RAGBRAI Day 4 - Waukee to Newton

Hello from Newton Iowa, home of a brand new NASCAR race track! Everything here has a NASCAR theme. There are little checkered flags lining the route into town. (There were tiki torches yesterday at the Wau-Kee-Kee Hula Party).

We had incredible thunderstorms all last night. They got 2 1/2 inches of rain in Waukee. I was safe and dry in my tent. Jim was at the beer garden when they came, and he reported on the impromptu naked slip-and-slide that spontaneously erupted. He was save and dry on his cot above the small pond on the floor of his tent. Laura fled to the emergency shelter, which was the middle school we were camped next to. It was a late start this morning since Laura was unable to hear the ritual "DES MOINES CYCLE CLUB YOUR BURNING DAYLIGHT". It took us an hour to find her where she was sleeping away under some bleachers.

Also lightning hit our camp. It struck the engine of the box truck of the group next to us and destroyed the engine. They had to go and get a new truck.

I started the day with a tasty breakfast at Mr. Pork Chop.



See the pork chops grilling? YUM!

Mr. Pork Chop was at mile 30, and the whole ride was 70 miles and pretty flat. 20 miles out I mixed up some Cytomax, and I got in here at Newton at noon. Before going to camp, I stopped by the center of town for some tacos



and strawberry pie.



Then I rode to the camp area and set up.



So today's big news at camp was the arrival of Lance Armstrong. He was supposed to ride tomorrow, but the story was that he rode some today on the spur of the moment. I never passed him, so I figured it was just a rumor.

It turns out he did ride, but it was later in the afternoon. There is a lot of excessive hype about Lance Armstrong coming to RAGBRAI, and a lot of jokes as backlash. Like the farmer who attached an old bike to the front of his manure spreader and put a stuffed dummy on it wearing a yellow bike jersey that said "Lance" on it.

After Jim got in, we went into town for some dinner. We took the shuttle bus (a school bus, today) into town and went to the Methodist? Church for dinner. Some church. Everyone said the one with the green dome.


I about had the volunteer who gives out directions on the school bus convinced the Methodists bought out the Muslims and it used to be a mosque, but Jim thought it would be a bad idea if she spread this misinformation to hundreds of RAGBRAI riders all night and straightened her out.

Dinner was excellent! Beef and homemade noodles, with green beens and two choices of homemade salad to go with.


And look at the top of the picture. That would be goosberry pie! You don't get goosberry pie every day.

After I posted last night, a DMCC member rode up to visit with her three year old in this amazing rig.



I had to grill her about hauling kids in trailers. It turns out she had a recumbent before she got the trike, and she said it's much, much easier to haul the trailer on a trike. She said the super-low gearing on the trike is incredibly helpful, and it's very nice that the trike is wider than the trailer. She said the company that made the trailer is out of business, but the hitch on it broke and she replaced it with a Burley hitch.

She also said she started hauling her son around when he was six weeks old, by mounting a car seat inside the trailer.

Stick-on Sandal Update

I'm wearing them right now. I peeled them off last night with some effort. I left them out in the rain, figuring the rain would clean them. In the morning they would not stick at all. It turns out that was because they were wet. I threw them in my bag, and when I put them on this afternoon they stuck just fine.

But they got wet again when I was cleaning out my Camelback bladder, and stopped sticking. I washed them off and set them in the sun to dry while I went to take a shower while wearing my old flip-flops. When I got back, they were hot and dry and super sticky.

So they seem to work just fine unless they are wet. I walked about a mile around Newton while wearing them.

Also, at least six women asked me about them because they wanted some. I am popular with the ladies when I am wearing stick-on sandals. I am so cool.

Here is today's route, which was flat and easy except for the 15% climb going out of Colfax.