In Which We See the Party and Skip the Party

Saturday at corner of C Avenue and Blair's Ferry, sunset on the bike ride down to the Sag Wagon. Pretty end of a pretty day, warm for January.

And they finally announced the RAGBRAI route—already being called the ISU vs Iowa ride. The 2018 RAGBRAI route starts in Onawa. On the way to its end in Davenport, overnight towns are Denison, Jefferson, Ames, Newton, Sigourney and Iowa City.

According to RAGBRAI.com, it’s a relatively easy and relatively flat ride, compared to other RAGBRAIs. That’s OK with me, I always ride RAGBRAI as a tour anyway, and, while I don’t mind a difficult day now and then, I’m not in this for the torture.

Image posted by RAGBRAI.com of route announcement.

And while RAGBRAI was not wise enough to follow my idea of a city-themed route, I still guessed three of the towns on the ride, which is a pretty high average for me.

I’m not entirely going to new places on this year's ride—I’ve been in, I think, almost all of the towns, but I do say I’m a fan of having both Ames and Iowa City on the ride. Iowa’s two college towns have a lot to offer. And while we’ve rolled through Iowa City a lot in recent years, we’ve never camped there. In the years I’ve ridden the ride, we’ve been near Ames, but never went through it.

One of my suggestions was that Des Moines would be a great lunch stop. The ride this year has to get from Ames to Newton, and the golden dome city is between the two. I’m guessing they’ll either just edge the metro area or avoid it completely by going north and east of it, but we’ll see.

The announcement party was a bit of a bust for your biking correspondent. The Sag Wagon had announced a live streaming of the party, and a daughter and I decided to go. Saturday was an unusually warm day, and we have lights on our bikes, so we decided to ride.

The party was to start at 6, and we got there a bit after 5. While there were a number of people in the bar/deli, there didn’t seem to be any particular RAGBARI stuff going on. The lone bartender-waiter on duty took our order. We got taco pizza and Angry Orchard, which seemed like a biker kind of meal.

Six rolled around, and we noted on What’s Ap what we were doing. My daughter-in-law, who lives in San Francisco, posted that it was still several hours before the announcement, and sent us a link to the RAGBRAI page that had the announcement countdown. We hung around until after 7, but the daughter who was with me had a bit of a drive to get home, and we didn’t want to push it too late.

We were also a bit surprised that very little RAGBRAI party was actually happening. No biking trivia game, no slide shows from the last time RAGBRAI rolled through town—honestly, nothing at all. If we were just going to watch the announcement, we figured we could do that at home. So, after enjoying our taco pizza (for the record, I do recommend taco pizza at the Sag Wagon—it’s not the most fantastic in the world, but they are generous with their toppings and it certainly is a meal you can pedal for miles on—we wolfed the whole thing down, but I think 3 adults could share one and be pretty happy), we donned helmets and reflective vests and pedaled home.

The RAGBRAI livestream began around 8, but it was music, a RAGBRAI Jeopardy game and images of past rides. It wasn’t until shortly after 9—minutes after my daughter gave up and hit the road, that the route was actually announced.

Oh well. Riding 8 miles to a bar for taco pizza and then riding back still felt like a very RAGBRAI thing to do. We definitely enjoyed the pleasant evening ride, and I do like this year’s route.

The busted RAGBRAI party culminated several days of good riding. I put the toddler seat on Clarence earlier in the day Saturday and took a 2-year-old grandson for a quick ride. He and I both enjoyed the sunshine. It was breezy and felt cool—but still great for January.

On Friday, after working in my office on spring semester stuff, I rode downtown to Brewed Awakenings to have coffee with two alumni. Celine and Mariah, thanks for the invite—I had not been to BA before, and enjoyed my time there, too.

Some images from Friday. Above, I sit on bench outside coffee shop--I was the first to arrive. A biker doesn't always know how long it will take to get somewhere, as it turns out, if the question is "how long from MMU to Brewed Awakenings," the answer is "not very long." Below, my coffee and scone. Biker snack. Bottom, Cedar Lake in dim light and clouds as I head back home along the Cedar River Trail.

Winter is coming back—it will cool down dramatically as January shifts into February. But February has only 28 days, so more biking weather is likely soon. And RAGBRAI is also coming!

A frosty morning earlier in the week, Wednesday or so, I think. It's the same photograph, I just thought it looked even better in black and white.

In Which We Brave the Darkest Day to Ride

Jon with both of our bikes at MMU 4 miles away from end of 18-mile ride.

Happy Winter Solstice day—shortest day of the year!

My son Jon, who recently moved to San Francisco and commutes there by bicycle and train, is visiting over Christmas. Today, I finally swapped pedals on Argent (Jon says I should have named my other bike, Francis, Tina so that together the bikes would be Argent-Tina—he inherited my sense of humor). So we had two bikes we could ride.

It was cold today—in the 30s, cloudy and breezy. It would be warm for biking in late December in most winters, but it felt like bitter Siberian weather in this odd, warm December. Anyway, it was about one in the afternoon when we were finally got ready to ride. (Swapping pedals involved a search for tools and then some language unfit for family consumption except at a Trump campaign stump speech.)

I was a gentleman and let Jon ride Argent. So I was on Tina—or rather, Francis. We headed over to the Cedar River Trail. As we rode south, we noticed Audrey and Nina at Dairy Queen in Hiawatha—Audrey tried to claim they were going to the library, but they don’t serve soft-serve at the library.

Anyway, we headed south. Along the way, we had to dodge some trucks on the trail—crews were out trimming brush for some utility project. But we made it to Cedar Lake and started circling counter clockwise. But at the south end, there was another truck blocking the trail, so we headed back the other way, and stopped at the Sag Wagon.

It appears Tuesday afternoons are old man day at the Sag Wagon. There were maybe half a dozen guys of about my vintage hanging out inside. They bartender brought us menus—I had a taco salad, Jon chose the beef sandwich. An older guy at a nearby table noticed my Mount Mercy shirt and said his daughter had graduated from there with a criminal justice degree. He was very friendly and chatted for a few minutes, and then said goodbye as he left.

“That never happens in California,” Jon noted.

There was some sort of local beer on sale for $1 draws, so we washed our lunch down with two each. It was some Turner Alley beer, and was good. Jon has a beer app, and rated it 3.75, which he said is a decent rating.

Then, we headed downtown to stop at a fancy candy shop before heading home. We took the non-trail route, which involves bike lanes and then streets, to head home. On the way, we rode by MMU and took a restroom break there, and then did the obligatory “we survived the ride up the steepest route on the Hill” ussie with the Catherine McAuley statue.

Ussie, two views. Me and Catherine and Jon.

It was around 4 by the time we shot the photo. On this, the shortest day of the year, it was time to turn on lights as we headed home. All in all, we rode about 18 miles, not a bad ride at all on the shortest afternoon of the year!

In Which The Trail Goes Ever On

The connector trail between Prairie Parks Fishery and the Sac and Fox. This is the end near Sac and Fox--about to head back to Prairie Park Fishery.

Well, not forever. Longer than it used to.

We had a good day today—lunch with Katy and her kids, swimming and then a bike ride. I also got the lawn mowed, but have not put the lawn furniture back. Don’t tell my wife.

My sister summoned me to help her fix her bike, but she apparently fixed it before I was able to get other there, which is OK. Hope it’s working well.

Anyway, after the mid-day visit with daughter and grandchildren, and finishing the mowing, it was close to 5, but since this is Ben’s final day before heading back to Ames, we decided to go for one more bike ride. Since he had not been there before, I suggested we go down the Cedar River trail through downtown, and then head off to the Prairie Parks Fishery, a city park that is along Otis Road.

Otis Road is a nice ride because the street is right there next to the Cedar River. The river flooded earlier this summer, and some damage is evident—most notably, a closed boat launch before you get to the fishery park. But the road was fine, as was the park and its cute little lake trail.

And, surprise, surprise, the connection between that trail and the Sac and Fox trail has been completed. We didn’t try the Sac and Fox—no time and I don’t know what shape it’s in after the river floods plus Jon's road bike would not be the best choice for that trail—but it’s nice to see how easy it is now is to get from the fishery trail to the longer trail.

On the ride back home, we went on the east side of Cedar Lake, which took up past the “Sag Wagon,” a new restaurant. We didn’t stop, but their bike rack looked pretty full. I’ll have to try it some time.

All in all, the ride was a shade over 22 miles. I had a new light on my bike, but didn’t need it because it was still light when we got home. I’ll have to ride the hills tomorrow, and maybe check on the Sac and Fox sometime before RAGBRAI.