The first day of RAGBRAI is always filled with anticipation. You never quite know what lies ahead for the week, but you know one thing for certain. It will be memorable. There will be homemade pie, charming small towns, countless new biking buddies, plenty of ups and downs, and enough stories and experiences to keep everyone entertained after the ride is over.
By now, I think everyone knows just how hot Iowa was last week, and Sunday proved to be a serious challenge for many riders. We talked with several EMTs, and they said that from noon onward it was one call after another as cyclists succumbed to the heat and needed medical attention. Hopefully everyone has recovered and is doing well.
Michelle (“Pedal Girl”) and I did our best to ride smart by keeping a steady pace and drinking lots and lots of water. We successfully completed Day 1 with a few new memories and even a new song.
Speaking of important things, we also began discussing the all-important pie ratings. It turns out that’s harder than it sounds. There are so many factors to consider: crust, filling, freshness, added ice cream, and perhaps even how badly you needed a slice after climbing the last hill. We’ll do our best because we understand just how important good pie is. We know if you ever find yourself in Iowa, we hope to save you a lot of time by pointing you directly to the very best slices.
As for the song of the week, it went something like this:
“I’ve been riding across Iowa, all the live-long week.
I’ve been riding through the corn and over the hills and peaks.”
It may not win a Grammy, but it certainly helped take the sting out of the hills.
One stop I had been looking forward to was Westphalia, Iowa. Their unofficial motto was, “A small German drinking colony with a farming problem.” Yep…that pretty well sounds like a town named Westphalia.
While in the area, I heard an entertaining story from a local with a last name of Sullivan. The Irish Catholics and the German Catholics in the area didn’t exactly get along well. There was a healthy dose of rivalry—and perhaps a little prejudice—between the two groups.
Old Mr. Sullivan decided he was going to make sure everyone remembered that the Irish belonged there too. So he purchased the largest tombstone he could find and had it placed right near the entrance to the cemetery. The photo is in the gallery above. To this day, everyone entering the cemetery gets a friendly reminder that the Sullivans were there or at least made sure they were impossible to overlook.
Only in Iowa could you combine scorching heat, endless cornfields, homemade pie, bicycles, and cemetery controversy into a single day’s adventure. We will see what day 2 brings.
See Y’all Down the Road,
Pedal Dude
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