A RAGBRAI Ride, RAGBRAI Lunch and Bonus Art

Fine dining at a Casey's in Cedar Rapids.  And I didn't even know my cuisine had a hidden surprise ....

I’m not sure how well I will sleep tonight—it all depends on how sore the large muscles in my leg get.  When I started RAGBRAI training recently, I had one rough night due to spasms in my legs.

Signs, however, are good as of this writing.  I’m feeling mildly sore, and a bit warmed over, but pretty good, overall.  If it’s like RAGBRAI, I’ll sleep pretty soundly.

I did my first “RAGBRAI” ride today.  I’m giving myself credit for 50 miles, which might be overstating it, but only by a few miles—without my computer working, I’m thinking I’m within a reasonable rounding error.  I rode from my house to the Cedar Valley Trail, north to where the trail is closed, then south to Ely, then back again along the trail.

It was, in some ways, a RAGBRAI shakedown cruise, although not the last one.  I prepped the bike-dug out my RAGBRAI water carrier (supposed to be worn, but I like the front basket to “wear” it) and put a spare inner tube in it.  With Jon’s borrowed equipment, I’m pretty fully ready.

As it turned out, it was more of a RAGBRAI simulation than I expected.  I had put out some food out to take with me—a bag of crackers and a granola bar—but I forgot to grab them.  It’s just as well, as I needed more calories than that.

I stopped at a Casey’s in south Cedar Rapids and had fine Midwestern processed food cuisine—pizza by the slice, a V-8 fruity thing and a banana.  Very RAGBRAI.  It’s a measure of what biking does to you—when I picked up the cheese pizza to eat it, there was a giant wad of cheese underneath—in slicing and serving this pizza, whoever had clearly accidentally denuded part of a nearby slide and the extra cheese, a gooey, oily phlegmatic mass, was hiding beneath my slice.

The normal reaction would be ewwww.  A RAGBRAI biker’s reaction is “SCORE!  Extra Cheese!”

Anyway, it was a good lunch and a good ride.  There were lots of people on the trail, so it helped to ride in traffic a bit, although this was way different from RAGBRAI traffic—a few dozen riders is not the same as 10,000.

Along the way, I was mildly amused by how homeowners near the trail in south Cedar Rapids decorated their yards—obviously, some of those who live adjacent to the trail embrace it.

Anyway, next time I do a RAGBRAI simulation, I will bring my silly looking green lunch box that I use as a “stuff” box for RABRAI (carry hand sanitizer, sunscreen, ChapStick, granola bars, etc) packed with more food—a peanut butter sandwich, fruit, chips and a bar, not just a bar and crackers.  A biker needs fuel.

Hope you enjoy the art I saw along the way:

Old bike helmet as a birdhouse?  This homeowner also uses cowboy boots and a cowboy hat.

Not technically in the south edge of town like the other art, but an interesting stump near the north end of the lion bridge.

This one and the rest are from the south edge of Cedar Rapids.

Old bike as art.