RideTheLightning

Smelly wind blowin’ The Great Bike Ride Across Iowa

Quintessential Iowa

Here we sit, in beautiful Galena, IL, after another state down with no bloggage to show for it. Our apologoies, it’s just easier to be out riding bikes than it is internettin’ away.

 Iowa was good to us. It’s an incredibly bike friendly state. RAGBRAI, the Register’s Annual Great Bike Across Iowa–some years 14,000 strong–is on the tip of every local’s tongue when you pull into town. The weeklong tour of Iowa is usually the last weekend of July, but, for your average yokel with zero knowledge of that dang bicyclin’ with bags thing, RAGBRAI is a good common place to start chatting. So yes, we admit it does sound fun, but we’re happy to be a state away from anymore RAGBRAI conversations.

The trip had some real highlights through Iowa, despite BJ’s insistent muttering that ‘this was the worst state ever’. Persistent headwinds and a few run-ins with sour locals will change any man’s opinion of a place.

We didn’t pay for camping once. On more than one occasion, locals came out to greet us in the park, asked if we were planning on staying the night, and then notified the proper authorities to ensure we weren’t bothered. That’s some farm town hospitality. The weather was better than in Nebraska, although we still managed to bring the inevitable day/night of rain and ride into a couple days worth of headwind. We’re actually thinking of changing the name of the tour to “Ride the Partly Cloudy Skies” in hopes of better results. We’ll see.

In Lawton, IO, right outside Sioux City, we were invited to join the community in celebrating the telephone company’s 60th birthday over brats and cake. We accepted and made friends with some old folks that were so proud of us it was almost embarrassing. They shovelled cake at us, pushed us up in the BBQ line and notified everyone within unreasonable earshot of our journey. I just managed to stop our cheerleading friends from hailing the local newspaper photog and putting RTL on the frontpage. Still, it always feels good to have someone treat you like you’re taking on a superhuman feat (even if it’s only by contrast to their epic 50 mile tractor ride).

Iowa was not without its shortcomings, though. It blew. That is to say, the wind blew. It blew hard, all day long for three days in a row. It was hard too, because when you looked to the horizon and saw hundreds of wind turbines facing the direction the wind was coming from, you knew that wind wasn’t changing.

The other terrrible part of Iowa  is that it smells. Yes, we know, Iowa farmers feed America, yadda yadda, but it stinks. Hog barns especially. And if you’ll pardon the language for a minute, they smell like shit. Terrible, terrible piles of pig excrement  that is  blown out the side of the barns with industrial fans designed to clear the noxious fumes because pigs excrete Amonia. So really, it smells like shit sprayed with Windex…terrible. Try huffing it down while hauling into a 15 mile-an-hour headwind and it gives you an idea of why BJ feels the way he does about Iowa.

But really it was a great couple of days, maybe we’ll be back for RAGBRAI.We’re getting the boot again here. Libraries love their rules. More to come from Chicago in a few days when we touch down.