Keeping up with dudes

Holla!

I spent last weekend doing the following:

• Camping! In a tent! That I pitched! For two whole nights! With no potties for at least 100 yards!
• This is truly a fact worthy of five exclamation points, as you see, I was raised a Girl Scout, but Troop 1050 of Henry Elementary were hardly the Red Feathers of Culver City, ifyouknowwhatI'msayin.
• Keeping up with Hubs and his pals on a 110-mile bike ride, even though they all have much (MUCH) nicer bikes than I. Thank you, Body Pump, for the quads of steel. Even with relatively little training, this ride was ten bazillion times easier than our little trip to Winterset last year. 
• It seems having a little less chunk to haul around makes a heckuva difference! I'm guessing all that running helped my endurance, too.
• Also, this was not a race. But I want all you fine people to know that I passed many, many riders on nice bikes, with fancy, unflattering bike shorts and $100 helmets. It seems looking like a biker does not make one a biker. Who knew?
• RAGBRAI, which for those of you who are not familiar is:
• A bike ride across the state of Iowa, in which I rode the final two days from Cedar Rapids to Clinton on the river.
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• Street parties galore!

• 
• 20,000 riders deep.

• 
• A little of this. 

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• Adorable local om-pa bands! 

• 
• PIE. Lots and lots of pie. 

It was so fun! My cell phone broke right before we headed out, so I was free as a bird all weekend, which was delightful. We're already plotting our return for 2013. Hopefully with slick team t-shirts and custom koozies. 

Were any of my lovely readers on RAGBRAI? I actually met up with an old college friend who randomly found me on the street in Anamosa. I was shocked because I had sunglasses on, and I can never recognize people when they wear sunglasses, particularly when I haven't seen them in seven years. Can you?

Related: your favorite type of pie? Mine is berry. With ice cream.

I think we are intermediate now

Since I got my sweet new purple bike, Hubs and I have been riding a lot. We've been spending Saturdays going 20, 30 then 40 miles all leading up to a little bike-cation over the long weekend.

Somehow, in the week leading up to this ride, it never dawned on us to check the weather for Saturday, so we were a little dismayed that as we got ready to roll, the news announced that several other outdoor events were cancelled that day because of rain.

Weenies.

I can say that because Hubs and I persevered, as we tend to do when faced with minor setbacks like a failed inspection or paint that needs four coats to cover.

Between downpours on the way to Martensdale.

Our plan was to coast down the trail that stretched from our house to a little town called Martensdale. From there, we'd be on county roads to St. Mary's and St. Charles and over to Winterset, where we'd stay for the night. All in all, Saturday would be 50 miles.

This route came from the latest Central Iowa Cycling map, which was probably the best $3.99 I've spent in some time.

Sunday we went north on 169 before getting on a rural road and getting back on the trails at Cumming - going just about 39 miles.

I know I wrote that like maybe we didn't stick to the plan, but you know what? We did stick to the plan and if you don't believe me, you can ask my poor hamstrings. They won't lie.

So, Saturday was rainy, but not as bad as I expected it to be and for that, I give all my credit to the two beers I downed at the Cumming Tap, seen here on our return stop, while we waited out the rain.

After that little knock-back, we were off to Martensdale and along the way, we met this guy:

His name is Bishop and even though he was very friendly, he wasn't 100% on board with our my idea of riding in the backpack for the next two days.

Once we hit Martensdale, it was lunch time. I went with a sensible salad and Hubs made another decision.

I suppose when you burn 2500 calories in one day, you really don't need to feel bad about eating a fried tenderloin the size of your face. Hubs sure looks happy.

After lunch, we tried desperately to not be killed by cranky drivers on two busy roads. We weren't doing anything wrong, but clearly the awesomeness of my purple bike threw some pick-up drivers into a blind rage as they loved honking and flying by at 80 on a 55 mph road. 

Luckily, our next stop was soothing and filled with gentle old people from Missouri - the oldest covered bridge in Madison County.

 

Sadly, things really started going downhill (even more sad, in no way do I mean that literally) after this charming stop. We had to take a detour on a gravel road for about two miles and then we hit the hills. Oh! Did we hit them! And the rain was raining. And we were sad. But the drivers were much nicer.

And soon, we saw this:

The lovely Madison County Winery and Twisted Vine Brewery vineyard and tasting room. We saddled up to the bar and ordered a beer flight ($3 for three samples! Hello, deal!) and a cheese platter while we recovered from a yucky ride. 

While we sat and recharged phones and ate giant chunks of Gouda, the sun was totally out. The owners were harvesting grapes that day and so they (being way smarter than us) got to work while the sun was out. Once we had downed our beers and were ready to go, the sky got dark. 

It is 11 miles from the winery to the bed and breakfast we were staying at and in the rain, that's not really all that fun. Zero fun, in fact. 

As we pulled up to the Heavenly Habitat, I was delirious. I wanted to be off my bike and done pedaling. So when  Steve, the owner, showed me this:

I very nearly fainted on the spot. Then, he showed us a washer and dryer which was hallelujah good news because Hubs and I only packed one pair of bike shorts each since a) that's all we own and b) we were our own UHauls.

Here we are the next day, fully healed from the rainy ride and ready to scoot out!

Sunday was a much quicker ride since there weren't a whole lot of places to stop at. Just lots of this:

 

One more quick stop at the Cumming Tap and we were practically home!

 It was an awesome ride and we're hoping to make it an annual trip. With my trusty Grown Up Bike, I can do just about anything.

Any other tips for fun weekend rides around these parts?

Goodbye, old friend

After a particularly ugly 13-mile trail ride a few weekends ago, Hubs and I decided that it was time to bid adieu to the hot pink Huffy that carted my sore rump around town these past few years, much to the amusement of local bike snobs. It was time to Upgrade. (Yep. Capital. This was momentous.)

Buying my First Grown Up Bike was a pain the the tookus. We went to local shops only to see nothing in our price range, got kicked out of a Target for riding in the aisles (in our defense, the store was dead and I looked both ways before crossing. I mean, how's an upstanding citizen like myself supposed to purchase a bicycle without proper testing first? Absurd! (also, we did not get kicked out, but we did get a very stern talking to from the 19 year old on duty in the toy aisle).

Just as we were about to give up and ride forever mismatched on Des Moines' fine trails, we found Barr Bikes. And even better, we found my bike.


Aint' she a beaut?


She's a purple Raleigh Route 3.0 and her gears actually shift and stay shifted, her brakes don't howl in agony with each use and she's deep purple, which, I cannot lie, is one of the main reasons she got swooped up by me. She's perfect.


Sadly, she's on order from the warehouse, so I didn't get to ride off into the sunset with her, but it won't be long until I'm tooling around like a Real Grown Up Cyclist on this little sweetheart. 


What was your first grown up bike? Wanna buy a hot pink Huffy?

Getting huffy

I am not a bike snob. A cheese snob, a grammar snob, a beer snob - perhaps. But a bike snob, I am not.

Neither is Hubs, but he bought a relatively nice bike last summer because he rides to work at least twice a week when the weather is nice.

Meanwhile, I ride to the coffeeshop and restaurants down the street on this totally rad purple Huffy that I scored from the Des Moines Bike Collective for $25 a few years ago.

Now. As a rather unsophisticated bike owner, I don't see much difference. Both have two wheels and nice comfy seats. Mine has brakes that scream like an angry raccoon when I stop and Hubs' doesn't have a kickstand, so I figured we were about even in our ghettoness.

A bike snob set me straight, though.

We rode to $1 slider night at the bar down the street last night and some serious bike dude was gawking at our two bikes chained together. He was legit staring, open-mouthed when we walked up to unchain them and ride home.

"I was just admiring the difference between these two bikes," he said. I smiled and told him I got a deal and then proceeded to hop gracefully on my bike and zip away get the laces of my Sperry knock-offs stuck in the pedal and wobble away.

Hrmph. Was I dissed? Was my little purple Huffy out of style? Did he expect a father-daughter pair to claim the bikes? The daughter being appropriately aged for Huffy ownership (that's I think about 14, no older). Am I a total embarrassment? Because I thought I was super cool and fit and slightly amazing, cruising down the street on my WD40-thirsty purple 12 speed with my big sunglasses and bohemi-chic braids.

This run in (if you can call it that) with a total cycle thug (exaggeration) has me curious: What kind of bike are you grownups riding?