498.5

Last week I biked 498.5 miles. I must say that is an all time high for me and it was great fun. I participated in RAGBRAI, the registers annual great bike ride across Iowa. The ride is held every year and every year there is a different route. They accept 10,000 participants. But then there are anywhere from 5,000 to 10,000 additional riders that join on each day. The weather cooperated, it only rained one day, and the ride itself was very nice. I have to laugh because I actually was really excited on the days we biked 60 miles. 60 became my new 25 as I biked across Iowa.

The ride started in Sioux City so we went and checked out all the pre-ride events. Let me tell you if you like to eat pork in all of its varieties this is the ride for you.

Each year the bikers bike from the Missouri River to the Mississippi River. So it is tradition to dip your back bike tire in the Missouri and when you finish your front tire in the Mississippi!


The ride itself is like being a part of one huge parade. Each town you ride through throws a huge party for you. The ride is also known as the party on wheels. There is lots of biking and beer to get all the bikers to each town. I would say for me it was the ice cream that got me from town to town. YUM!

There is no picture or words that can be used to describe what camp looked like each night. One policeman told us he had counted over 16,000 riders on a particular day. Well all those riders are sleeping in town at different parks and colleges. This is a picture of our camp on the first night in Sioux City. Never ending tents.

There were so many tents and they were all so close. People started to wake-up between 4:30 and 5 am each morning. You would hear cell phone alarms, tents zippers, and the portable toilet doors shutting. I could not sleep through this and so I decided I would be an early morning biker. The official start time is 6am and I was pretty close to starting at that time every day. The great thing about starting early was that I was done biking before the weather was too hot and I was a little ahead of the main crowd.

I got good at taking self portraits while biking. Not safe but FUN!

There was one day that we had the option to ride a century instead of the 81 mile ride. Amber and I did that and so that helped my mileage get closer to 500. The crazy thing is there were a handful of bikers that rode 100 miles everyday. They would finish the ride and then do it backwards until they would have the mileage. PSYCHO!! However I think that would be a great challenge now that I know my body responds well to biking so many miles.

All the towns had different themes for their parties and they all had unique picture opportunities.

My Uncle Lou and I planned our trip together. It was a lot of fun. And I felt safe knowing I had some protection in case someone got out of hand. We were excited to be done.

Some of my favorite things were:

• The Arkansas crew that pulled me 10 miles one day in a head wind and let me camp with them under the only covered picnic area on the day it rained. So nice. I seriously could have hugged them.
• Reading all the different team names. You can sign-up with a team and some of the names were so creative. My favorites were Team Donner Party "We eat the slow ones." A little inappropriate but hilarious. Team Buffalo, "Blowing wind since 1512." Team Sloughs. Team Too Slow. The list could go on and on but I can't remember them all.
• The beautiful landscape. It is so crazy to have no mountains in sight. So different from Utah but still so beautiful.
• Talking and meeting so many new people. Learning where they were from, what they do, why they love to bike.
• Being humbled. I thought I was doing pretty good to get over 2000 miles a year on my bike. It turns out that I am not at all a serious biker. I met a lady in her sixties that bikes over 30,000 miles a year and has for many many years.

All my gear for the week. It really was a great experience. I would definitely do it again.

It is so great to be home. I have slept in a tent a ton this summer but it has been a great summer.