Number 1

Gas:$4.00/gallon, Coffee:$2.00/cup, Latte:$8.00/serving, Energy bill:$300/month, Winning a National Championship: PRICELESS!!!! My niece Kelci, with only a little help from the rest of the team, beat a team from Texas this morning in Little Rock, Arkansas and won all the marbles. I did my part by sending vibes from Iowa. You go girl, the rest of us aren't qualified to hold your jock. Yesssssssss!!!!!!!
Moving Patton's army across Germany was one of the logistical miracles of the twentieth century. Moving our bike team, DLO, across Iowa, isn't much easier. It starts out every morning with people staggering out of their tents somewhere between 6 and 8 am. There are some mumbled good mornings, and instead of talking around the water cooler at work, we try to be sociable as we wait with our legs crossed at the single bathroom we are allowed to use in the morning. Number 2 is forbidden on this first pass through, it takes too long. No magazines or newspapers are allowed in, that way temptation will not get the best of anyone. The team consists of about 28 people, ranging in age from 21 to somewhere upwards of 60. We slowly get our gear packed and piled so the drivers can load it in the trailer. As we apply makeup, sunscreen, hair spray, lotion, butt butter, toothpaste, foot powder, lip balm, numbers are called to determine who is next for the bathroom. Toenails are clipped, hair arranged, bike shorts and jerseys put on, water bottles filled, tires topped off, flats fixed, contacts inserted, equipment dried out, all between sips of coffee if it's available. At some point it's determined that it's time to ride, so off we go, in waves down the road, all dressed in a colorful bike jersey making us look like we are in a peloton. To the host of the house/yard we have stayed in, it must be like a swarm of locusts that comes in with much chaos, then suddenly they are gone. The only real evidence is a wet bathroom, a bathtub ring that looks like a high water flood mark, and tramped down grass that looks kind of like a herd of cattle stopped for awhile. We ride down the road for 5 or 6 miles, and look for a food vendor that is set up along the side of the road. Pancakes are my favorite, but you can find whatever you want, with breakfast burritos being very popular. Usually a bar in the town will have bloody marys, although this year by the time we arrived many of them were out. Our team is called DLO, generally standing for da last ones, but really the initials of the founders. There are more than 10,000 riders moving each day, and we are usually in the last 100. This year Laura and I were quickly part of the last 10. Either Big O does not like hills, or we are a couple of little old ladies. The group quickly loses us and we watch them fade away like a tortoise watches a hare. Many of the riders train to ride as fast as they can, and there are pace lines where a double line of riders draft on each other and ride back wheel to front wheel, like the pros. We couldn't keep up, and consequently felt like the kid with polio who watches the game of kickball and can't join in. We rode a few times with Jane, and enjoyed it, the rest of the team we saw briefly as they passed or not at all. But there are many other people to talk to around, so we weren't exactly alone. As we brought up the rear we kept running across the party portion of the team, ladies you know who you are. Carrie and Joanne, you are great DLO representatives.
Usually the days are about 70-80 miles of riding, and one day after about 50 miles, we were flying down a hill at about 40mph,, when a part called an idler flew off the bike. As my chain came off I heard Laura say that something came off the bike. Sure enough, some dude found the pieces and brought them ahead to us. The bike won't move without this simple little part of course, so as we were figuring out what to do two of our teammates came by to help. We were drawing some attention, and two more friends stopped by to help. Thanks Buck and Joe, you saved our bacon. A farmer also helped out by bringing two washers we needed from his barn. We greatly appreciated Bob riding with us at our speed for another half hour to make sure we wouldn't break down again. Iowa has some really thoughtful people and we found some of them here.
We woke up a few days later to a drizzle, and as we started to leave, I noticed a rear flat tire. Of course I hadn't looked at it for the 2 hours I had been up, why would I want to do that? Now I had to change it, and as a result be the last one on the road. About 5 miles later it flatted again and we walked up a hill to change it. 30 minutes later we were rolling again, and 5 minutes after that we had another flat. There is a saying that flats breed flats. It's very true, the common denominator being operator error. And yes, it was me changing the flats. Being out of good tubes, we walked the half mile into town and let the bike shop mechanic change the next one and sell us some new rubber. It's probably not coincidence that we haven't had a flat since. We were so far behind by now we were riding in what's called the hippie group, a bunch of stragglers on cruiser bikes that are right out of Woodstock. The one guy we kept leapfrogging was on a unicycle. He'd pass us when we broke down, then we'd pass him down a hill as he tried to slow to a manageable speed.
There are over a hundred teams, with names like Spin, Grain Train, Whiners, Pucker, and Team Blonde. Riders wear corn cobs on their heads, loin cloths on their waist, kilts, thongs, and purple afro wigs. That's only a short list of what you'll see. Some folks ride with kids in a trailer, a disabled partner, tandems, quads, unicycles, four wheeled bikes,a bike with no seat at all, and one guy rode the entire 470 miles on roller blades, keeping up a 25mph speed in a paceline. The state cops are starting to break up the parties in the evening, and for whatever reason there don't seem to be very many street parties, which are really fun when you can find one. We found only one.
Special thanks to Bob Love, Majic, and Bob(Fez), for making it possible for all of us to have a week of vacation riding a bike. Others are too numerous to mention, but all the great people of Iowa deserve thanks too. We all wore armbands in memory of Jenna, who was expected to go with us this year and died unexpectedly at only 42. It makes us all appreciate every new day.
Yesterday we arrived in LeClaire, Iowa, and as the team scattered home, we headed south to Bettendorf to catch the Channel Cat. The small ferry boat carried us across the might Mississippi and into Illinois, where we got on big O again and rode up to Joanne and Joe's house, teammates of ours. They live in Moline, in a beautiful house back in the forest. A windstorm with 95 mph winds had broken trees 2 feet in diameter all through the neighborhood. But our hosts were fantastic, and with 3 bathrooms the line was nonexistent. Bob and Randy had dinner last night and breakfast this morning with us. Joe did the cooking,Laura made the Margaritas. Thanks a lot for being such good hosts. Today was a 40 mile ride to Galesburg, through Illinois cornfields. Galesburg is the place where the Marx brothers acquired their nicknames. There's Harpo,Chico,Groucho,Gummo, and one more. Who can guess? I have tilted the seat back down and my famous ass is feeling better. Still sore, but like steel. The bugs in Iowa seem to like warm places, and I have bites in places that stay warm, and are hard to itch. Tomorrow we plan to go to Canton possibly, or may take a day off, depending on how we feel. It feels good to be independent but we are both missing the team members and looking forward to next RAGBRAI. The other Marx brother was Zeppo.