RAGBRAI XXXIX (39) - Preparation

So I'm riding RAGBRAI again this year.  I've heard from several friends and family that they enjoyed my blogging the last two times I rode, so I'm going to attempt to do it again.  I'm going to try something different though this time around.  Instead of lugging a laptop around all week I'm going to attempt to use my smartphone and a bluetooth keyboard to do my nightly posts.  Might even be able to do some GPS stuff depending on whether I can keep my phone charged all day on the bike.  Maybe Twitter too during the day.  We'll see how that goes.  :)

My goal was to get at least 500 training miles in by the weekend before RAGBRAI starts, and then to take the last week off.  I'm pretty close now with somewhere around 450 miles in and a week to go.  Shouldn't be a problem.  The last time I rode, 2005 I think, I didn't get quite 500 miles in beforehand...and I was riding up until the Wednesday prior to the ride start.  I definitely felt the ride was harder then the year prior when I'd gotten more training miles in.

Course....I'm not 34 anymore...  :)  And the body at 40 doesn't recover as quickly as it did even 6 years ago.  Probably carrying around a few more pounds too...though I've lost about 6 since I started riding this summer.  I'm crossing my fingers that I'll have trained hard enough.  A few more 20 mile days going in to work, then one more long 50-70 mile training ride next weekend and that should about do it.

I've still got the Cannondale R300 that I rode last time.  It's a nice reliable bike, but I had Mark at The Bike Shop in Macomb put an adjustable stem on my bike this year so I could raise the height of the handlebars a couple inches.  My hands liked to go numb pretty quickly prior to getting the new stem.  Thanks Mark!!

So some of you may have gotten this far and thought to yourself, what is RAGBRAI....well I'll tell ya...

RAGBRAI is the "Register's Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa".  It's not a race, it's a ride.  Somewhere between 10,000-12,000 official riders attend every year, but I've heard that number can be double on some days due to unofficial riders who show up just to ride along with everyone for that day. The route is different every year, but it always starts somewhere on the west side of Iowa and ends somewhere on the Mississippi.  This year the ride begins in Glenwood and ends in Davenport.  There's no official start time, you just get moving when your ready and stop when your done.  I've heard that you can sit in one spot on the route for 12-15 hours and constantly see riders going by.

Every rider does it differently.  There's the "early risers" who get up at 4ish (too early IMHO) so they're done and in the next overnight town before lunch (and beat the heat). The "racers" who usually leave later in the morning and get into a big peloton (line of cyclists) and just ride as fast as they can until they get to the next overnight town.  The "partiers"....the crazy people who drink beers all day and into the evening...stumble out of their tents in the late morning..and do it all over again (I don't know how they survive or even get to the next town).  The "exhibitionists"...those who ride unicycles, roller blades, trikes, 50 year old steel frame Schwinns, seat-less (yes seat-less) bikes, and all other manner of crazy contraptions.  And then there's people like me.  Not in too much of a hurry...but try to get on the road early (pre-7AM) to beat the heat, enjoy riding through rural Iowa (crazy right?) with a bunch of people you don't know, stopping to see interesting things in small towns along the way that are full of nice people, eat just about anything you want because you're burning a couple thousand calories a day...especially lots of great homemade pie, and relax in the evenings.  What more could you want.

That's it for now I think.  I lost my old RAGBRAI blog during our move to the new house.  It's still on a server somewhere in storage and I may try to revive it.  It'd be fun to read them again.  Anyway....talk to you all again soon.

Matt