Riding RAGBRAI with Karen Keninger

IDB Director Karen Keninger has embarked on a week-long journey across Iowa as part of the 10,000 or so bicyclists traveling the state on RAGBRAI. This is the 38th year of RAGBRAI (The Register's Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa), and it begins in Sioux City and goes 442 miles to the Mississippi River in Dubuque. Karen will document her adventure each day, telling of her experiences not just as a blind woman on a tandem, but as a native Iowan embarking on what some would say an impossible trek across a sweltering landscape of farmland, rolling hills, old prairie and small towns.

This is her story.

Friday, July 23, 2010 (2 days before the start)

I'm planning to attempt RAGBRAI next week. 450 miles across northern Iowa on the back seat of a tandem bike. It is the 38th year for RAGBRAI, and the first for me. It's supposed to be one of the shorter and flatter RAGBRAI trips. My biking partner BJ and I hope to make it all the way.  

Why RAGBRAI? Several reasons. First is the physical challenge. I have a desk job and a pretty mediocre physical exercise regimen. I want the challenge of something physically demanding. For a week I plan to put my  brain on hold and do something different.

Another reason is Iowa. I want to experience the small towns and the back roads of Iowa. I want to soak up the sun, the sounds, the smells, the scenery in a new way.

Biking will put me in much closer touch with the landscape than riding in a car ever can, and BJ's running commentary will fill in the visual details. 
 
I want to learn a little about some of the towns, meet the people, and visit some of the history and culture they have on display. Oh, and eat the food. Come along with me as I write, and share in the fun, the excitement, and the challenge.

DAY 1

Sioux City to Storm Lake (68.5 miles)

The first day of RAGBRAI was great. The weather was beautiful, clear, dry and in the 80s. An amazing number of people were riding. BJ and I got a later start than had hoped and headed out of town with thousands of bikes. There were lots of hills this first day, including one awesome one into Washta. Our tandem got up to 42 mph--wheee!!

Our tandem is slower on the uphills, but faster on the down. We arrived in our destination Storm Lake around 3 p.m., but we found there was no place to camp--all full. Luckily, we talked a lovely lady named Virginia into letting us camp in her back yard.
 
It was a beautiful evening, and now we are breaking camp to head out for day two.
 
So far so good!!

*Editor's note: Due to technical difficulties, Karen was unable to update her daily log along the RAGBRAI route. Read about those difficulties here.

The remainder of her story follows:

First of all, I had planned to blog as I went along. I learned that in campgrounds with 10,000 people after a hard day's ride, it's impossible to get an Internet connection. And in the morning there's no time. I also learned that my battery is losing its ability to hold a charge. So I didn't do the blogging I had hoped to do. Here it is all at once instead.

I learned that Iowa isn't really the 300 or so miles across that I have always believed it to be. No, it is 447. A bit of a difference--a minor triviality achieved by going north and south a third of the time you're planning to go east. Even west a time or two!! If you don't mind an extra mile for every two, you can make the whole trip on county roads, some extremely smooth (Floyd County must have resurfaced in anticipation of our coming) and some very rough and somewhat broken up.

It is very hilly going north out of Sioux City to Storm Lake. One hill down into the town of Washta got us going 42 MPH--Wheeee!! But with perfect weather and an "I can't be the first one to quit" attitude, we made it in good time. Only to find out that all the camping places were taken. Maybe it wasn't such good time after all? We were instructed to haul our 70 pounds of luggage plus bike and tired tushes 8, maybe 10, blocks to the high school and see if there was any room left there.

Meanwhile, an older woman was sitting on her porch watching all the people go by. We stopped. Could we camp in your back yard? Well, you could sit a minute if you're tired. We sat, we talked, and she realized we were not beer-toting youngsters, and it might be safe to let us camp in her yard. After a while she decided we passed enough muster to offer us her shower. Heaven was with us! A little more sweet talking and she offered to leave the door unlocked in case we needed the bathroom in the middle of the night. We said no don't do that if it makes you uncomfortable. When we got packed up ready to leave, she had breakfast ready. What an angel!! Turns out she had wanted to be involved somehow with this RAGBRAI community effort, but wasn't quite sure about how. She'd heard stories and all. And she had spent the last 25 years caring in her home for one aging relative after another. Her mother had passed away recently leaving her alone for the first time. She seemed happy for our company.

In fact, everywhere we went we were welcomed with open arms. Cheerleaders, little kids, older folks, flags, kites, banners, arches, everyone turned out in every town to watch the parade of bikes go by, waving, calling encouragement and welcome, wishing us blessings and good luck, offering food and drink and often free water. Each town turned out their best for us. We in turn bought food and drink. For BJ and me, drink meant loads of water and an occasional Gatorade. Alcohol was not in our plans. We hit five to eight towns each day.

I learned that the people who are crazy enough to ride bicycles that far in a crowd of 10,000 of their closest friends are pleasant, polite, thoughtful, interesting and neighborly people. I was a little surprised to see how considerate everyone was of each other and the townspeople throughout the entire week. I saw a mom who had been towing a little girl in a tagalong all one very long day, cheerfully chatting with the little girl, upbeat, affirming. I saw actually a lot of family groups--adult siblings and parents as well as some smaller children. I wouldn't take a small child on a trip like that, but some people seemed to be doing it successfully. Some were admittedly having a little less luck. For the most part everyone followed the rules of the road, calling out as they came up behind you, keeping their distance, making sure their comrades were OK. Some groups traveled together with these rather obnoxious sound systems set in coolers on the back of the leaders' bikes. Some were very loud and because it was not generally my favorite music, it was annoying. Solution--slow down and they'll be gone soon!

We saw all kinds of bikes and all kinds of people on the road. Two guys were using hand-powered recumbent bikes, probably paraplegics or amputees. Two guys were riding the old-old-fashioned high-wheeled bikes with no gears. They were more fit than I am!! One of them was wearing traditional old-fashioned wool clothing and assured me it was cool and comfortable! (Mom always said wool was cool but I still think of winter blankets and scratchy underwear!!) A bunch of people were riding those recumbent tricycles. They were slower, but steady. We saw lots of tandems, mostly with couples on them. Some three and four and I think one five-rider long bikes with families, too. Some people were all dressed up--one as a shark in a recumbent decked out like a boat, and another a banana in a boat. One guy was standing working a ski machine contraption instead of a bike. And one day we passed a jogger. People of all shapes and sizes, too. And all ages including a significant contingent of retired people. One night we had dinner with a couple of retired guys from North Carolina and Texas who were on their fourth cross-country bike trip this year. They had already done one in Florida and Louisiana and one in the Rockies.

There were lots of teams--team Iwanna for instance (I wanna get off this bike; I wanna chocolate sundae; I wanna new jersey), Team Aardvark, Team Pork Bellies. I was wearing a Twinkies jersey which got a lot of comments including Team Twinkies! Also 150 members of the U.S. Air Force Cycling Team and another cycling team from the U.S. Navy. Somewhere we saw a Pink Floyd bus on which was painted the slogan "Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to live." BJ was wearing a Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon jersey one day. Someone came up behind and called it out, and he shouted out that slogan. Then the guy came along side--How about this? He asks--he was plenty fat! BJ was more than a little embarrassed!. Oh yeah, we also saw a few young jocks wearing thongs, which elicited this from a passerby--"I don't know but I've been told, wearing thongs is mighty bold!"

A lot of people traveled with their own personal music which we got snatches of as they went by. Also snatches of conversation as people passed. Serious business discussions about buying and selling, insurance, and job hunting; quips and comments between partners; gossip; where's the next place to eat?; etc. One guy gave me a full fountain of youth spiel as we rode along. He vowed he had not been on a bike since 1982, had not trained in any way for this trip, was in his 60s, and was taking "the Amazing Molecule" which was giving him the strength and stamina of a 20-year-old. This "Amazing Molecule" he assured he, is produced by a young body but diminishes with age. His new therapy, drug, or patent medicine replaces it and rejuvenates the body--a veritable fountain of youth (he really used that term). He talked about double-blind tests at the Tour de France, and promised me it would be available to everyone soon.

In the campgrounds, people were neighborly, friendly, and generally quiet. It's very possible, though, that they were setting up a major racket and I didn't hear it. I slept hard every night! It felt very safe in spite of the huge numbers of strangers around me, and I had no sense of needing to worry about things being stolen. Come to think of it, when you're traveling on a bicycle, there's not much room for cargo anyway! And if you're tired enough, sleeping on the ground, even lumpy ground, isn't that hard to do. Amazingly, there were no mosquitoes anywhere we were. I don't understand that.

I learned that riding across the Des Moines Lobe* over two days from Storm Lake to Clear Lake, through towns some of which I'd never heard of--Varina, Pocahontas, Plover, West Bend, Whittemore, Algona (overnight), Wesley, Hutchins, Britt, Garner--you find wind farms, hog farms, cattle feeding operations, vast stretches of corn and bean fields, and very flat terrain. It's actually not as much fun riding flat. You don't get to coast, and no Wheee! Experiences after a hill climb. From Storm Lake to Algona was 79 miles in perfect weather. From Algona to Clear Lake was a much harder 54 miles because it was ten degrees hotter and significantly more humid that day. We actually took a short cut by the end of the day because we were so hot and tired and cut five miles off the trip. We had a grand thunderstorm that night which cleared out the humidity and gave us lower temperatures for the next day's 51-mile ride to Charles City.

Many of the towns, as I mentioned, put on entertainment--bands, beer gardens and church suppers. In Swaledale we saw the world's only walking junkyard--a contraption built of junk gears, etc. run by an engine so it clanked and whirred doing nothing, going nowhere. He also had a "Horseless carriage and a wind-powered car on display.)--but Cartersville wins the prize. On the hottest day, they set up a contraption like a trapeze. You grabbed the bar and they swung you out over a pond where you dropped into the water. What fun!! It made the front page of the Des Moines Register. They took the picture of a young man doing it before the jumpers started stripping. When we were there a huge crowd of bikers was watching--this was before the nude bathing and before the sheriff shut down the fun!!

I learned that once you come down off the Des Moines Lobe, that plateau that the glaciers flattened out in northwest Iowa, you reenter gently rolling hills and cross some small streams and rivers, including the Shellrock, and the Floyd rivers. More trees, more ridges, more corn and beans. I should note here that corn fields are a critical element of RAGBRAI. Some are even posted "Ladies", "Gents". There's a reason for that! Every day biking along these county roads we saw blackbirds. A typical one was sitting on a corn tassel screeching tiredly at us. Bikes had been going by that spot for hours, and this poor bird was trying to defend its territory from the invaders. It had given up swooping at us hours ago and just sat there on the corn tassel warning us of dire danger if we came too close. Often at home we'll have them swooping at or just ahead of us trying to draw us or chase us away from their nests as we bike past. We passed an area where Devonian fossils are a main attraction around Rockford, and a pipeline compression station somewhere out in the middle of the prairie. Also a place with a12-foot berm and signs warning of danger within. Wonder what that was!!

Charles City to Waterloo was the longest day--81 miles. The weather was good, the hills were gently rolling, and the roads in Floyd County were great. The county line into Butler County was pretty obvious beneath our tires though. Unfortunately, we came upon a mass of stopped bikers waiting for a Life Flight helicopter evacuation of an injured cyclist. He was thrown from his bike in an accident, hit is head, and died the next day. I learned that nothing is safe, even if you're wearing a helmet as he was.

Waterloo threw us a major party with three bands, a big beer garden and lots of concessions and everything right there on the campgrounds. The middle band was all Beatles music, done in the personae and costumes of the Beatles. They expected us to sing along, and we did not disappoint them. It was great fun. The third band was pretty loud and could be heard everywhere, but I didn't notice--fell asleep and slept hard.

I learned that when they say pack everything in plastic, they mean it. I had been doing so, but that night I decided to repack and took my clean clothes out of the plastic bag where they were getting a bit musty. Packed them neat and tight in the bottom of my bag. Left the dirty stuff and the stuff wet from the shower laundry in plastic. We got everything stowed and on the truck about the time it started to sprinkle. As we ate breakfast, sitting in the grass by St. Demetrius Greek Orthodox Church's concession stand it started to rain harder. We put on raincoats. By the time we got on our bike and headed out, it was raining seriously. A summer warm front rain--steady, constant, occasional thunder and lightning--the kind that can last for hours. And it did.

I learned that riding in the rain won't kill me--yet. But it's hard going. My raincoat might have kept me dry if I hadn't tried to dump the water out of the hood on the fly and instead dumped it down my back and over my shoulders. But if you pedal hard enough you can stay warm enough in there. The raincoat breaks the wind--the headwind--which was making the trip harder. Some people flapped past in improvised garbage-bag rain gear. Others had none at all. It was head down slogging for 34 miles. At one point we stopped for BJ to use the cornfield. I was standing by the road holding the bike. Lightning and thunder cracked nearby. I was mighty glad when he came slogging back through the weeds!!

We stopped for a pork chop, and got cold standing in line. This was our second time stopping with this vendor. He has a cooker made of a fire box and a grill. He uses corn cobs for fuel, and the pork chops are fantastic! They just hand you a pork chop with a napkin and you eat it that way--yum!! We all went into an obliging farmer's machine shed to get out of the rain while we ate. The people without rain gear were really suffering. When we got back on the bike it took some time to pedal hard and fast to warm up again. The good news--no worries about sunburn! We rode for 34 long hard miles in that rain, wind and hills. It gets hillier the farther east you go, after all!!

This was a day when two of the pass-through towns, Jubilee and Shady Grove, aren't really towns, aren't even on the roadmap. No welcome committee, no place to shelter. Just a couple of people wishing us well from a roadside shelter. It finally quit raining by the time we got to Rowley, and by the time we got to Quasquetan it was downright beautiful summer day.

The last 25 miles were very pleasant, but I was really really tired and had to stop for ice cream to get my blood sugars up. This ice cream vendor has a rig that uses an old Maytag one-cylinder hit and miss gas engine to crank one of the ice cream buckets. And the ice cream was really good. We had also stopped at Pastafari, which caters to the vegetarians among us. Great pasta though. All these regular vendors set up in farmers' yards along the county roads and follow RAGBRAI along. Tom's Turkey, Peanut Butter Jam, Chris Cakes (pancakes) and a couple of others did the same thing. You really didn't have to go very far to find food or water or Gatorade.

When we got to the camp site we found plenty of room, and our bags. RAGBRAI transported our bags in a semi trailer. You carry it on in the morning and pay attention to when you got there. They take it to the next town, dump it all out on the ground by time loaded, and wait for you to come and get it. It was raining hard at 9:00 when they dumped it out on the ground, and it kept raining for several hours thereafter. My bag was soaked. Remember all that repacking I did? The only things that were dry were my BrailleNote, which as secure in plastic, my pillow, which was also secure in plastic thank heaven, and my really dirty clothes, which were alas also securely wrapped in plastic. Everything else was soaked. I should add that the tent and sleeping stuff were dry because they were in BJ's duffle bag and not mine. No hope of drying them either because we got in really late and it was spitting rain again. Oh well. Wet things dry pretty fast if you're wearing them on a reasonably warm summer day! It should be noted that I was very tired and I must confess a bit on the grouchy order this evening. It had been a really tough day! But we only had one more to go.

All week I had been listening to bikers whiz past me pedaling a million miles an hour. We passed some ourselves, but were definitely in the lower half of the pack speedwise. We tend to take the slow and steady approach, and when I have to pedal fast I feel rather put upon! But the last morning, when we had only about 20 miles left to go, we picked up the pace. I was amazed that now I could actually pedal fast--well OK, not like all those kids and super fit people, but faster than before--and not want to whine about it! Had I really made serious progress in my training?

I would like to have had the time and the stamina to visit the treasures in each of the little towns we passed through and stayed in. But time, and stamina did not allow that. Between the sunburn--oh yes did I mention that?--and the tiredness, and the time it takes to set up camp every night, stand in line for food (did I mention the lines--long, patient get to know your neighbor lines?--there wasn't much left. However our ride home left from Dyersville, so rather than go all the way into Dubuque, we took the opportunity to explore one of Dyersville's treasures--the national farm toy museum. They had some hands-on displays of pour-molding and injection-molding processes which were very interesting. They also had the history of the Farmall with an original ad for CultiVision for the tractor I have to mow my yard, the Farmall A.

And finally, a celebratory sit-down-in-air-conditioned-comfort lunch and the ride home.

Overall, it was a fantastic, grueling, demanding and exhilarating experience--and we did it!! Hurray! And, well, I might do it again--we'll see!

We made it!! All the way to our destination, which was our ride home. A bit short of the total RAGBRAI trip--we stopped in Dyersville instead of going onto Dubuque, but we could have finished if that had been the plan. Someone asked me what I had learned on this trip. Let me see if I can share my lessons with you.