My Last Bike!

masi cxr

Ragrbai Day 8

Stick a fork in me I am done.  7 nights in a tent and 8 days of riding have finished me off.  The last word came from above in the form of a bad thunderstorm and torrental rains nailing down my choice to be done here in Waterloo.  Right at 500 miles now and my legs are toast and i feel drained totally.  I had an amazing week of riding now for some R&R at home.

Location : Juniper Dr, Waterloo, IA 50701,

Ragbrai day 7

Ouch.  The camping/sunburn/milage are starting to get to me.  Still good spirits but bad legs dogged the last 20 miles at 10- mph so far 485 miles today 87 miles only 110 to go.  Good times.

Location : Juniper Dr, Waterloo, IA 50701,

Awesome.

I even got the shirt

Location : Grant, IA,

Doing great!

Only 2 more nights in a tent at least!  24 miles left today ill break 500 miles tomorrow.

Location : Grant, IA,

Dike, Iowa

No really.

Location : Grant, IA,

Not sure if the pics will work in sms messages but here goes

Dan got his first b2b 50 milers or 2 day century in today. I survived another day of ragbrai 3 to go. I love riding but am counting down till the end now.

No connection for day 6 but many stories from the road. Hung out with Dan Frye all day, non stop ride from begining to end got to Charles city at 2p next post

No connection for day 6 but many stories from the road. Hung out with
D

Ragbrai day 5

Hot and windy!  Fast ride but still got to the wedding late but NBD hit the after party drinking hard lemonade on the beach.  Sun burn anyone.

Location : Address not available

Ragbrai day 4

Good day over all started out slow but ended up with some friends on the way.  Had the worse mechanical failure ever, broke a stem the handle bar came off in my hand.  I road 8 miles to the next town with the bars zipp tied to my front rack.  Ouch!  Found some of the Bikeiowa crew after i got a new stem ($97) Ouch, ouch!  Did a little better pace for the rest of the day got dropped by the rodies 28mph and counting and my 36/11 and 106lbs bike left me OTB.  Now im hanging out in a 'dance club'  with 10 other people but $1 pints... :) Cant post this today no signal so the date will  be wrong

84 miles today

268 total



Location : Address not available

Mechanical :(

Oops....

Location : Whittemore, IA,

Storm Lake

Good times here.  Hung out with people from several different states then road down to the route for some food.

Location : 826-898 Vestal St, Storm Lake, IA 50588,

Day 3

Made storm lake at 11:30am now have nothing to do for a while 35 miles today 175 total.  Very much recovered from friday and ready to roll.  Met a guy by the name of Mike Stout on m50 and road the last 20 miles together into storm lake.  Company always helps and increases your pace.  Only 2.5 hour ride today though

Location : Address not available

Ragbrai day 2

Not sure why bloger sent my post to the Great Computer but it did so....  I made it to

Blackhawk lake (35 miles) and recovered a little.  Tomorrow going to storm lake to catch Ragbrai.

For today legs 5/10, Core 3/10 (until beers) mental 7/10 but a little  bored 

Location : Address not available

Bagger goo packs

Vodka shot.  I started out early today since i cant sleep past 6 am anymore.  Not much sleep last night with major storms and the heat so Im taking a short day and only going to blackhawk lake then into storm lake in the morning to catch day 1 in the overnight town.  Hung out in Breda with some of the Bad monkey team had a couple beers (pre-noon)  Now im almost to the lake for about 32 miles today total.

Location : 3701-3765 Perkins Ave, Wall Lake, IA 51466,

Ragbrai day 1

Today : 104 miles

Total : 104

Made it to swan lake in 8.5 hours pushed 12.5 avg all the way with 2 stops one at Ethels in yale and one on the gravel at 260/g ave.  Over all legs I will rate at 5/10 with a little left Core at 2/10 bonked hard at 80 miles and mental at 10/10 I feal great!  Now a couple beers at Denny's resturant in Carrol (not the chain dennys)  then 4 miles back to camp to crash for 10ish hours of sleep hopefully.  Correstionville tomorrow about 70-80 miles

Location : 323 W 3rd St, Carroll, IA 51401,

260th and G ave

Its great on gravel when you get somewhere and realize ive been here before....but not today :)  72 miles in ?? To go

Location : 323 W 3rd St, Carroll, IA 51401,

Yale

Half way point had so beef sandwich with gravy and believe it or not iced tea.  Just ethels is good food.  Making good time on day 1 avg 12.5 mph should be to camp before 5pm

Location : Victory, IA,

Last day before the great annual bike race across Iowa

or is it a Ride? I'm leaving tomorrow morning for a long 700+ mile adventure across Iowa with a loaded touring bike with EVERYTHING on it. I packed for comfort so:

Tent

Sleeping bag

5 Changes of clothes

Food

Spare tire (great story from last year)

tubes

And I of course since I'm not a "Bagger" really did not pack a camp chair.

My ride out is about 220 miles and I dont believe I will make Sioux City but I will cut into the course in the first town (Kingsley) hope to kill myself on pace day one (105 miles) to Carroll I will be opting for gravel roads so I can get in a dirty metric this month. Then day 2 (75 miles) backing the pace down alot. Updates will come on the road I will be posting here but staying off Facebook for the week.

Never too old :)

Flooded my arse!

Thinking...

Really i have decided i have an anger-mgmt problem.  Also a negative outlook problem.  Im not sure what the fix is for these problems but I'm sure that some bike milage will help for a couple days.  So off to sort my issues tomorrow on Iowa gravel roads with I think my single speed 29r for a long long metric.  We will see how thay goes. 

Location : 601 6th St, West Des Moines, IA 50265,

New Trails

Got to Iowa city yesterday to order my cross bike frame and took the opportunity to check out Sugarbottom. The trail was 'open' at least the high water access. The trails have had the same hard year that our trails in des moines have had with wash outs and reroutes. One spot I waded up to my waist to get through. I only got to ride the green and blue sections on the north side of the park but I hope to get back when the water is down a little and ride all of it. I might make a good camp out weekend at some point. I almost forgot the freaky pontoon bridge that almost put me in the lake wow. I love ride new trails.

Sugarbottom here we come

Tunnel Ride 2010

beer run

Cool shades

Mmmm mud.

Single Track

Got a short couple hours to hit some Mountain bike time on the single track last night. Move a couple deadfalls from hillside still have a couple to chainsaw, however the mosquitoes are out of control over there and you almost can't ride fast enough to keep away no less run a chainsaw. I really hope to get into Denmans before Ragbrai and clear the couple deadfalls in there. I have a couple hours to ride Tuesday night after work I will be taking a scouting lap on center and possibly getting down on thursday with a ton of bug spray and clearing some stuff. Anyone up for some Chainsawing? I'm hoping to have it cleanup before Ragbrai.

Getting ready for winter.

I have decided to sell my winter commuter and since I don't use my 26" Mountain bike for mountain biking I will use it. The above picture is the first piece of 'Bling' for it Dynamo hub since almost all winter riding is done in the dark I will not be messing around with charging junk this year! I got a good E-bay deal of $50 so I couldn't pass it up now the only other thing I would like is a set of Hydraulic rim brakes so at least the brakes will work at -10.

Last spoke cards?

its a little sad to see these cards since it marks then end of spoke 9 cards. These 2 will not go on a bike ill save these 2.

Candyland

Slick.

So i finally got peer pressured into shaving my legs. I have to say not really feeling sorry for all the women and the years of complaints. Not that hard. All I'm saying.

Back 2 Back Centuries 5&6

I wanted to find part of my route to Ragbrai and an overnight stop so I tried out Swan Lake state park. The park is about 4 miles south of Carroll and is about halfway to Sioux City. I took The racoon river trail to Jefferson then hit the Gravel roads. My route was a little curvy and had one main problem missing bridge on E53. I seem to have big problems with missing bridges so I looked at the reroute it involved about 9 miles on highway 30. Then I realized I was right next to train tracks and that the creek is only a couple hundred yards and I can use the train bridge. This is the way freaky part of the ride the track section there is double high speed as I walked the rocks next to the tracks I watched trains on a 5 minute intervals come though at 50-60 mph so I figured I had 5 minutes to cross. The bridge had access grids on both side so I would be okay on the bridge if a train did come while I was crossing however I wanted nothing to do with that considering I was walking metal grind with no railing a hundred foot up or more. This walk across the bridge ranks #3 for terrifying bike moments right after my first mountain bike ride and lighting striking 10 foot away in Wisconsin. I had pictures of the bridge but I'll get into that a little later. The rest of the ride was very calm and peaceful and as usual I started to get tired around 100 miles. I had a nice stay at the park, very large park with swimming, fishing, camping, and showers/restrooms. The only bad part I guess was waking up a 5:30 am and realizing someone had made off with my camera and wallet. I only had $4 in my wallet and one credit card so no big deal other than I was 100 miles from home and all I had left for food was a granola bar and a slim jim. The camera was good riddance but they could have left the memory card so I would have had pictures from my ride but I'm glad to replace that piece of kodak junk. There is also my new freshly chewed wallet I got for fathers day. I started home right away (6:30) since I was going to ride most the way without food I figured use the morning as a good head start. My cell phone had got turned on overnight so the Batteries where dead I thought if I wait till I'm almost to Jefferson I might get one phone call so my wife could call in the credit card and possibly meet me in Redfield for lunch, it worked one call for 5 minutes. The trail Nazi's are bad on the RRT this year they actually blocked the trail a mile outside of yale and were checking trail permits. If I had paid this would be kind of annoying, since I had not payed it became a 10 minute lecture involving me lying about paying and the trail asshole quizing me about when were etc. I suppose I will pay for it I just hadn't got around to it. Had a good lunch with the family in Redfield fried chicken, mashed potatoes, chicken wings, and a couple $3 bottles of beer best lunch ever.

So the things I have learned :

Bags go in the Tent at night

100 miles is my distance limit with a loaded bike

carry food just in case

new camera

prepaid phone with better service area

gravel roads around Jefferson are sandy