2015 RAGBRAI tour *Part 1*

Wow, it has been a while.  It turns out I did a fairly thorough recap of the week so I think I will break this up into two parts to make it a bit more readable.  I just finished my 3rd consecutive RAGBRAI tour.  We rode right around 550 miles over 7 days which I feel pretty good about.  I have a 600 mile tour set for the end of August so this feels like a very good warm up for that.

4 heading out for breakfast

  We headed out with three last Saturday morning after picking up my newly altered Chaco sandals.  I did not plan well and did not have enough water with me.  That sent me into a pretty solid dehydrated state by the time we rolled into Northfield.  We ate some lunch and I was still not feeling very healthy and fortunately everyone was up for a small nap.  Well that felt good.

  Unfortunately, it did not help my pedaling mood and it was a bit of a slog into Faribault.  We picked up some dinner supplies and headed down the trail to Sakatah State Park.  We VERY quickly decided to skip the bike camp site and head to the regular campground.  We also made dinner as fast as possible to try to escape the swarms of mosquitoes.  WOW they were insane!  A quick shower and crawled into the tents to escape the swarms.

  In the morning, we packed up super fast and rode into Waterville for some breakfast.  It was here that Ken departed us and we continued down the trail.  I tried to start drinking regularly and it did eventually pay off but this day was not to feel much better than the previous.

  We made it into Minnesota Lake for some lunch and fortunately found a bar open (Sunday at noon).  I ordered a burger and fries and a PBR, it is a RAGBRAI tour after all.  Here, my riding partner was barraged with smartphone questions and when trying to explain what we were doing, the bartender replied with, "You don't want to ride gravel!".  Oh, but we did.  We caught a couple z's in a small park by the lake and after resupplying, set off to find some southern Minnesota gravel.

We did not choose this route

  The winds had picked up a bit by now and not in our favor.  But the gravel was quite spectacular and it really wasn't too long until we wandered our way into Blue Earth.  I was seriously overheating now and had to take a small break to escape the sun.  It was here I had the thought (or guidance) to search for "park" instead of "camp" and behold, a nice little park popped up just 8 miles south of Blue Earth.  We again, grabbed dinner supplies and set out for camp night number 2.

  I must have had the right combination of liquid because I felt a bit better on the ride to camp.  It was easy to find and it was 8 miles of gravel to get there (bonus).  The mosquitoes were much better but the showers not quite so nice.  We had a light dinner and hit the tents pretty early.

  The next morning we had some light rain but it wasn't enough to need rain jackets.  We rode about 5 miles into a small town to grab some breakfast in Elmore, MN.  While eating, it rained pretty solid but stopped by the time we were ready to roll out.  We had a small panic about finding water, but fortunately there was a hydrant right along the road.  Off to the small roads of northern Iowa.

  I started feeling better this day and with a long day ahead of us, we wasted no time in tackling a long stretch of freshly graded Iowa gravel.  We did make one small navigation error when leaving the town of Lakota but it only added a couple miles, and it was very nice gravel.  The tailwinds began kicking in and we cruised into Algona after a busy road section, ready for lunch.  We picked some groceries and lunched in the grass outside the grocer.  And of course, all too soon, it was time to climb back on the bikes.

  We wound our way through Algona, picked up some final snacks and headed out west into the wind.  We battled the somewhat headwind for a couple miles before turning south on what was a fairly busy road.  We watched several large trucks and farm equipment head down our direction but as there was no other option without going a ways farther, we embarked down the busy road.  Fortunately the heavy equipment didn't last long and the tailwind really started to push us along.  We rode that wave all the way into the RAGBRAI route stop at Clare.

RAGBRAI found!

  Unfortunately, we had been riding for quite some time and didn't really feel like starting the drinking, so we moseyed with the riders over to Ft. Dodge.  I felt the little bit of experience I have kick in and we rode straight to the high school where showers were.  After cleaning up, we found a nice camping site and set up tents.  Then we were off to procure dinner and some drinks.  Eventually, after walking WAY too far, we headed back toward our camp and hung out with some friends.  All-in-all a good day.

  Up next : RAGBRAI finishes up and the road home.