It Only Takes One

I slept well last night and even despite more constant train activity it wasn’t bad at all. The rain stopped early and it was good sleeping temps. Even though I woke up early to write the blog it was nice to take my time packing up. Everyone was going a little slower this morning because today was only a 40+ mile day with two towns. 

I think it was 7:25 when we rolled out of camp!  By far the latest of the week. Mason City really showed up to cheer us out of town. They had people at all the cross streets stopping traffic and there were so many just hanging out and cheering us on. It’s always nice to see the people of the town excited to have us there. 

It was over 20 miles to the first town so we stopped for a Brewer breakfast brat and some homemade cookies. Breakfast of champions of course. We had good roads and a tailwind for quite a while this morning. When we hit Floyd county the roads went to crap. We went past a fossil dig site. I decided not to dig for fossils. Now that I think of it…maybe Floyd county considered the road a fossil and that’s why they haven’t repaved it!

Rockford was a fun little town. I ended up chatting with the Director of RAGBRAI for a bit. This is his first year directing the ride and honestly if the weather and wind is always like this he can be the director for life! He said so many more people did the century than they were expecting, but it’s because the conditions were so favorable. He also said he has warned all the first time century people that they don’t always go that way. 

The Catholics came through with some strawberry pie. This was fresh homemade stuff and delicious!  Their little town mascot was named Rocky so I got a picture with him too. 

I know I’ve said in the past that you can expect to see anything and everything. This year the “I’ve never seen that before” was the guy who has ridden every day in his cowboy boots. I’m not sure how or why he does it!

When we got to Marble Rock they had lots of things to see and do. Their historical society has an old jail, cabin, barber shop, etc. They had lots of photo ops and were doing lots of things on donation. So I got a root beer float and popcorn!  Popcorn for the second time this week…maybe it’s becoming a new RAGBRAI thing!  As I was riding out of town I saw the sweet corn stop, so you know I had to get some! 

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Leaving Marble Rock I knew I only had 16 miles to go. Unfortunately I also knew some of them would be into the wind. What I didn’t know is that the wind was pretty strong and sucky!  If I’m being honest the ride so far as been pretty “easy” in terms of conditions. Today was a good reminder on just how challenging it can be and luckily it only lasted 8 miles. Of course the wind turbines were loving the wind xtra wind today!

I got to camp first and got lucky number 136 on the shower chart!  I think you’d have to get here by 10 am to be below 50. 

There was a kid walking through our camp with a T-shirt he wanted people to sign saying where they were from. Leland is 6 and going to be in first grade this fall. He was quite the character but we got him a few more states he didn’t have. 

The charter ordered pizza for everyone today so it’s been nice to have pizza in camp. Since we got done riding so early it was a nice to have a post ride snack. I’ll still need dinner tonight, but pizza never hurts!

New friends Christopher and Jason are killing it every day on RAGBRAI!  They did the gravel ride on Tuesday and the century yesterday so they are pretty much professional ragbrai’ers. They are riding heavy touring bikes and said that they would treat themselves to new road bikes if they finish RAGBRAI. I think they are well on their way to new wheels. Ron and Janine are doing well too. They finished the century yesterday and today they played with baby goats so I’d say they are doing RAGBRAI right. 

Tonight I went to the entertainment and downtown with Christopher and Jason. We had a good time chatting about jobs, travel, family, and dogs!  They are suu III per good people and I hope I can see them again the next time I’m in Chattanooga!  I may just need to do that race again after all. While we were down there they had a string band playing and they were really good. Based on what I’ve heard from the main act I would choose them over the main act. 

In case you need a little pick me up today watch this video: https://youtu.be/50_7Mz-pfmM This happened a few days ago and is a perfect example of what the people of Iowa mean to RAGBRAI and what RAGBRAI means to them. I didn’t get to see this in person, but all it takes is one person to change someone’s day!  Kindness, generosity, and positivity is contagious but so is negativity. You want to be spreading the right kind of vibes!  The minute you stop to talk to someone new or buy lemonade from a kid you’re leaving an impact. Make sure you are impacting people in a positive way!

For the day I covered 47.8 miles and 1211 feet of climb. The “easy” days are over and these next two days are going to be much longer with a lot more hills.