Bike Ride Report - RAGBRAI Day 2 - Spencer to Humboldt, IA

Today was century day. Here is the "after" picture.



Here is the "before" picture.




We got Suzanne to take our picture, while she was busy packing up her and Jim's stuff.



It was almost a full century this year. It was 98.8 miles from camp site to camp site. I rode around town for a while to get the needed 1.2 miles. It took me from 7:00 to 3:30, with a rolling average of 13.4 mph. The trike is slow, the T-Bone would have gotten me in two hours earlier.

I rode with Laura for the first 50 miles. When she would stop to take pictures, I rode slower to let her catch up.

We had breakfast at Mr. Pork Chop.



There are rumors that this is the last year for Mr. Pork Chop and he might be retiring. So here are some more photos to document this important RAGBRAI institution.

Pork chops on the grill:



The corn cob compartment on the bus:



The man himself:



The century loop took us to Albert City, a town where most people are of Swedish descent. They have a huge grain elevator and an ethanol plat. You can smell the ethanol plant. It smells like mash.



This contraption of many gears and belts and wheels is an ice cream maker.



The ice cream was incredibly good. I also had some Swedish meatballs and homemade rye bread. I resisted the urge to walk around going BORK BORK BORK!

The ice cream and meatballs made me a tower of power for the last half of the century. I stopped waiting around for Laura, and put the hammer down (as far as it will go on the trike). Here is the camp site, all set up by 4:00.



Humboldt is kind of messed up for an overnight town. First, the only nearby place to get a shower was the municipal swimming pool, and the line was outrageously long. I just jumped in the pool and did baby wipes before bed.

Second, check out the beer garden. This picture is from next to the stage. The far end is four blocks down! You can't even see the end! This means it's a four block walk to cross the street. This is a very retarded setup, especially on Century Day.




So the three block walk to the happy friendly Qwest Internet booth was actally 7 blocks. The Qwest booth was conveniently located next to a BBQ stand, which was a very tasty dinner.



Laura and I went to see the Harry Potter movie. There is a movie theater right on the main street. This was more fun than standing in line for a shower. This was only the second movie Laura has gone to this week.

Overnight towns always try to have a theme. Humboldt's was "Holidays in Humboldt". It was Christmas. The had kids handing out candy canes when you rode in.

Yesterday, Spencer had a James Bond theme. When you rode in to town, there were a couple dozen kids lined up along the road handing out loaded squirt guns! Unbelievably, some of the folks on our charter were sitting around later saying how they couldn't figure out what to do with the squirt guns.

This was obvious to me. You get your squirt gun from the first kid in line. Then you ride along squirting the remaining kids while laughing maniacally. It was great.

If you have any water left, you squirt the guy on the bike next to you. When the squirt gun is empty, you toss it to a kid alongside the road.

ROADKILL REPORT:
Snake

Here's the MotionBased page.