I rode through the 1st town, Auburn, without stopping, since their KYBOs ( or port-a-potties ) were too crowded. The second town, Lake City, was not so bad, so I stopped to eat a cliff bar and drink a gatorade. The ride is going great so far !
I kept going thru the next two towns, Lohrville and Farnhamville, stopping only for water and Gatoraid. I had a nice lunch in Gowrie at a Maid-Rite sandwich stand. It's a crumbled ground beef sandwich thats very popular in Iowa. It was good riding food, the secret to my good ride today.
I saw a couple of neat bikes today. One was a guy riding a big wheeled unicycle on the ride. I wonder how he rides down the hills !
The other rider was a little old man dressed in a striped shirt with a beret and scarf - and he was rolling down the road pedaling backwards on his pedals. Later I saw him pedaling forwards on his pedals. In the next town, Dayton, I ran into him and asked about his bicycle. It is a 100-year-old French 2-speed, and he came over from England to ride it across Iowa.
There were some fantastic headwinds today. Also a lot of climbs. We went to the town of Stratford on the "Karras Loop", which adds on enough miles to make the days ride a century, 100 miles. They had a luau theme, and passed out leis and hugs. I got my patch from Mr. John Karras himself, quite an honor. John Karras was one of the two founders of RAGBRAI, way back in 1973.
Today I ate some chicken on a stick, a maid-rite sammy, homemade ice cream, and had a nice dinner at the Webster City Golf Club.
We had a bad accident at the golf course in the late afternoon. A lady from team sprint ran into a guy from another team. She was driving a golf cart and he was riding his bicycle. There was an ambulance, police, and everything. It's terrible how everything changes in a moment like that. I sure hope the rider is alright.
Great day - and a Great RAGBRAI !!
