifth time was 1:40. I’d never timed myself but I was pretty sure I could come in sub 2:00 so I chipped in my $2 and gave it the ol’ college try.

So here’s how it works. You are given a wheel and a tube. The wheel must be laid on the ground and you cannot touch it until the timer says go. When the clock starts, you need to deflate the tube, remove the tire, remove the tube, install the new tube, install the tire, inflate the tube to 100psi and remove the pump head. One minute and twenty-five seconds later I was sitting second for the day and feeling pretty good about my speed tire changing skills.

At about 4:50 PM, I got a call from the “World Tire Changing Championship” folks telling me that I had 10 minutes to get back to the Expo for the “World Championships”. I mounted my bike and headed out as fast as I could only to show up at 5:02 PM, thirty seconds in to the finals. My bid for tire changing immortality was over. So, while I missed my opportunity for greatness, I can take solace that according to the folks at RAGBRAI, I’m one of the top five tire changers in the world. For being a final qualifier, I did get a consolation prize of a new(ish) Bontrager floor pump. I have no use for this seeing as how Greenstreet is a Specialized dealer and I already have a floor pump. So, if anyone is looking for a new floor pump, I'll be willing to trade this one for some good used bike parts.

The rest of the night should consist of trying to avoid the Smash Mouth show, playing euchre and killing five and a half cases of Lucky Bucket.

…oh RAGBRAI…

RAGBRAI Day-2

It never fails, every time I get a loose end wrapped up before a trip, five more things unravel. The last week has been no different. While lining up supplies for the week, I discovered busted shock cord in my tent poles, a missing tab on my sleeping bag zipper, and a handful of other minor problems with my camping gear. On top of that, I was dealing with a rather pesky SRAM drive train the shop that needed to be fixed for RAGBRAI. Fortunately, SRAM’s warranty department was on the ball with two clutch overnight replacement shipments and I was able to get everything else squared away in time to get my panniers packed with 8 hours to spare.

Pannier #1 15.1 lbs


Pannier #2 14.7 lbs

This trip being my first venture into bicycle touring, I’ve been constantly worrying whether I’m over packing or under packing and have had the sick feeling that I’m forgetting important. As it is, I’ve got all I’ll need packed into two panniers. One pannier holds my tent, netbook, repair supplies, sandals and a fleece shirt. It weighs about 15.1 lbs. The other contains my sleeping bag, thermarest, toiletries, and cloths. It weighs 14.7 lbs.

As a rule, I’ve never been much of a social media kind of guy. Sure, I’ll update on the shop’s facebook page from time to time and I’ve started a handful of blogs (all of which consisting of one or fewer posts) but I don’t use twitter and my coworkers post more status updates on my facebook page than I do. So logically, I presented the idea to Ben (my boss) that if he’d let me outfit a touring bike to demo, I’d blog about it. That conversation ended with the temporary addition of a 2010 Masi Speciale Randonneur to my stable, the creation of this blog, and me volunteering to ride RAGBRAI self supported.

RAGBRAI starts Sunday and I'll try to check in with some photos and comments as often as I can.