Gah! We rode RAGBRAI almost two weeks ago! Let’s see how much I can remember about the ride!

Me, Dad, Will’s sister Julie, her daughter Ashleigh, and my brother-in-law Will

We typically ride the last day, but this year, the route went to our hometown, so we chose to ride that day (Day 4).

The estimated 67.9 miles (actual – 69.2 miles) was going to be my longest ride of the year! I wasn’t worried about the endurance aspect of it, since I’d been training, but I was concerned we were supposed to have record heat – a high of 100° with feel-like temps near 110-115°. Blah.

It turns out our whole crew – me, Dad, my brother-in-law Will, and his sister and her daughter (who decided to join us the weekend before!) – was concerned about the heat, so we got to the starting city, Iowa Falls, just at sunrise so we could start as early as possible and hopefully beat the heat.

We left the truck in a spot my mom and snister could find it (they were going to drive there and get it and bring it back – thank you!), went to the bathroom, and got started around 6:30 am. It was about 73°, and we had a beautiful, hazy (due to wildfires, ugh) sunrise.

It didn’t seem like there were that many less riders due to COVID-19

On the ride up we all discussed that it was fine if we split up for the ride, and that we’d all meet where Mom and Snis were going to leave the truck for us in Waterloo. So we started together, then it was me and Dad for the rest of the ride. We ran into Will’s sister and her daughter near the end, but we never saw Will after the start.

I was really concerned about us taking in enough fluids (along with eating enough) so we made sure to AT LEAST drink water every 5 miles, and eat every 10. So, lots of Clif gels for me and Dad, and lots of filling up our water bottles in towns, along with drinking Gatorade and Vitamin Water.

I was hiding rocks along the route (of course), and was excited to see the (a? it’s so confusing) Freedom Rock was in our first big passthrough town – Ackley! I hid my first rock there. Of course, I only took video for Reels, so I have no photos. Ha. That’s so unlike me.

Notice how hazy it still was, 15 miles in? It stayed hazy, then overcast, for our entire ride, with a slight breeze, and we were SO grateful!

Dad and I kept plugging along, listening to the music I was playing, and chatting a bit. We rode through the smaller towns, but walked through the bigger ones. My stomach was growling by the time we got to Parkersburg (34 miles in), so we split a burrito there. It was one of those instances were nothing sounded good but I knew I needed to eat, then the burrito tasted AMAZING!

While we were eating, we saw a lady find the rock I hid and she was really excited about it (and later commented on my Facebook page about it) so that was fun!

The next few towns – New Hartford, and Janesville – were under 10 miles apart from each other, which is perfect for me. I like getting off to walk and drinking and eating a bit while not riding. It was killing my dad’s plantar fasciitis though, and I felt so bad! His foot must have been stiffening up on the bike then it hurt so bad, at first, to walk. Ugh.

We saw Will’s sister and daughter in the last big town, Janesville, while we were getting food (corn dog and french fries), and that was when we found out Will was ahead of all of us. I’d thought they were together (and ahead of us, until we started texting which towns we were in at which times and I realized they weren’t), but Will rides a recumbent and was so worried about the sun coming out and getting in his face that he rode straight through and didn’t stop at all, and finished about 30-45 minutes ahead of us.

Oh! We saw dad’s doppelganger in Janesville – the same one we met on the trail in Dubuque!

The last stretch from Janesville to the finish in Waterloo felt LONG – 16 miles. I felt physically fine except my toes were starting to cramp (this happens every year – I need to look in to riding sandals) so I stopped to stretch them out. I was so glad I was finishing with Dad, who knew where the hell we were supposed to go downtown – there were signs, but they were small, and a lot of them were for campsites. Some riders don’t go to the finish, and go to their campsite early, so you can’t necessarily follow the crowd! Will said he had to look at his phone multiple times to know where to go – I would have had to too!

But we finally made it to the finish, bought a bunch of merch, rode to Dad’s friend’s house to wait for Will’s sister and her daughter to meet us there, while enjoying the cold drinks Mom had put in a cooler for us.

Then we went back to Snis’s house and she ordered takeout and we shared all our stories from the day!

It was 84° when we finished, and still overcast, but the sun was starting to come out as we waited at the truck. We’re so glad we started when we did! We averaged around 12.6 mph, which is what I expected!

I’m really grateful I get to do this with my Dad each year. It’s a lot of fun – there’s so much people watching, and so many interesting things to see, and to eat! And this was a year that wasn’t too hilly, so that was a nice bonus!

I hope the route ends in Guttenberg again, soon. It was so fun to end our first RAGBRAI there!