Ragbrai- Day 1, 2000
Council Bluffs to Harlan, Iowa
Towns Visited- Neola, Minden, Shelby, and Tennant
57.6 Miles
1725 vertical feet
used by permission from Rich Ketcham and GeoBike
Prologue- Driving from Texas across the border from
Missouri into Iowa, the hills of I-35 became steeper, steep enough to
annoyingly downshift the truck into passing gear with each hill. All members of
the family were asleep except me, but that's ok because I was driving. Not far
into the state, things started looking real Iowa. The farm houses were bigger,
more colorful, and more inviting. Soon I saw one of the very familiar silos
with the bullet shape and the gray sides and white top and I looked at it and
smiled. I heard a loud whisper, maybe more of a "field of dreams"
type whisper that penetrated to my inside. It said "DAVE.. WE'RE GLAD
YOU'RE BACK" Later, I told the family about it and they just laughed.
That's ok, I'm glad I'm back, too. I can't wait!
Saturday- The Hawgs Go to Council Bluffs!
The trip from Waterloo to Council Bluffs on the 1972 Hawg Bus is never without adventure. When we saw the bus arrive and load with it's brand new primer coat of paint, we knew this time it might be different. Loading is always laborious. A Hawg secret- If you put your bike in the middle on the roof, it may be a bit less damaged when the inevitable obstructions are hit. Here’s Aaron’s pic of us jockeying for position. On our journey, at one of the many fuel and rest room stops which number the same as the number of exits on I-80, we turned just a tad early and remodeled a couple of the bike on the side of the load. See? We were almost there when I made a stupid comment to those around me how fine the bus had been and that we had only stopped for fuel 3 times with the leaking tank problem.... Then, BOOM- flap, flap, flap, flap, flap! All eyes turned to me. "Sorry". Spare tire? no... And we flapped from exit to exit until we were able to find Doug's tire in Shelby. Nobody was there. We considered quite seriously just camping at Dougs, since the ride was to come right through there on Sunday and we could sleep till noon, but the manager came in and helped us out. An hour later, Aaron shot this photo of the manager still helping us out. Soon, we were on the road again and made it without incident to council bluffs. Team Dawg camped next to us with their fancy bus. We'd be green (or primer) with envy, but it wouldn't be the same. They don't have boss hawg Larry, and they probably have to wash it every day.
Next it was tire dipping time. I only included this shot of leaving for the dipping because it is a very rare shot of yours truly without the stupid pig hat on. It may stay in Houston next year. Norm's shots are processed now and you'll see about 100 new pics. Here's another shot of the tire dipping. The night's revelry was a bit different. The announcement was made that all partying had to be done and the band was shutting down at 11 PM. That's when it starts getting good! (according to those that do that, of course). The crowd condensed everything into the hour that was left. It rained during the night. There's no sound like it.
SUNDAY- We started out early with flat terrain, a
wonderful road surface and the first 21 miles just were nothing at all. In the
first town, we saw a familiar treat at Ragbrai, Gary
McCurty, the Iowa Tubador. (photo courtesy of Aaron Eilers- many of the
photos seen here are his) And here's a
picture of some of your Dave's Ragbrai Page co hosts. Here's
Tara, Ruie, Aaron, and Bruce. Breakfast was in the town of Underwood with the Pancake Man.
We were also seranaded by "Byron Eames (used to) sing the blues", an
impromptu religious service. Ultralights entertained
us as we rode the route, often two feet above the corn. We met two Dave's
Ragbrai Page followers and wanted to give them cudos. Here's
a crew from my home state of New Jersey who say HI to those at home. And
here's two members of the Air Force Team that I ran into out of Tennant who say
hi. They are Win Downing and Joe Zaren.
Here's a recumbant tricycle.
Our final town of the day was Shelby, where we had our tires fixed the day before on the bus. They had the town all decked out with painted bicycles. Here's the arch. Here' Norm's arch pic. These are real bikes. Where did they get all of them? They are on every pole in town. I'll bet somebody riding through town now would think they were in Brigadoon or something with all of the bikes in town being ridden by pastel children. Norm's having a piece of apricot pie. He says it's the best he's ever eaten. Here's a polka band in town. The tuba player is real good! And here is your Ragbrai crew after arrival in Harlan.
Well, it was an interesting day. Bruce pointed out that our high speed down a steep hill with a tailwind with nose on the fork and rear end uplifted was a whopping 30.5 mph! That's a couple below Lance Armstrong's AVERAGE speed the other day. Wow! Tomorrow we have the day of the biggest hill climbing in 27 years of Ragbrai history. We did pretty well today, climbing hills quite fast and popping up the next. Newbies Aaron and Tara were awesome as well. Tomorrow may be different for all of us.... see you then. Links for Sunday-
The Council Bluffs Visitor and Convention Bureau