RAGBRAI 2023 Day 1
The group I am with this year are early birds so I was on the road by 6 am. It was cool, in the upper 50s for quite a while which was nice but I’m not awake til about 9 usually. Riding with morning brain haze!
One good thing was the roads were not that crowded. My other group doesn’t get going til 9, the busiest time in the morning. Still riding in this crowd of bikes is a major change after riding solo on my west to east venture. I got to talk to folks but also had to put up with loud music on boom boxes and people constantly telling me they are on my left. No kidding Dick Tracy! I can hear your crappy vulgar rap music for miles.
As the sun rose higher in the sky temps increased. I think it topped out at about 80. The small pass through towns were crowded as usual so I biogases them by taking back roads. One advantage of this is you often find stores with food and drink that no one on the ride are visiting. My first meal was a can of Hormel chili with beans, chocolate milk, and an electrolyte drink. Luckily I had my trusty camp spork with me. I a man only carrying my basket bag that has some essential items so I feel a bit vulnerable not having all my gear with me. I’m used to having my entire ensemble of bags with all my belongings and feel more secure should a situation arise where I needed a different shirt or pant. But my bike is sure lighter.
My new tires are narrower than the old and not nearly as supple. I feel more road bumps than before. And being smaller they are lighter an don’t exhibit the same amount of rotational kinetic energy as the larger tires. Those tires acted like fly wheels once you got ‘em up to speed.
After my fancy canned meal from Dollar General I stopped for pie and ice cream, a fountain coke, and free beer and hotdogs. Then it was off to visit my old team not was good to see the guys again and drink their beer. I must have had 4 too many. And they had excellent pulled pork with Craig’s (their driver) special BBQ sauce. I tried but he would not give me the recipe. Tomorrow they are having chicken with that sauce so I may have to visit again. I took them some grease sweet corn and cucumbers I bought from a farmer just down the road and hope they make good use of them.
I then peddled around Storm Lake to visit my buddy Charles from Florida but apparently he had some heat induced difficulties and had spent time in the ER. Hope is is good to go tomorrow.
By this time my new team was almost ready for dinner and the outdoor shower was taken down, so it was a cold splashing from the garden hose for me. Actually this is quite refreshing and often entertaining for the neighbors, if not a bit difficult to get to those hard to reach places without giving onlookers too much to talk about. Good thing I don’t have too much to talk about in the first place.
Let me see what pics I took. Never mind, so many folks here are online the cell services are over loaded. I may not even be able to post this tonight.
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9 months ago