The Heart and Heat of RAGBRAI: A 50th Anniversary Ride Recap

Speaker 1: 1:13

Well, it's time for Road Adventures with Cycling Men of Leisure, the podcast for cyclists who understand that riding is not just about getting to the destination, but the experience along the way. Now here are the original Cycling Men of Leisure Adam and Michael.

Speaker 2: 1:28

Hey, good to be with you again.

Speaker 3: 1:30

Happy to be with you again, Adam.

Speaker 2: 1:33

Wow, whoa, whoa, whoa. Your voice still sounds like it's in celebration mode.

Speaker 3: 1:38

I didn't even know I was in celebration mode. It's my new, my new cool old guy voice. Apparently I don't know what it is.

Speaker 2: 1:47

I saw you lifting your bike above your head after riding 540 miles. You were like yeah, baby.

Speaker 3: 1:52

I wasn't sure in that much, but as funny as. I left, you guys got in my car, drove six hours and, as I was driving, my voice went kaput. And this is actually sounding better several days later and it's still not where it needs to be. But you know what?

Speaker 2: 2:08

Well, I mean, if you had been driving to Eastern time, the pressure would be different. Your voice would sound just. I'm just kidding. What are we talking about? What? What were we celebrating? 540 miles.

Speaker 3: 2:21

I think this episode we're going to talk kind of a wrap up or review our thoughts, our stories, because we got some good stories from Raghbrih 50th anniversary.

Speaker 2: 2:34

And let me tell you what the motto was one elevator ride. It sure was. It was. Yes, it was, it was. I mean, we interviewed Matt Fipp and the director of Raghbrih and he said this one was going to be epic, this one was going to be amazing. It was going to be 500 miles. Wow With, with the weather that cannot be controlled, obviously, by Raghbrih, but with the weather that we had, with the elevation that we had and a combination of both, the scientific mix of those, I felt like I was melting on the tarmac.

Speaker 3: 3:10

I don't know about you, but you know I mentioned this the other night and I will say it again If this would have been our first ride together back in 2016, I don't know if we'd be sitting here talking right now.

Speaker 2: 3:23

That's true, that's true.

Speaker 3: 3:26

Because I think, as a new rider, if this would be your first one and I know we talked to a lot of riders out there some, you know, past riders not necessarily thrilled, some new riders not necessarily thrilled, but overall a lot of them were. The biggest thing we heard from like new riders is just how difficult it was, which makes sense because when you, you know, unless you just have all sorts of time, you can't really train long distances multiple days in a row. That's true, you know heat situation. So, yeah, it was. It would have been tough but, like I said, we talked to some people that weren't thrilled but overall, even the new people versus the experienced people, everybody was pretty happy.

Speaker 2: 4:10

Yeah, it's funny. You say that I was talking to my neighbor tonight and he's a big supporter and listens to the show, and he said so how was rag bride? And I said, you know, I mean I'm happy that we all made it home safe. As many ambulances we saw and which, let's just be honest, I mean it goes in numbers, I mean attendance increases, potential chance of things happening increase. So it's not, it's not any more than before and you less before, but I told him that I was thankful that, you know, my friends and family, you know, made it home safe. Our little team had one flat which was me and the Air Force guys. I mean I started unpacking my kit that I had built, you know, with my CO2, and now that was funny. Yeah, that was funny. I mean I'm, I'll let you tell the story, but I'm getting ready and here I am and and what happened.

Speaker 3: 5:07

And the guys are right behind us. We just left a town. The Air Force guys hop off their bike hey, can we help out? And it's like Adam's like I've got all my stuff right here, and so he pulls out the tube and you know, those guys are, you know, taking the tire off and all this kind of stuff. And Adam's like, oh, here, let me get you the levers. And as he's reaching in and pulling them out, the Air Force guy just takes his thumbs and goes and just pops the tire right off of the rim. And you were like I guess you don't need those, I'll stick them back in here.

Speaker 2: 5:38

And let me explain why that's important. I mean, unfortunately, a visual. I mean, you've seen my bike a hundred times, but I have these deep, well carbon tires that have high walls on them, and the reason why is usually when I put a 700 by 25 tire on it, even I think I'm somewhat strong, but just to stretch it up and over I have to always use the right. The last two inches I got to use those levers and when he just went, boom, I was kind of like wow, I'm impressed. I mean, I couldn't believe it, so what?

Speaker 3: 6:13

we look on your face was hilarious, because you've got literally mid mid handing him the levers and he already had the tire off and you were kind of just like, well, yeah, I know.

Speaker 2: 6:24

Because then the other gentleman he goes you know you got any CO2? And I'm like, yeah, I got that in the same bag, but if I get that out, are you going to be just?

Speaker 3: 6:33

going to, like you know you're going to be done before.

Speaker 2: 6:36

I, yeah, exactly, so, yeah. So we had one flat which was me, and then our friend Joe had a pretty decent mechanical issue. He had a derailleur hanger jam up on him and snap as going up one of the first hills, and I mean, luckily for him, he played the bike part lottery and I think it took four different vendors to kind of come together, and then our charter had the bike guy and he put it together. So those were our only two bike issues throughout the week, except for my interesting rub that I had, which took us all week.

Speaker 2: 7:15

I still think we could pick Weaking duck so, and I don't know what it was, because if you kept the crank on one side it would go away. If you kept the crank on the other it would come back. If it got really really hot which I'm very aware that the tires expand and the air expands when it's really really hot then it would go away and then it would get colder and then it would come back. And so I kept looking at all the rub points, pinch points. I don't know, I'm taking it to my local shop and but you know what? 540 miles made it home. I'm happy so, and I'm still having nightmares of the squeaky duck sound. Listen, I could go out there and record it for you.

Speaker 3: 7:56

That's okay.

Speaker 2: 7:58

I can get you a professional recording equipment. I can get you a very high. I've heard it enough, I'm good, really Okay, all right, fine.

Speaker 3: 8:04

Well, what I thought I did want to come back to one thing. You said you were talking about busted hanger. Yeah, I'm going to go to another gentleman who busted his hanger as well and he had a really big problem finding one to match his bike. Oh, and I mean, you know there's a lot of bike mobile bike shops out there and he was having a real problem. Finally, he found one and he had to bring it over to the mechanic at our, at our charter, because our charter guy didn't have one. Gotcha, and the whole time I'm sitting there thinking, if you would have listened to our podcast that's right, about having an extra of a hanger, this wouldn't have been a problem. I didn't say anything, of course, but you know, if we would have been anywhere else other than Raghbri he would have probably been out.

Speaker 2: 8:52

Yeah, he would have been. You know it's funny you say that because you know two days actually three days, I apologize, three days you and I wore some sort of cycling men, of leisure jersey. We, we wore the custom brag ones one day and then we were able to do laundry and wash the road adventures Jerseys and a couple guys came up to me and said you know, really enjoy the show, loved your show on flying. I'm surprised that you didn't mention blank, or you didn't mention this. This is exactly what we're talking about. If we didn't mention something, please let us know. We'd love to and we could always revisit that show and and and you know we save all all the information and save all the recordings. If we could add on to that. If there's other people who have opinions or ideas, I mean we're, we're not professionals.

Speaker 3: 9:41

I mean we're not experts. We never claimed to be experts.

Speaker 2: 9:43

No, but it was cool to you know. People were like are you? The one guy came to me one day. He said are you Adam? And I thought, well, that's very interesting. And he said, oh, I listen to the show he goes, I know it's you because you're the one with the arrow bars. And I thought to myself, well, we both have a little bit, but, but I actually am Adam and that was really neat. I mean, everybody that we met along the way was really cool.

Speaker 2: 10:09

But what I thought we would do is just kind of touch on a few things. Going back to like the first day. You know, for anyone who doesn't use a charter with Raghbriam, you may not understand that the charter, if you're going to use their transportation across the state on Friday night, they want you to turn your bikes in. So Friday night, joe and I and you, I think, maybe an hour behind us or something like that dropped off our bikes and then we had a hotel and we had a wonderful meal and then we got on the bus, and on the bus you and I got to meet some really interesting people from Seattle and so who knew who we were, which was that was always kind of weird.

Speaker 3: 10:54

You're like two seats away from somebody who, like immediately knows who you are, and it's like I'm not wearing a name tag or anything, am I?

Speaker 2: 11:01

And the way it started was is they were telling a story of a travel nightmare. So their names are Keith and Melanie and they had traveled from Seattle and had flown into Chicago, excuse me and and they landed and they had their bike but no camping gear, no other luggage, nothing, because of an electrical outage or something like that that their bags are behind. So they went to their local REI, bought all all kinds of camping equipment, things that they would need for for Raghbriam, and then at the last minute, they ended up getting their bags and went and returned all the stuff. I'm sure the guy at REI was like, why did you buy all this? But so the good thing about REI- they'll take it back.

Speaker 2: 11:49

That's right. That's right, you would know, as you were worked there many years ago. So it was really nice because they had stay. I think they saw your hat. And when they saw your hat they said are you guys, know them? And we were like depends, depends, if you like them or don't. And so they ended up saying that they had listened to the show on the way out there, or some of the shows, multiple shows on the way out there, and so I just thought that was a great story and then then kind of made the bus ride a little more more fun on the way out, more fun on the way there.

Speaker 2: 12:26

Once we ended up in Sioux City, it was kind of really interesting to run into one. I mean randomly, we go to the expo. You were looking for an extra water bottle holder based upon the heat and everyone you know concerned, and you thought, well, maybe I should just put an extra one on because, to be honest, you took one off to be able to hold the recording equipment, and so you said maybe I can put one on the back of the bike. And then, lo and behold, we we ran into one which I, our old friend one. So that was kind of cool, just randomly up between the odds of those.

Speaker 3: 13:04

You know, tens of thousands of people running into that. One person is astronomical, but it was good to see one.

Speaker 1: 13:09

Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 3: 13:09

Georgia and Kentucky, and yeah, always a good time.

Speaker 2: 13:15

So the expo was kind of interesting. We actually our charter took us to this park called Riverside Park and the expo was multiple miles away, like four to five miles away. We saw it on the way to the camp. We had to take the shuttle, which was crazy. I mean, they did the best they could. They were city buses. And that was my first inclination of wow, this is going to be a different year, because you and I have waited for shuttles year after year after year. But that line I wasn't sure what was up or down or, and I don't get it.

Speaker 3: 13:52

Maybe it was because it was early, but for a group that stands in lines, so much rag, bright people, myself included, are the worst at creating lines. That line snaked around and basically the end of the line it turned into like two different circles and the end of the line was inside of those two circles.

Speaker 2: 14:11

It's like wow, wow so I would have bet a million dollars that people were going to like cut us off, but they didn't.

Speaker 3: 14:19

They didn't I mean but it was interesting because when we got there the name of the arena kind of set the stage for the whole week.

Speaker 2: 14:29

Oh for sure, Long lines arena. And the funny part about that is is, if you don't know, if you registered and played by the rules, you received a packet and you got a ride band and participation booklet and like a luggage tag and all this stuff and unfortunately, due to the high demand of the additional riders, they hadn't had a chance to ship everything out, which, okay, no big deal. Well then they announced that please come to the long lines arena to pick up your packet, which I just thought was just. Can you imagine if you were a rag war, having to have everyone come to the long lines arena? So I'm going to have to look at that. I don't know what the name, I didn't look it up.

Speaker 3: 15:16

I don't know what the idea is behind the name, but it's it's. It was ironic starting the week, although I will say I probably would say I'm not going to say that I'm going to be a rag war. I probably stood in less long lines this week than I ever have any of the other rag bras I've been on it's funny you say that, because I thought I was just telling my neighbor.

Speaker 2: 15:41

I said, you know, in prior years there would be food trucks and vendors and you know the local Boy Scouts or whatever, and you'd wait in line and go through the line. I mean the one Taco Express truck or whatever. We didn't. I mean there was like one or two people in front of us, it was. We didn't wait at all.

Speaker 3: 16:03

No, and it was really odd because you and I both were thinking, oh, we're going to have to wait, wait. You know these long, massive lines, and we would come into towns for lunch, and most of the time, I mean now, if you had your heart set on maybe the you know, I don't know the grilled cheese. There was a considerable line there, but I mean all the most of the time we were just able to walk up. One or two people get in Porta John's, kybos, whatever you want to call them. Again, I didn't really stand in lines for any of them.

Speaker 2: 16:34

Well, I wish this show wasn't a clean show, because I saw the funniest thing online last night of what do you officially call a? What do you call this, and it was a picture of Porta John and someone called the Porta Iter. We'll just go with that. How about that? I just had never heard that before. I thought that was kind of funny.

Speaker 3: 16:51

So my personal favorite was what was it? The King's Throne that was the name of the company. Yeah, that's right On the back of all the Porta John's. It had King's Throne, you know.

Speaker 2: 17:03

Well, it was you that had to tell me that each one had a serial number. I didn't know that.

Speaker 3: 17:08

Yeah, every Porta John, at least for these. The companies that I'm aware of have serial numbers on them. It makes sense to track it. But you know, I thought you know, maybe the next ride, you know, we could rate the Porta John's by their serial numbers.

Speaker 2: 17:24

The one that freaked me out was in Des Moines, when we were in that field and I wasn't expecting a light to come on. And so I, you know, take the walk of shame and I go over there, wait in line and I open the door and the light came on. I was kind of like startled. I was like wow, I'm like this is kind of fancy, except for you doing your thing and then the light goes out. So then you're doing the wave of shame.

Speaker 3: 17:51

But I got it. You know, I had a similar experience. The only problem is there was somebody in the Porta John when I opened the door and they had their flashlights.

Speaker 1: 17:58

So oops, yeah.

Speaker 3: 17:59

Like make sure you, you know put that little lever down.

Speaker 2: 18:04

I love when someone draws on it says Poop alone or Poop with friends. If the lever is closed and you can't see Poop with friends, so it's whatever. It's kind of interesting.

Speaker 3: 18:12

but yeah, about Porta John's.

Speaker 2: 18:15

Yeah, that's, that's not my favorite part about doing those kinds of rides, where that's a nothing, nothing wrong with using a nice porcelain Toto restroom when I got home or whatever. So anyways, I thought that Sioux City that's the first time I had personally been to Sioux City Of all these rides, unless, unless the bus went through one year and I didn't notice it. But it was kind of interesting, kind of neat, just to start somewhere different. I had no issues with the camping that night. That was a little bit the freeway behind you, but you're going to have that anywhere. So, and then, wow, once we started the next day, that was, that was just a. That's when it hit.

Speaker 2: 19:03

Yeah, it was just so many, so many bikes, so many people. When you come into towns you'd have to walk. And then that railroad track. I'll never forget when you and I came up the hill and and we kind of got off our bikes and I thought maybe it was a safety issue, I really didn't know what it was, to be honest, not until we got a quarter mile down the road and when it turned to the right and you could look to your right and go, what's going on and you could see, like a three o'clock that people were still walking. That's when I kind of got the oh my gosh it was. It was just a massive amount of people, and some of the photos that they've shown it's just a sea of bikes and people. It's, yeah, it's interesting to say the least. Although you and I spoke last night, you and I both agree that people dropped off throughout the week, so yeah, you could definitely see a huge decline in ridership.

Speaker 3: 20:03

Yeah, and I think that had a couple of things. Number one, the weather. As the week progressed it got hotter and hotter and I think you know a lot of people just weren't conditioned for you know 95 degree temperatures. And then the distance, I mean we had several, you know yours what four days that we did what? Over 80 miles, yeah, the century, even if we didn't do the century.

Speaker 2: 20:28

it was still 83 miles. We chose to do the century and then there was an 82 and 92, 75, 70, something in the last day, I mean.

Speaker 3: 20:44

I think that really and I think that gets back to my comment that I made earlier about training and conditioning it's easy to get out on a weekend and maybe get 70 miles in, and maybe a couple of times a week you get 20 or 30 miles in. But if you're a first time rider in one of these events, you do not realize how much toll it takes on your body to do it seven days in a row. You know, get up, get on your bike, ride it, you know. So it's kind of completely different than what most people are expecting. And I also wonder I know I talked to a couple of people that said you know, once we hit Des Moines we're bailing. That was our plan all along. So I think a lot of factors, but definitely the numbers went down and a lot of people. You could see we're getting sagged in a lot of days. I've never seen in that one town. I saw three sag wagons in one town and one of them was completely full and that was pretty early in the day.

Speaker 2: 21:45

So yeah, that was the first time I mean for me. So my experience I've shared with this show many times. My first experience of any kind of state long ride was the 2016 rag brim and I mean, I remember a couple of bikes on the sag wagon, but not a lot. And then you know, throughout the years, when you and I did you know, 18 and 21, 22, it wasn't until I went to Georgia last year where the Mo was I'm going to ride until I can't ride anymore and I'm going to call the sag and I had never seen that before. I just felt like, you know, bicycle ride across Georgia as you had no choice and you parked on this side and you bust this side, you've got to get. You know, in my mindset, you got to get to the other side, which that was the first time I saw that. And then I saw that again this year in rag brim.

Speaker 2: 22:40

I was really surprised where I would even be at camp and or in town and see some people we've met along the way of different adventures you and I have done and they'd say, hey, do you ride?

Speaker 2: 22:53

Yesterday and I thought to myself that I have a choice. I mean, my, my bike was there, I had to get down here and they looked at me straight in the face and said, oh no, we said yesterday we didn't, we weren't gonna do those hills and and I was that, I was a little bit surprised that to me. I Guess there's a level of completion in my mind and and I want to say that you know, like I've said before, I mean I, I help run a Organization and all my employees were supporting me and I mean checking the weather for me when I was out there and I Don't know, I've been a little bit embarrassed by like, oh, I rode days one and five but I skipped six and came back. I would have felt kind of like you know, like I mean, if I, if something happened to me Medical wise or bike wise, and I had to, but otherwise I, I don't know, to me, I want to complete it.

Speaker 3: 23:42

so you know. But I think that has a lot to do with just people's Attitudes and I'm not saying that in a bad way, using that term in a bad way people's attitude towards riding. They want to go out there, they want to experience it. You know, maybe they're not as physically fit as they want to be, maybe they're not used to the weather. So, you know, I I kind of look at it as you know, you're out there, you're trying, you got a set, you know you got to do what you got to do for yourself. So, right, it's not my thing, I'm gonna ride and ride and ride until I drop. But I think there's a lot of other people that's like you know what, I'm gonna go out there and I'm gonna get as far as I can, give it my best, and then, you know, get towed in and try it another day.

Speaker 2: 24:28

Sure, sure, and and again. You know it's everybody's ride for themselves and what they want to make it. I'm just giving an opinion for me, which is I I would prefer to. You know the accomplishment Of doing it. I mean, when I walked into work, all my employees who had watched me along the way and and I had a link To my computer the whole time, and they said wow, good job, boss, congratulations, you did it. And I said yeah, I did. And they said you look tired. And I said this one, I'm exhausted, and this, this one really did.

Speaker 2: 24:59

I will fully admit 110% that this year's rag brigh I mean it was, it was a lot more. I mean I looked at some of the posters from prior years that I've done 420 miles. You know some of the rides from prior ones. I've got my memory box. You know 60 mile days and 50, 50 something mile days. And then those days you were able to come back and, and you know, take a shower and have Commeritory with.

Speaker 2: 25:29

You know other people that you're camping with or do something in town. I mean some of the days that you and I were riding 82 miles, 4400 feet of climb. That's a long day. And then, and then compile that with 99 degrees Out there, by the time you get in, you taking a shower, set up camp taking a shower, you're trying to get something to eat and by the time you get back to the shuttle, I mean that's pretty much bedtime. So it was, it was, it was cool to be there for the 50th anniversary. I mean I love being part of it, I love always my adventures with you. But in my opinion it seemed like there was just like riding camp, set up, scrounging for dinner and then then maybe a little camaraderie For other years.

Speaker 3: 26:13

We've got to meet all kinds of people and stuff, so yeah, we didn't get a set around it at night as much, and a lot of that had to do with us finding Places to eat and that type of thing, and we didn't get a lot of time to sit around and enjoy some drinks and just Chat with people a lot like we have in the past. But you know, part of that also, I think, is on us, because sure, the type of people that you know, generally we eat breakfast on the curb of the casees. We then eat lunch either underneath somebody's tree or on a curb or next to a storefront and one of the pass through towns. So by the time we get to dinner, you know, it would have been easier for us probably to go over to a, you know, to a food truck. But at that point in time, after we're cleaned up, we kind of want to go set in some air conditioning, you know, have a meal that we're not sitting on a curb or under a tree and kind of relax a little bit.

Speaker 3: 27:06

So you know part of that's on the way that we we do things and that's a perfect transition.

Speaker 2: 27:12

I mean when we, when we went to Storm Lake which, by the way, storm Lake is the oasis in the middle of Iowa I, when the Sun went down over over Storm Lake, that was gorgeous. I mean, you, if you could have closed my eyes and told me you were, and you know, on the coast of Florida or something, it was beautiful.

Speaker 3: 27:32

So yeah, I, I mean I would love to live my summers in Storm Lake, beautiful town, beach lake, fantastic little resorty type community. Now I don't want to live there during the winter time because it's northern Iowa, but oh yeah, but no, you don't even want to be in central time.

Speaker 2: 27:51

Oh wait a minute. Well, speaking of the resort, I mean just like you mentioned, you know we, you said we like to get cleaned up and go have dinner. We wouldn't had dinner inside that resort, I mean, you know, right on the lake. So that was, they had a prefix menu and that was.

Speaker 3: 28:07

That was nice and with the entire state trooper Department of northern Iowa. I'm quite sure of it. There was like 12 of them there, yeah they.

Speaker 2: 28:18

And then they got sippy cups for water. I'm thinking of myself. These guys have been out on the tarmac all day on the cement and and when they asked for water they gave them little you know double jixie cup type thing. I think you find 12, 55 gallon barrels of water for those, but you know they helped us out all week so but that night was cool because we actually got to camp next to Jeff and we met John, which was Really cool John the one-man band and had had more cowbell John.

Speaker 2: 28:49

Absolutely. I mean, he used cigar tubes to hold his drumsticks and had a symbol which, by the way, has our marking on it now. So, yes, that's good, but so yeah, no, that was good. Storm, storm Lake was really a really cool part for me. I really enjoyed storming like so. And, carol, I'm a little disappointed.

Speaker 2: 29:11

We, we had interviewed Katie before and we tried to meet her and we, we, we did our due diligence. We got in town, we got cleaned up and we rushed downtown and they said, oh, she's out by the high school and and I think they just Katie was just really busy, but really busy. But what they did have there was an air conditioned pizza ranch and we got in that back room and enjoyed about three hours of slow eating and Wi-Fi and air conditioning. So, thank you pizza ranch. And you know the other thing we went to that night as we went to the their library, which was really neat, that was they had like a movie screen that the movie projector had didn't lower the projector, but what they had was almost like a very large stair setting where you could like sit or lay down on, and it was so hot Outside and you and I and Joe just really enjoyed their beautiful air conditioning until they said five minutes in the library's closing. So we were like no, it kicked out of another library, I know, but that was.

Speaker 2: 30:16

We thanked them for allowing us in there. Well, as long as they did Kind of helped get the heat gone. But you know, even though the hot days only one day do I remember being so hot that your fan was your only saving grace. I mean, I know we had a hotel a couple nights, don't get me wrong, but Even on those nights I was watching the weather. It was cooler so, but still, we had a. It was, it was fun. So when we left Carol, we actually went to Glidden, which we did not get any paint.

Speaker 3: 30:55

We did not but you want to know what's funny. What's that? That exact same day, my wife is sending me paint samples to paint the dining room.

Speaker 2: 31:07

Pedro was gonna come paint your house.

Speaker 3: 31:10

I wish, but I just thought it's funny. I almost thought maybe she was like looking at our little radar thing and go, hey, they're in Glidden, and then I'll get some paint samples, get some paint, and so that worries always worries me a little bit. When the wife is like sending me paint samples when I'm out of town, I'm like, oh dear, what's gonna happen when I get home?

Speaker 2: 31:32

now. First of all, I'm sorry, but I have to say this I hope that she's going to Sherwin Williams to get paint samples.

Speaker 3: 31:38

Well, I hope so, because you and I both have a vested interest in the success of that cover.

Speaker 2: 31:44

Well, that's why I'm saying it. I mean, I hope so, but when we got to Glidden you know we got to we got to talk to someone named Michelle Fay and I thought, if you're okay, we'll, we'll pipe that in now.

Speaker 3: 31:57

Let's listen to it.

Speaker 2: 31:59

So we are from Psyclete Meneblees here. We're curious how do you feel about rag-bra coming through your town?

Speaker 4: 32:05

You know, we were actually very excited about rag-bra coming through here. We don't get a lot of culture, we don't get a lot of extra people in our tiny little town, so everybody has banded up together and Done their best to make sure that they have all the food, water, amenities and everything that we could possibly get. For you guys, this is a very exciting day for us.

Speaker 2: 32:24

So what is the population of Glidden? May I ask?

Speaker 3: 32:27

It's about 1200 people, so we are quadrupling, quadrupling, quadrupling, but it's tens of thousands.

Speaker 4: 32:35

This is probably the most people that have been in this town in ten years.

Speaker 2: 32:39

So give us an idea of something like what kind of prep work does it take to get ready for something like?

Speaker 4: 32:43

this Brooke Peterson. She is our city manager and she is Amazing. She has been planning for months and months and months making sure everybody has all the permits, making sure all the food is safe. Everybody has been making signs and putting up tents and you know like I mean everywhere, from the bike shop to the porta-potties.

Speaker 3: 33:04

You know, just making sure that everybody gets a safe ride this morning through our town now my question is you guys went to a lot, of, a lot of work to put those flowers, the roses, things on the streets.

Speaker 4: 33:16

My son made those stencils. He made the rose and the bicycle in his shop class and so yeah, so is that your town's logo, or? It's something he made up and something he donated to reg break. He's 15, and so Alex made the stencils and they just chock them all over.

Speaker 3: 33:34

Well, they look great.

Speaker 2: 33:35

Thank you. Thank you. We appreciate that so we can give you a plug on the show.

Speaker 4: 33:39

Your name is my name is Michelle Fay.

Speaker 2: 33:41

All right, michelle, we really appreciate you. Thank you so very much. We appreciate you guys.

Speaker 4: 33:45

Have a great day Thank you Make sure you get a bloody Mary.

Speaker 2: 33:50

Well, we didn't have a bloody Mary, but it was good to talk to Michelle there, so and we got to sign their wall, that's right.

Speaker 3: 33:56

And they did offer to let us kiss their rock, which we're gonna call it a rooster rock.

Speaker 2: 34:02

Yeah, let's leave it at the sake of the show.

Speaker 3: 34:05

You can figure out a. What they might have called it. Rooster rhymes with rock. But I'm giving you an idea.

Speaker 2: 34:13

This was a rock shaped as as something you could probably imagine. So, yes, put that all together. Remember this is we did check the box to be a clean show.

Speaker 3: 34:22

That's right. That's right. And you know, I guess ever every town has to have their thing, so sure We'll let him have it. That's right.

Speaker 2: 34:31

You know what also we got to? Oh no, then we headed to Des Moines. Sorry, can't read my own notes here, but we headed to Des Moines, which was the hayfield from hell. Sorry, but my opinion, sorry, des Moines, yeah. So they put us in this park called Waterworks Park, and and our charter was all the way in the back, and when we got in at the end of the day it was, I don't know, 97 degrees, no shade, I mean. Thankfully we bring shelter. And so we, you and I Busted our tail to get the sun shelter up really quick. That was our only saving grace there, otherwise we would have been fried bacon. And Then you know it's interesting about that place, is you?

Speaker 3: 35:26

Well, I'm a couple of things interesting, but you go ahead.

Speaker 2: 35:28

I was going to say I was going to get ahead of myself, so we took their public transportation in downtown Des Moines and for the first time ever I've been to downtown Des Moines where it wasn't zero degrees, which is great, because the last two times I had been there had been so cold that I didn't think the furnace was going to work, and we went to a place, and this time it was so hot. Yeah.

Speaker 3: 35:49

So you get one extreme or the other in Des Moines.

Speaker 2: 35:52

Yeah, maybe I just don't need to go back for a while, but I did enjoy our restaurant choice, which was a place called Zombie Burger.

Speaker 1: 36:01

That was weird.

Speaker 2: 36:02

Yeah, just a little bit funky, yeah, like all the menu items Well, had a zombie-esque name to them and so I was kind of interesting. But once again it was air conditioned and we got to sit there a while and then when we got back, that mist fog just coming out of the ground.

Speaker 3: 36:26

It was really hot that day and I don't know what was going on, but mist just started coming up and just in this huge section, this mist is kind of just hanging around and it was kind of surreal. And then they had these big spotlights on until like 11 o'clock, to you know, just to provide safety and security, I'm guessing, but it looked really weird.

Speaker 2: 36:48

Maybe the zombie had followed us home from the zombie burger.

Speaker 3: 36:52

It was kind of like when I was walking to the Port of Johns and I was walking towards the, towards the mist, I mean I was kind of thinking something could just come wandering out of there.

Speaker 2: 37:01

Like a Michael Jackson thriller video.

Speaker 3: 37:03

Yeah, exactly, exactly what.

Speaker 2: 37:05

I was talking about. And then for me the cool thing is is out of the blue. We got to see Walter in the morning as we were, we were heading out, so that was.

Speaker 3: 37:16

That was one of our Georgia Kentucky friends.

Speaker 2: 37:18

Yes, that was cool so, and then we saw him a few, a couple of other times after that on the route and stuff. He came up to us and said I'm not following you guys. I'm like, well, you should be, because we're going the way of the route.

Speaker 1: 37:28

We're going the right way.

Speaker 2: 37:32

But no, I thought, you know, I mean I know that Leonard Skinner was there and, and you know, we waited in line and listened to Leonard Skinner and One of the cool things about Waterworks Park is that's where they have the the statue yeah Um to the founders of Raghbra.

Speaker 2: 37:50

That is neat, and it was so popular on our way in that we were like, oh, we'll get it later. And then, as we were leaving in the morning, nobody was over there, and so we. It was perfect. We just snuck in, got a picture real quick and then headed on out down the road.

Speaker 3: 38:08

So the reason for that is everybody was leaving at four o'clock in the morning.

Speaker 2: 38:13

And that's something that you and I talked about yesterday, which was, um, maybe some of those vendors didn't have lines because people had left so early.

Speaker 3: 38:24

I think that really did us justice in a lot of ways. There was a lot of people who wanted to leave early. One morning I think, at Tamatolito we were up at a little before five and there was pretty much a constant string of bikes already on the road headed out of town. And that was like five o'clock in the morning. Um, I heard people saying they were leaving at 430, the people camp next to us. Thank you, whoever you were, because you tore down your tents. I didn't even hear you. Your campsite was there. I got out of my tent the next morning your campsite was completely gone and you were nowhere to be seen. I mean, people were leaving early. So I think that did us a really good favor because I put a lot of people, spread people out on the road. I think a lot.

Speaker 2: 39:09

Yeah, that one guy in the morning who I mean literally I'm not kidding you I could reach out from my cot and I could touch his tent because everyone was so slam jammed in there. I mean I woke up at 445. Um, and I said, okay, my alarm went off and I heard it been shut it off, kind of when people would be like shut your alarm off, there seemed song to Star Wars.

Speaker 3: 39:33

Oh, of course we could have done without that, no.

Speaker 2: 39:36

no, I mean listen. As a Disney stock owner, I just want you to know that I support although, let's be honest, the Disney stock has been sinking, so we won't talk about that.

Speaker 3: 39:49

Let's continue with your story.

Speaker 2: 39:51

So, anyways, I turned my alarm off, I zipped my tent and I want to be real polite and that guy is gone. I mean he must have slowly broke down and so quiet. I never heard anything. So that was kind of interesting.

Speaker 3: 40:12

Um, of course, and there was the other thousand people in the campsite that were clinking and shining their lights everywhere, and no man.

Speaker 2: 40:21

That's I was telling Lauren. That's that I felt like I was getting arrested every morning because my lights are shining. Some are red, some were blue, and they would flash back and forth and brought back horrible memories. But no, just kidding.

Speaker 3: 40:38

Sir, we're going to have to have you step out of that, yeah please, can you please step out of your tent cot now.

Speaker 2: 40:45

But I think people just lose like total understanding of like like yeah, you want a light on your head, but maybe point it down or don't point it, and people are like looking around like hey, what's over there?

Speaker 2: 40:57

Yeah like what's that noise? And you know so. Sometimes I wanted to just take it off their head and say let me show you something. I'll put it on my head and be like how would you like this? But of course you're not going to change anybody, so I just shut my mouth and all part of the adventure.

Speaker 2: 41:13

That's right. That's right, um, but you know, one of the stories that I thought we definitely should tell is we met we met Savannah in Georgia and we met tall guy in Georgia and in Tampa, toledo. We were kind of striking out there for we were on restaurant row. There were two Mexican restaurants, a pizza hut, and then it was all out. Yeah, pizza hut was done. We were told that one of the Mexican restaurants was not good and on the cycling trip where you're on your bike, anyone tells me a Mexican restaurant is not good. I am highly listening.

Speaker 2: 41:51

I probably should avoid it. So then we saw this little white building and it's a Chinese restaurant and Joe said, hey, let's go to the Chinese restaurant. At that moment it just I mean, it was good. It was good, don't get me wrong, but it sounded so good. I was like you know what? Yeah, sweet and sour chicken, orange chicken, you know, crab bragun. We had done it in years past with Ernie and everybody you know, in 2016. I said that sounds great.

Speaker 2: 42:20

When we walk in the building and the place is packed, I mean it's packed, every table is full and I'm thinking no way. And all of a sudden, out of the corner of my eye, I spot Savannah and tall guy. And Joe had not had the pleasure of meeting anyone from Georgia, or if he did, he met Juan, but he, you know, he didn't realize that who they were. And I just, literally just went and sat down next to Savannah and I said you care if we sit here? And she's like well, no, it's cycling and a torture. I said it's like in a torture. No, what are you doing? And sure enough, there were three seats and three of us.

Speaker 2: 42:57

Boom, boom. We sat down. So making friends is always a is a wonderful thing and we we enjoyed dinner with those guys. So it was good to see Savannah and tall guy and Ed and Larry and I'm sure I'm missing somebody there, but if I am I apologize, but that was great to see those guys as well. You know who. You know who else we saw that day. Actually, we saw her on the first day and then we saw her.

Speaker 3: 43:24

Lacey.

Speaker 2: 43:25

Lacey.

Speaker 3: 43:26

Yeah, lacey, another one of our Georgia Kentucky people.

Speaker 2: 43:30

Yes, that was kind of I mean. I mean, I mean that was weird on the first day on the tire dip. So if you've never, if you happen to come upon the show and you don't realize what we're talking about when we say tire dip, tradition at Raghbri is you dip your rear tire in the Missouri and your front tire in the Mississippi, symbolizing that you had crossed the entire state. So we did the tire dip on day one and out of all the thousands of people, baggage, truck lines and everything else, there was Lacey and then you know, right there next to us. So that was kind of kind of interesting. Then we saw her later on as well.

Speaker 3: 44:04

So but see that that is the advantage of cycling with you, adam.

Speaker 2: 44:09

Uh-oh, it's not, no, no, it's my hat it's your hat.

Speaker 3: 44:15

You wear that to brim yeah. It's bright yellow. It can't be missed.

Speaker 2: 44:20

That's what I told Lauren. I said I can't ever change, I always, I always have to wear that. So that's true, that helps out. And stick, stick out. Which, truth be told, there was another day that we saw Savannah. We were, we were pedaling kind of in the right side and the right lane and she was coming on the left side and she said slightly mentally, sure, and she drove by.

Speaker 3: 44:47

So that was neat, so um, yeah, we got to see a lot of. I was surprised that we saw so many people that we had ridden with past rag brides that we had ridden with in Georgia, we had ridden with in Kentucky. Uh, cause honestly I thought with the number of people there it's like we're probably not going to see a whole lot of people.

Speaker 2: 45:05

But I never really did get a, a true number. I mean, I heard where I announced that they had 29,000 registered writers. Um, I didn't heard. I read that actually. Um, and then there were bandit writers Um, for those of you who don't know, that's someone who didn't register, who just rode along, and I saw multiple people who didn't have bands on them writing next to me. So I I assume there were a plentiful of people who didn't register, but I don't know. Yeah, I mean, I don't know how many people.

Speaker 2: 45:38

I will say on day one, um, coming in, but even coming into Ames and Des Moines, um, the one town, forgive me what it is but uh, where we ended up seeing Matt. Um, joe had offered us to go right through and I said, no, I want to see the whole route. And sure enough, we ended up running in the ride director. So that was cool, but, um, I forget what town name that was. I probably could look on my phone, or my phone set for GPS coordinates, but, um, I don't know if it worked, but I guess we might actually have new, слишком weak heads above. Yeah, I actually kinda feel like that. Yeah, and John Kortman there, also played by Kevin. I just couldn't believe how long you had to walk getting into that town, and it was just solid.

Speaker 3: 46:17

I believe that was a town of the paint town.

Speaker 2: 46:24

Glidden, Glidden. Ok, I believe it was Glidden. Well, I'm looking.

Speaker 3: 46:30

We did get an opportunity to get a. It was Slater.

Speaker 2: 46:34

Was it Slater Slater, slater, slater, slater. So I thought it was Glidden.

Speaker 3: 46:40

OK, my mistake.

Speaker 2: 46:41

Well, only because I have a picture of you and I and Matt and Joe in Slater Junction.

Speaker 3: 46:47

OK, but speaking of which, we did get some time with Matt. He was generous to give us a couple of minutes. We saw him several different places. He was definitely prevalent out on the route and you know, putting out fires and stuff. We asked him if we could have a couple of minutes and he was like sure, so what? Why don't we listen in on his thing? And you know kind of see what he had to say. This is the middle of the week, perfect.

Speaker 2: 47:14

So here we are with the director of Rive Rive, Matt Bippin. When we interviewed you earlier in January, we said that we would normally see you on the route. This is our third time finding you on the route, which is kind of crazy. And all of these people you're putting on one hell of a show. How do you think it's going Fantastic?

Speaker 1: 47:30

I mean, I've never seen this many bikes on routes in any reggae and I've been around for a while. There's a kid and now as an adult, but it's a beautiful thing to see all the bikes rolling together. That's awesome.

Speaker 3: 47:40

It's been, it's been great experience so far. It really has.

Speaker 2: 47:44

I mean the different kinds of bikes, different, different things I just didn't think I would see out here. I mean, I've been out of a rag rice, don't get me wrong. I've seen some stuff, but there's lots of different people trandems, quadruple trandems. However, you say that, I'm not even sure, but we just want to tell you thanks for running into us and you put on a hell of a show. Thank you guys for being there. Thank you so much. Appreciate it.

Speaker 2: 48:06

Yeah, so that was cool. I mean I'm glad that he was able to, you know, spend some time with us. It was kind of interesting Actually. I asked him. I had the recorder in my hand and I said I said, matt, I know you're busy, and he was dealing with something in in one of the parks there. I think somebody was trying to sell without a permit. In my opinion I have no proof of that just based upon what he was looking at and calling. And he said, yeah, I'll be right back. And just for a second I thought he completely was like all right, I'm gone. And so because I kind of looked around the corner and I'm like he gone, and sure enough, he came back.

Speaker 3: 48:42

He came back.

Speaker 2: 48:43

Yeah, he came back and and we got the, got the little sound bite there, so that was cool. But no, I mean, overall, am I glad I did Bride 50? Absolutely Glad I was there. Another adventure with you, sir, absolutely Great. And you know, you and I have both said, and I'll say it here, I, I don't see us going back to Ragnwrae for a little bit. We are going to try to do some other rides and add some more variety to this adventure of the show.

Speaker 3: 49:20

Yeah, we've, and we've done it the last three years. You've done a total of five, I've done it total of six. We were going down a lot of roads that we had seen before. It was a great experience. I'm glad we were there. But I think what I'm I'm missing out on is there are so many other rides in the United States Different, you know, different landscape, different people and things like that. So, yeah, I'm definitely with you. I think it's. I think it's time that maybe we show for Agbri for for a couple of years, Nothing against Ragnwrae or anything, but maybe go out and expand our horizons a little bit. So I think next year we need to, we need to look for something, something we haven't done.

Speaker 2: 50:07

I completely agree and you and I have looked at spreadsheets before and you compiled your own of different rides and many rides are that same week as Ragnwrae and we've always like make a wish in Michigan. You know the director of Trinity Health, you know, invited me personally to do make a wish and every year I haven't been able to do it because I've done Ragnwrae. It's the same week. So make a wish in Michigan is 300 miles, is three centuries in a row, and you know you collect 1200 bucks for make a wish, kids to be able to travel, and it goes from Traverse City to just over here behind my house and not literally but just on the road and that's actually beautiful, a beautiful ride. So even though they're three centuries, but it's well supported, massage tables and not kidding, for real, and you should see the SAG wagons and the food and everything else, so very well supported. So there's some other things and you know we've learned about bike ride across Tennessee and that's interesting and you know, you always Carolina Nebraska.

Speaker 2: 51:19

Kansas. Yeah, the Kansas one definitely interests me as well. I mean, I'm always interested in the Kansas one because of you and your family, even though a central time and willing to be behind for a week, so or early I'll be early actually Just kidding.

Speaker 3: 51:40

I think what we need to do is, you know, maybe in a you know, three months or so, we need to kind of like reach out to our listeners and say give us some ideas of where you think we should go riding.

Speaker 2: 51:52

Thought you're going to say reach out and touch faith.

Speaker 3: 51:55

No no to Peshmo no, to Peshmo All right, fine, that would be kind of fun, get other people's ideas. I mean, I know I've got mine, you've got yours. See what other people think.

Speaker 2: 52:07

No, for sure, For sure. I mean it's the fun part about what we're doing here on the podcast. I'm not sure about you. I don't want to speak for you, but I'll speak for myself. And the way you and I ride is if one of us gets ahead of each other, then we slow down for each other, because it's such a crazy festivities that you know we don't always ride right next to each other. All 540 miles.

Speaker 2: 52:34

Sometimes you might even get way ahead if you're feeling it, and then I'll get like a couple of times you pulled over on some hills and stuff. Where I will like I'll get there, I'm like a turtle, I'll just keep going. And then sometimes I would feel like a million bucks and I would go, and then I'd slow down. And so the point is is we won't always ride together, and so the times that I was by myself, people would come up to me and say, hey, love your podcast, love your show, love the podcast, love the podcast. And that just made me think to myself. You know what we need to do, other things than the same things every, every time. So you know, love the friends we've met along the way and hope to meet new friends. So you know who else you ran into.

Speaker 3: 53:21

We ran into a lot of people, so I'm not even going to try to guess.

Speaker 2: 53:24

We ran into the official OK, not official the non-official mayor of Raghbri.

Speaker 3: 53:30

Oh, that's right, Sue.

Speaker 2: 53:32

That's right, sue, who educated me and gave me a, I would say, a five mile education on on e-bikes and the different classifications of class one, two and three, but let's share her mayor Raghbri story. She gave us permission, by the way, to tell this story. So Sue has a job where posting things on Facebook and this nature the concern would be of her employees seeing her personal life and so so she's just trying to be somewhat secretive. But her friends who love and care for her decided to go on her personal Facebook page I don't know if you use the word friends after this story, but just kidding, of course but they took one of the photographs from her personal Facebook page and they made an entire jersey and it said vote for Sue.

Speaker 2: 54:26

And so they all got these jerseys and when they came into town one day, the guy said, well, what do we vote on you for? And? And then she said I don't know. And he said well, what are you running for? And she said I don't know. And someone said Mayor of Raghbri. So that's how Sue became the, the mayor of Raghbri, which was wonderful to meet her, and she was on an e-bike and, honestly, I had no education on on an e-bike and so I have to agree with you.

Speaker 3: 54:53

I thought an e-bike was an e-bike, but you're. You found out differently.

Speaker 2: 54:58

I sure did. And here we were rolling across the beautiful state of Iowa and she said no, this is a class, class one e-bike. And you and I have always taken the stand set if an e-bike prolongs a cyclist's life to be able to be out there longer, absolutely, 110 percent, 10 percent support. Yes, now, I'm not going to lie on some of those hills that we were grinding out on the day, that was 4,400 feet of climb and I'm on the right side and I'm grinding it out and I'm going to get to the top of this hill. And here was Maggie or Margaret, or whoever, just with a big smile on her face, going up the hill. Hi, how are you doing? I may have wanted to strangle her.

Speaker 3: 55:40

It is hard, it is hard not to be a little bit like, have that little bit of anger build up. It's like you're huffing, you're puffing, it's hot, and they just come zipping right up the thing. I totally get it and I shouldn't be upset or anything, but I'm just like man, you know, because, let me tell you, there's a couple of hills that I was like where's that button at? I need the button.

Speaker 2: 56:03

I could have taken the button, but I am no expert. I'm actually would be the extreme novice. But let me just tell you what Sue told me about e-bikes. She said that a step, a step, one, a class one forgive me, class one is essentially a pedal assist, meaning you do not get any assistance Unless you are pedaling, and it's about a 20 mile an hour maximum speed, so you have to be pedaling and then you get a little bit of assist on the hills and you can dial that up and down. Do you want to pedal harder? You can dial it down so you can feel the bike more. If you need a little more help, it's like Sue's case. She had knee surgery and so she was a little bit concerned about right. Right wanted to complete the 50th anniversary, and so that's why she decided to do an e-bike. Then she told me there was class two, and class two is essentially that you don't have to pedal, that you can actually just push a button. It is a maximum of 20 miles an hour. Your battery is prolonged if you pedal, but still those those two are class one, and two is essentially a cycling assist. You're still having to pedal.

Speaker 2: 57:13

And then she told me about class three and after she told me about class three, I, I I gotta tell you, in my opinion, I think that they should not be allowed. On Rackbrite it's essentially a moped, it's 28 miles an hour, you don't have to pedal at all, you could just push a button and we away you go. And so that seems to me that could be highly dangerous. If everybody else is climbing a hill at nine miles an hour and then one person you know nine, 10, 15, depending on 20, depending on your. You know your personal, you know skill. Me, my skill would be like two sometimes on some of those hills, but but downhill I go fast. But once I learned that there was class one, two and three, and I'm not sure how you feel, but my opinion is class three should just absolutely not be allowed. In any event, that is not like your own deal or whatever.

Speaker 3: 58:14

Well, the two things. Number one you didn't talk about class four, but which is basically Harley or hardly no, just kidding. Just bring your motorcycle. That's a class four and we'll call it good that's right. But I as I understand it officially, ragged right does not allow class three E bikes.

Speaker 2: 58:42

That's what Sue told us. Yeah, in the thing, because you're right.

Speaker 3: 58:45

Essentially that's. That's basically a moped from the 1980s. Remember those that had the pedals on them? Oh yeah, yeah, that's basically what that is.

Speaker 2: 58:55

But I was interesting to learn the difference between class one and two and and you know, I'm, I'm, I'm not blind, I'm, I pay attention to social media. I mean we run a podcast, we share our show off in social media. I saw people just slamming people for e-bikes and you know I don't take that stance. I take the stance that if, like Sue, if she had knee surgery and just a little bit of assist helps her and she can still get out and ride and how she showed me at dial down and she has to work harder and and better Battery battery life lasts longer the more you pedal it and not ask for the assist. So there were some long days out there, so really cool to get a little bit of a novice entry level to e-bikes. I honestly had no clue.

Speaker 3: 59:37

And we met the unofficial mayor of ragged right, which in itself was was pretty cool. You know, I will comment on the all the stuff that I saw on on social media about e-bikes. I think people are, you know, get a little crazy about it. But yeah, if you have health or knee problems and you're a cyclist, you want to be out. I have no problem with that. Now, you know, sure it annoys me a little bit when they're just toodling up the hills and I'm huffing and puffing, but that's just the way it is. I'm happy to be huffing and puffing because my knees still work and everything's in good shape so far. You know, I think the one that really, really annoys me is when I see, like the 25 year old guy and maybe I don't know his story, maybe there is something that he needs it, but I find it hard to believe, with as many young people as I saw in those bikes, that there's that many young people who have problems biking that wouldn't be able to get on a regular bike and do it.

Speaker 2: 1:00:38

And I know where you're coming from because I saw the same thing. I mean, like you said, like the 25 year old. The problem is it's hard not to know the backstory, oh yeah, but then what you see is they come into town, they set the e-bike down, then they run to their friends on the other side of the you know vendor row. So it's kind of hard. I'm like what I'm honestly like, that's when I go to Disney and I see people who rent the carts, you know the e whatever carts. I think the same thing. Sometimes I watch you pedal that car or drive that cart all the way around Epcot, but then when it's time to go in, you get off and you run in. You come back out and are some people needing it? Absolutely, I just think people sometimes just take advantage of like I don't want to walk, I'm going to get myself a, I'm going to get myself a you know motorized cart, scooter, whatever.

Speaker 3: 1:01:25

So but ultimately it boils down to you want the experience. It really shouldn't matter if you're on an e-bike, unicycle, you're walking, you're on a regular bike or whatever. The point is, you're out there, you're enjoying it, you're on the adventure and really nobody else's business. You know kind of what type of bicycle you're on or how you're getting around. The fact is you're out there to enjoy yourself and we should just all respect that, myself included.

Speaker 2: 1:01:53

No, I completely agree, completely agree. I mean, if you want to be out in 97 degrees and 4,400 feet of elevation and and you know almost be melting like a piece of candy in the backseat of the car in the 80s, join us, come on out. There's room for everybody. So it was great to meet the mayor of Reg Bray Awesome.

Speaker 3: 1:02:17

One thing I did want to do is I wanted to acknowledge a couple of people, Sure, and then do some shout outs. Okay, Number one I wanted to acknowledge the Air Force Cycling Team. Absolutely, those men and women are animals, Let me tell you. They're out there every day helping people. Smiles on their faces might be 95 degrees and they've ridden you know 70, 80 miles. Boy, let me tell you they'll just hop off their bike. How can I help you and immediately go about doing it, and they've, you know, done that every year that I've been doing rag brie and just fantastic group of people, Great mission that they have, and I mean that really is awesome, Especially if you know you're not good at changing flat tires and things like that. They're always there to back you up. So I definitely wanted to kind of give a salute to those men and women and that cycling team and their mission, because I think they're awesome, and not only that.

Speaker 2: 1:03:21

But please remember I know you know this, but just want the listeners to know that those men and women actually provide the tubes themselves. I mean, they actually, they actually help bring some stuff to the table with their own money. And so of course they're trying to collect money at the same time to do it. But many times they're just doing it other good than to their heart. And so, just to give you a play by play, you could be on the side of the road. You got two to three Air Force guys with jerseys on and say USAF or depending on which version they had, Boom, they're right there on you, they're helping you. What can we help you with you? Okay, what's going on? And so I appreciate you mentioning those, Appreciate you doing that.

Speaker 3: 1:04:04

Yeah, and the other group that I don't think gets recognized hardly at all is the law enforcement people at the state level, at the county level and at the local level. They're standing out there in the heat, direct in traffic, you know, full on uniforms. So I mean that their service is invaluable in keeping us safe. So we definitely appreciate them and also, like the EMTs, paramedics, those type of people, they're working their tails off as well as, like the local town you know, hospital healthcare employees, because I know at Storm Lake one of the nurses from the hospital came around and said you know was just checking on people ask us if we were all hydrated and have any problems. We were fine and she said if you run into anybody, make sure you're not sending them down to the hospital.

Speaker 3: 1:05:04

They actually had hospitals full completely full from, just like the people with dehydration. About a block away, they'd opened up another building and we're just you know, helping people from that facility because their hospital was completely full.

Speaker 2: 1:05:21

So let me let me tap on that for a second Incredible.

Speaker 2: 1:05:25

So that night when she came out to our camp, you and I had just fired up a cigar and she said, excuse me, gentlemen, and I thought just for a second, here I am going to be yelled at in a public park for smoking a cigar or something. And she said, excuse me, gentlemen, and I was like, yes, and she's like, is anyone in your group hydrated? And of course, what you just said you know. She was like, because we're doing IVs for you know, hydration up there, blah, blah. And here I am, the whole time the cigar in my hand. This poor nurse is there. I got like almost behind my back like it's contraband.

Speaker 3: 1:05:59

I feel like you're in high school and you're getting busted for something Exactly. And I, like you know, slid behind me and it's like but it was kind of funny so I just wanted to share that so yeah, so I mean those are, those are some groups that really made this event safe. Yeah, it made it better. So I appreciate all their effort, as I'm sure you do too.

Speaker 2: 1:06:21

No for sure. I appreciate you mentioning those and you know, every time I went by one of the officers man, woman, whatever I always said thank you, thank you. If I could, if I could get it out without, you know, concentrating, I would just say thank you, you know, for your service, thank you for being out here and helping us.

Speaker 3: 1:06:39

So now there's a few other shout outs people that we haven't mentioned that I did want to mention. All right, I'm in. Margaret, one of our favorite cyclists.

Speaker 2: 1:06:48

Georgia. Oh yeah, that's true.

Speaker 3: 1:06:50

She was there, awesome. Who else? Steven and Scott Yep, two members of our brag team and. Mark and Mark that we did not get to see, but we know they were there and wanted to shout out to them.

Speaker 2: 1:07:07

And Steven. I talked to him on my way home. He had a true I mean true story. He accidentally called me and I was concerned because it was like 10 o'clock at night we were almost back back home and and I said, steve, I just want to make sure you're okay, this is on the last day at home. And he said, oh yeah, yeah, he said I dialed you by accident. I'm sorry, adam. I said no problem and I said just small talk. I said, well, how was your ride? He said well, great, I wore the cyclical men of Jersey twice, leisure, leisure Jersey twice. All right, steven, I love you. Buddy, thank you so much. So that was awesome. And so, yeah, I know Mark and Scott were there. I saw lots of pictures from Mark and Scott said he's just a little delayed on his postings, but sounds like it went well for him as well.

Speaker 3: 1:07:52

So the final two people I wanted to shout out was the Norwegian couple, oh for sure, norwegian travelers.

Speaker 2: 1:08:00

So so, yes, they flew in from Norway.

Speaker 3: 1:08:04

Yes, To ride Raghbri on a tandem bike and it was like an all-white tandem bike. Every day they wore Norway jerseys and had like a Norwegian flag on the back.

Speaker 3: 1:08:15

And passing on koozies yes, and we had ran into them at Pizza Ranch Didn't really talk to them. They were in the table behind us because we were all too busy, you know, shoving food in our face. But then when we were standing in line to take a shuttle bus back probably 30 minutes, we'd gotten a long discussion and really enjoyed speaking with them. So I hope they made it back to Norway in good shape.

Speaker 2: 1:08:38

I do too, especially when I said whose idea was this, and she, like she didn't answer, but she looked right at him and he goes. Well, that was more my idea.

Speaker 3: 1:08:48

But nah, it's all right. They seem to be having a good time. Yeah, they did?

Speaker 2: 1:08:52

Yeah, they did, and they were going a heck of a lot faster than I was going. They were cruising, so that's all right, but it's not a race, right? That's right, so that's all.

Speaker 3: 1:09:04

I got there. I just wanted to give some shout outs to those people.

Speaker 2: 1:09:08

And I'm scanning my notes here and I think we I mean, if I missed somebody, I'm sorry. I know we saw lots of people. We saw a lot of our Brian friends Some, I am guilty, I don't even know by name, I hate to say that, but they just come up and say, weren't you on Bragg? And I'm like I was on Bragg, so that was, that was cool. So, overall, I'm glad I went. I'm glad. I'm also glad I'm sitting in my air conditioned house right now. But but no, it was another great adventure with you, sir.

Speaker 3: 1:09:42

So absolutely Happy to have done it, looking forward to whatever the next adventure might be.

Speaker 2: 1:09:48

Bourbon Country burn baby.

Speaker 3: 1:09:51

Indeed, that'll be fun.

Speaker 2: 1:09:53

And then I mean I'm sure you'll be doing some training between now and then. So yeah of course.

Speaker 3: 1:10:01

Why would you even say that? I don't understand.

Speaker 2: 1:10:06

Well, okay, have you taken the clothes off of the the Peloton?

Speaker 3: 1:10:13

Yeah, there's no clothes currently on it. Good Good, good, good, yeah, as far as I know.

Speaker 2: 1:10:21

No, it was, it was good time. So I'm glad, glad we went, Glad we're home with 10 fingers and toes and everything else, so um.

Speaker 3: 1:10:30

The last. The last thing that we can kind of end with is we did record when we finally made it to the end and at the at the thing. So I think it's, I think we should play that, and then we'll, then we'll end this episode.

Speaker 2: 1:10:46

Sounds great. Let me put that in here right now. Well, boys, here we are at the end. We did it again. We did it again. That's right, rack Ry, 50 in the books, 540 ish miles. I think that might have walked up 0.0. Unlike Georgia where I walked a little bit yeah.

Speaker 3: 1:11:04

Well, it was, it was. It was rough. It was really rough. A lot of a lot of distance, a lot of heat, but we tire dipped and now we're done, joe, what do you think?

Speaker 2: 1:11:14

It was totally awesome, but you do it again. Hell yeah, hell yeah. That's a word we can actually use in podcast. That's a clean word, so that's good. So we had no rain, except for last night. Everybody in Coralville, unfortunately, had a storm. We had this Brainiac idea to get a hotel, so we actually had 800 thread count sheets.

Speaker 2: 1:11:37

Yes, filtered water, air conditioning no waiting for the bathroom. Well, I didn't have to wait. I don't know if you guys had to wait. I'm sorry if you did, but we had breakfast, beautiful waffles, as you would and expect in a hotel.

Speaker 1: 1:11:53

We, we had one mechanical issue.

Speaker 2: 1:11:56

We had a blowout on the shoe and I had a flat. What about you? Anything else that I can remember?

Speaker 3: 1:12:01

No, the important thing is we had no medicals.

Speaker 2: 1:12:03

And there were lots of doctors.

Speaker 3: 1:12:07

So, it was a lot of people stepping out and things like that. But all in all, we made it, we made it. We're here back in Davenport so uh.

Speaker 2: 1:12:17

Rackbrite 50, sioux City to Davenport. We chose all three of us chose the optional century day to get the patch which gave us additional miles. I believe, doing some mathematics, arithmetic, carrying the one minus in the two, 540 miles, I think. So yeah, that should be about right, so perfect. Well, gentlemen, I'm happy to share this experience with you.

Speaker 3: 1:12:39

It's been fun, been fun again.

Speaker 2: 1:12:40

Love every minute, I'm going to say something. This is definitely not leisure. By the way, this year was not leisure. No, 92 miles, 72 miles, 82 miles, 103. Yeah, definitely so, but good time. So thank you, gentlemen, thank you. All right, we're excited, obviously to be done, so glad we were able to get that recorded. But, as we did for the last seven days, what is today?

Speaker 3: 1:13:10

It's a great day for bike ride. Absolutely. Thank you, sir, thank you.

Speaker 1: 1:13:16

Thank you for coming along with Adam and Michael on Road Adventures with Cycling Men of Leisure. If you have enjoyed this, please subscribe to the show and the podcast app of your choice.