July 29, 2010: RAGBRAI

Tour du France? Bah, what a waste. :rolleyes:
All those guys peddling for days, getting all sweaty and surrounded by so many gawkers, press and officials, they don't see a damn thing.

Now RAGBRAI is what you need, boys and girls.

RAGBRAI®, The Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa®, is an annual seven-day bicycle ride across the state.
Heading into its 38th year, RAGBRAI is the oldest, largest and longest bicycle touring event in the world.

The route varies, but this year those guys could have seen where 8000 POWs were housed, the Surf, where Buddy Holly, The Big Bopper and Richie Valens played their last concert, and Rembrandts and Picassos at the Charles City Library, and the recreated bow of the USS Juneau which sank with the Sullivan Brothers.
Honestly, doesn't that beat gawkers/press/officials, hands down?

link

My knees hurt.

My ass hurts.

WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!

Spuck, I would normally say you are leading with your chin, but I am not sure that is the correct anatomical reference here.

Cueing Sheldon in 5...4...3...2...

... and the course is a perfectly straight line all the way

SPUCK;673355 wrote:

My ass hurts.

A friend of mine is going a bit further.

SPUCK;673355 wrote:

My ass hurts.

I warned you. And that was just from the rimming!


Happy Nil? :-)

Lamplighter;673395 wrote:

... and the course is a perfectly straight line all the way

Nope, but it did have only 14,527 feet of climb this year. :sweat:

I have a real fondness for Iowa... but in Iowa, 14K gain in elevation also means 14K down hill. ;)

One visual memory I have is from a business trip to the U of I.
A student was wearing a sweat shirt emblazened with "Iowa Mountaineers" !
I thought it was a joke until my family and I were backpacking in the Canadian Rockies,
and we came upon a group of I.M.'s doing a climb.
My naivete changed to respect.

Check out the Chronology in this link.

Did they work in outer space?

Just found out one of my friends and her kids are doing one leg of RAGBRAI today during their vacation trip to the midwest.

Lamplighter - Unfortunately, that 14k down only gets you the speed to coast about 1k up. The rest is up to you.

I happen to live in this year's starting point. I have never seen so many bike racks in all my life, and people were camped everywhere. Kind of makes me want to get back into shape and give it a go myself some year.