Nick and I drove out to Monday’s overnight town, Greenfield, butt-early. We planned to ride the 77 mile course to Indianola and then ride back to Des Moines, making it a 100 mile total. The weather forecast predicted rain in the morning, followed by a little clearing and then “scattered thunderstorms” starting late afternoon. I have ridden and played golf enough to know “scattered” means raining right over your head the whole time, so I was a bit skeptical.
We drove into dark grey, ground to infinity, cloud cover that spit light rain on the windshield. Temps were soaring into the low 60’s with a steady 10-15 mph wind. I wished I had a rain poncho. Nick, who had a poncho (aka parachute), wished he had my arm warmers. We geared up about 7:30 and rolled around town a bit looking for another chum, Matt, who was doing the whole across Iowa thing. He was going to wait out the rain so Nick and I pressed ahead.
Greenfield was hoppin'.
Once on the route we were greeted with hill after rollercoaster hill. At least a nice downhill accompanied most every uphill. For quite awhile we were tracking directly behind the rain clouds, watching them lightly water the road ahead of us. The headwinds were steady, so the first 20 miles went slowish, which was fine since we still had 80 to go. Here's a nice DM Register photo, its actually from later in the day but it gives you a good idea of the general hillitude.
Orient was the first town. My wife tends to worry a bit, and if you've read my blog before you can probably see why. She was out of town on business so I told her I'd text her along the way. All these pictures were supposed to be picture/text messages, but she didn't get any of them. I didn't find out about the FAIL until two days later. What's that they say? It's the thought that counts.
We were welcomed into Macksberg by the sounds of a crowd hootin’ and hollerin’ accented with the clank of metal on metal. A closer inspection found a frying pan toss game set up with side by side cages containing crash test dummy style targets. A dollar got you two chances to knock the basketball head off the dummies. This Des Moines Register video sets the scene.
There was a tense moment when the thrower in alley #1 got his pan offline and sailed it into alley #2 and waaay too close to the cranium of a young lady who was retrieving pans. When good clean hillbilly fun nearly turns tragic its time to move on. Before we departed Matt caught up to us. He was none too happy about all the hills and rain from the previous day and the resulting dampness of his shorts, but he got over it.
On we went, mile after mile, hill after hill. Gradually the light rain stopped and it warmed up. Getting pretty hungry, we stopped to eat in Peru where I had the world’s smallest beef burger. I’m still irked about it. Someday Peru (shaking fist), I’ll be back for my other scoop of hamburger meat! You owe me, you know you do.
Peru, pre-sandwich incident.
Actually, I’m not so sure I want to mess with Peru. Their EMS vehicle may be circa 1971, but it says ATTACK on it. I assume they would use this to chase me outta town, should I ever return for the rest of my (where's the?) beefburger. We did have a few beerz there, which softened the blow of the bun-heavy sandwich.
The sun came out around 2:30 or so, when we just about to leave Truro (I think). Riders started shedding clothing. Almost immediately a guy dressed in only a speedo cruised past……I thought some more clouds might be nice.
Rolling on, we found the Rassy’s repair stand set up about 2/3rds of the way through the route, which is a good place to be if curing sick bicycles is your aim. We stopped to lightly heckle Squirrel who was doing his best to beat problem bikes into submission.
RAGBRAI bike rack
The last few miles into Indianola were hilly, only without the accompanying downhills to give you greatly needed MO for the climb. Nice touch. Coming into town the course cut across a very rough, but short, stretch of gravel/blacktop/something road. It seemed rougher than it actually was because it was mile 75 or so. Getting to smooth pavement was a relief but there were two short, but substantial, climbs left. The last one was a real doozy, definitely the steepest of the day. Col de la Indianola. Whew! Done.
Wait.
Crap.
Forgot.
Riding back to Des Moines.
Ugh.
A $3 steak sandwich served the dual purpose of bringing me back to life and making recompense for the sandwich wrong that had been perpetrated in Peru (shakes fist again).
We made our way back to DSM via the Summerset trail and back roads. The gradual downhill out of Indy and gentle grades back home were a pleasant change of pace. We looped Banner Lake twice before leaving Summerset just to make sure we’d have the 100 needed for my first century (Nick’s too). Woot.
As if that wasn’t enough biking…..
The Master Plan called for us to retrieve Nick’s car in Greenfield the next day, so we threw the mountain bikes on my car and picked up Corey for a ride out at The Stash, a little "sorta secret" mountain bike trail built and maintained by a friend I'll call "Natt". More on that and some rightous content on my new - PURPLE - singlespeed in another post.
2 comments:
No dude, I'm Natt. He's Mick.
Nice write up. I'll stand and shake my fist at Peru as well.
I got a century in on tuesday too. took the cummings detour for some beer.
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