by Tim CigelskeRIDERS OF THE CORN

the heartland’s most unassuming state. They travel about 470 miles from the Missouri River on the state’s western border to the Mississippi River on its eastern edge. It’s one of the oldest, longest, and

largest multi-day bike ride in the country.

And, for the second year in

a row, Lance

Armstrong was one of the riders. Yes, as in seven-time Tour de France-

winner Lance Armstrong. That Lance Armstrong. “So this

is RAGBRAI,” Armstrong said after his first Tour de Iowa. “I wasted all those Julys in France.” When

we found out about the ride, we decided that

we had to experience

it for ourselves.Then reality intervened. We all have

the best intentions to get together with close friends. Making those plans happen is another story. Coordinating our sched-ules for this trip was especially stressful and chaotic, and we eventually agreed that it would be easier for all of us to sign up to ride the last three days instead of the full seven. We finalized plans late the night before our departure with a flurry of

We were a group of friends from virtually every stage of young adult life. My long-haired college-

aged brother Mikey took off from his summer job test-driving lawn mowers for this bike ride. My post-college friend Kyle, whom I met while we both worked in Glacier National Park, was trying to get into film school. Jeff, my college roommate and best man, was a suc-cessful Chicago real estate agent but was seri-ously considering a career change. My high-

school buddy Tyler, still called by his childhood nickname of Bone, was the first family man of any of my friends. A writer, I had recently married and settled down in the Milwaukee suburbs. Our far-flung lives converged on a bike ride across Iowa.

Welcome to the Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa. Every late July, about 15,000 cyclists descend upon perhaps

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he promptly fell off his bike and badly sliced up his ankle. A well-meaning sheriff who was supervising the route tried to help. He ripped open a gauze pad and tried to apply the loose cotton to the bloody wound. Evidently, patrolling rural high-

ways doesn’t provide much minor first-aid practice. It would have been comical if Jeff hadn’t been in pain. Fortunately, a nearby bike-mechanic stand had proper materials to clean and dress the cut. We rode on.

We quickly realized it would be hard to

keep our little group together. We each had varied abilities and vastly different caliber bikes. Poor Kyle got stuck with a clunky hybrid that wasn’t properly fitted for him. His hamstring tightened early, and he had to stop and stretch. No one noticed, he got left behind, and he had to hammer to catch up. Inevitably, one or two of us would break off and get temporarily lost amid the thousands of other cyclists on the road.

It also proved more physically demand-ing than we thought, especially when a ceaseless wind swept over the sun-drenched, shadeless plains. We steadi-ly depleted our stash of energy bars. When we took a break for lunch, we were already hot, tired, sore, sunburned, and starving. We sucked down Gatorade and devoured plates of barbecued beef.

Near the end of our first day, a sheriff parked along the course singled out Jeff as he doggedly pedaled the homestretch. “That man is hurting,” he shouted. “That man,” he repeated, “is hurting.”

It was still a long way to the Mississippi. That night, we discovered why some call

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7th Annual MAINE

LOBSTER RIDE & ROLLRockland, Maine • Saturday, July 26th, 2008

Maine’s most scenic and tasty bike rides16, 30, 50 and 100 mile rides to choose from and a fresh lobster roll dinner at the finish

207-623-4511 www.BikeMaine.org

dozens of emails. It took four separate car trips to arrive at a meeting spot.

I left home and traveled across Wisconsin with my brother, driving in his un-air -conditioned beater in the late July heat and humidity. I actually wished I was still at work. I questioned whether the effort was worthwhile and struggled to remember why I thought this was such a good idea. Why not just stay home and take an extra-long bike ride? What was so special about riding through a bunch of cornfields, anyway?

This was the first bike tour for each of us, and no one was very well prepared. Kyle, Jeff, and Mikey all had to borrow road bikes. Bone was a former bicycle-shop employee, but taking care of his toddler and pregnant wife had cut into his cycling time. I had recently started cycling to work, but my longest ride ever

was only a few hours. The entry materi-als stressed that RAGBRAI was a lei-surely ride, not a race. Still, I wondered if we knew what we were getting into.

The five of us met outside an American Legion building in Dyersville, Iowa, home to the baseball field made famous in the movie Field of Dreams. We con-solidated our bikes and gear in the back of a tightly packed Ford Explorer and sped along Iowa’s lonely Highway 20. We stayed the night with Bone, the only one of us who lived in Iowa. It was the last time we would shower for days.

Early the next morning, we left Bone’s house and made our way along lonely country roads to the official RAGBRAI route. On the 15-mile commute, we saw

maybe three vehicles. Other than the countless fields of corn, they were the only signs of life. The sights once we reached the route couldn’t have made for a more distinct contrast. There was a constant stream of cyclists. Where were they all coming from? Was this more than the entire population of Iowa?

Jeff was so surprised — and the unfa-miliar clipless pedals didn’t help — that

Tractors or bikes? Many Iowans ask themselves the same question.

A gathering of cyclists. A cyclist pulls in to join many others at a RAGBRAI rest stop.

Sights included farm animals, cemeteries, and locals who sat in front of their farms waving and smiling at us.

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it the Annual Great Beer Run Across Iowa. We had heard about RAGBRAI’s repu-

tation as a party on wheels, and cer-tainly had seen plenty of wild costumes, novelty bikes, and beer guzzling on the route. Bone, too, had told us what he’d heard while working at a bike shop in

Dubuque. “The first time I ever heard of RAGBRAI,” he said, “was when a cus-tomer came into the shop asking about the best way to mount subwoofers on his bike.” At first, Bone didn’t understand why someone would want to be weighted down with 50 pounds of stereo equipment

while riding across an entire state. “So he explained to me the general madness that was RAGBRAI,” Bone said. “I still didn’t quite get it, but after talking to him I started to understand what RAGBRAI was all about.” Now we had our own stories.

During the day, hordes of cyclists stopped several times along the way for festivities — mostly centered around drinking — in tiny towns that dotted the map. Turns out, that was just a warm-up. The real celebration got under way after everyone had biked 60 to 70 miles. A few riders retreated to hotel rooms or support vehicles for the night, but the vast majority chose to camp out and create an instant tent community where the only rule was to have a good time. Think county fair, Mardi Gras, and a marathon all rolled into one.

Sleepy farming communities of a few hundred souls acquired a circus atmo-sphere as thousands of raucous cyclists streamed in. The west-to-east route changes slightly every year, ensuring rid-ers don’t wear out their welcome in these towns. Residents took to the streets and welcomed cyclists with heaping midwest-ern hospitality. They sprayed us down with garden hoses for showers and let us camp on their front yards. They didn’t seem to mind as live music blared from makeshift stages until late into the night.

Under these circumstances, we got to know a group of guys from Minnesota who

Red River International Bike TourJune 16-20, 2008

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a d v e n t u r e c y c l i s t f e b r u a r y 2008 a d v e n t u r e c y c l i n g . o r g

called themselves Team Trouser Mouse, and they shared their campground with us. You’d call them good old boys, except they were middle-aged men (and one woman) with families and extremely respectable careers. Their ranks included a television meteorologist, an orthopedic surgeon, a financial consultant, and a structural engi-neer. At RAGBRAI, they were all just overgrown teenagers wearing matching jerseys that looked like Hawaiian shirts.

These were guys who rode as hard as

they partied. No matter how late they stayed up the night before — and 5 a.m. was not uncommon for some — they rode together the next morning at speeds in excess of 20 miles per hour into a headwind. Cycling while sleep deprived and hun-gover was known in Trouser Mouse-speak as being in the “hurt bag.” A particu-larly bad case was called visiting the “hurt locker.” Then they did it all over again the next day. It was all part of the experience.

Many riders were part of similar teams

that become RAGBRAI regulars. An Illinois-based group called Team DLO invited us on their party bus for beer after one rider recognized the cycling shop on my jersey. We struck up a conversa-tion and I asked him what DLO stood for. “Da last ones,” he said, pointing out the logo that shows the road being rolled up behind them. “We’re not here to ride fast. Just to have fun,” he said.

As the night progressed, the storm clouds that had been threatening along the route

Strung out. The line of RAGBRAI cyclists goes on for miles.

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R UNDROUND

P R O D U C T I O N S

A N D

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finally gave way to rain. The sky opened up and drenched the crowds. This did little to slow the celebration. After we returned to our tents, the falling rain drowned out the din and lulled us into a peaceful slumber.

The next day, we rode with an acquain-tance named Shawn who was a spon-sored competitive cyclist serious enough to train in the Pyrenees. RAGBRAI was his chance each year to cut loose. His help saved us. Shawn, his brother, and father grilled us breakfast, carried our gear in their support truck, and fixed our bikes when I did things like trip and fall on Kyle’s front wheel. At some points, Shawn literally pushed us along the road, an expe-rience Jeff called “completely emasculat-ing.” Shawn also didn’t hesitate to write VIRGIN in block letters on our limbs, marking us as RAGBRAI first-timers.

Like many RAGBRAI vets, Shawn had a Lance story. His was better than most. During Armstrong’s first RAGBRAI in 2006, Shawn found himself riding side by side with the cycling legend. Shawn leaned over and told him he appreci-ated all the attention Armstrong had gained for cycling in the U.S. but that he was conflicted about his participation in RAGBRAI. “You’re jeopardizing my title of fastest man in RAGBRAI,” Shawn told him. Next year, Shawn said jokingly, they needed to have a showdown. Lance agreed, glanced at the road ahead, and then looked back at Shawn. “I’ll train for it,” he declared, staring Shawn in the eye.

Armstrong later wrote about RAGRAI in his blog, calling it “one of the coolest things I have ever been a part of” and also said it “gives the LIVESTRONG Army a unique opportunity to bring our message about making cancer a national priority to the people of Iowa.” We had seen Lance’s massive entourage coast by on multiple occasions, and we heard sto-ries of presidential candidates like John Edwards riding with him. There had to be a few hundred riders in distinctive black and yellow LIVESTRONG jerseys, each representing thousands of dollars donated to cancer research. The draft they created was tremendous. At one point, Bone and Mikey got caught up in the pack. They barely had to pedal to keep up. Suddenly Mikey found himself three riders

over from the Tour de France champion. As we rode on, we slowly noticed that

the terrain was morphing from completely flat and straight to winding and surprising-ly hilly. The familiar cornfields were still there, but now there were also streams, bridges, and rock formations. The sky couldn’t have been a truer shade of blue. Sights included farm animals, cemeteries, and locals who sat in front of their farms waving and smiling at us. It was all so basic, yet quietly stunning, even the cornfields.

Life became simple. Slowly the outside world began to fade. We forgot about work. We forgot about bills and dead-lines. We also forgot about shaving and showering. It was just us, thousands of cyclists and an endless two-lane road cutting through the cornfields. We all just followed where it was taking us.

It never failed to lead us to simple yet amazing food. The great thing about cycling hours on end is it provides an excuse to gorge yourself. Huge grills and roasts greeted famished cyclists in each town. Sweet corn, hamburgers, and bar-becued pork became cornerstones of our diet. One especially memorable sirloin steak burger was one of the freshest, most tender and succulent I’ve ever had the pleasure to bite into. It must have come from a herd right outside town. After I finished, I got a second one.

If you can’t wait to get to the next town, you’re in luck. Vendors sprang up on the side of the road selling treats like fresh-made ice cream, homemade pies, and locally grown peaches and water-melon. I dug into one roadside melon slice with such gusto that I think I actu-ally began to snort. Then I heard the lady next to me laughing. “You look like a pig,” she giggled. I had to join her.

I made another stop at an RV where a Minneapolis-based coffee company was selling fair-trade iced mochas. After hours of riding on dusty roads, the drink was incredibly refreshing. “It’s organic milk,” the woman explained. When I told her I drink the same, she rifled through her storage until she found me milk cou-pons. Another instant RAGBRAI friend.

We weren’t just making friends with strangers along the way. My friend-ship with Bone is a good example. We

Cyclists of all kinds. The variety of cyclists found at RAGBRAI is truly remarkable.

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July 11-13, 2008 • Fryeburg, MaineSite of the League of American Bicyclists’ National Rally

Over 30 bike rides for all ages to choose from!

F O R M O R E I N F O :

207-623-4511 www.BikeMaine.org

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weren’t much more than close acquain-tances in high school, and we kept in casual contact through college. We started emailing each other much later

when we both took an interest in cycling. But I hadn’t seen him for years, until RAGBRAI. While we were there, I met his daughter Eleanor for the first time.

I hadn’t spent that much continuous time with Jeff since college, Kyle since we lived in Montana together, and Mikey since we grew up at home. We ate together, camped together, and biked together. Mostly, we biked together — and we got better at it as we progressed. On the last night, we vis-ited the famous Field of Dreams. Even that required more cycling in more cornfields. It got to the point where walking and not being around each other felt unnatural.

The last day was the most difficult cycling stage. The troubles we first experi-enced were just growing pains, but the final day was a legitimate challenge. It was filled with soaring hills that seared the quads. Finally, there was the final hill, a stomach-churning drop that cyclists whizzed down at speeds of up to 50 miles per hour. From there, we coasted into Bellevue, a small town on the Mississippi River whose name means “beautiful view.” We were caked in dried sweat, and we reeked; we desperately needed to air out our shorts. We would have jumped in the river at the finish, but a family let us use their show-er. It was one last chance to experience Iowa hospitality before heading home.

Planning for next year started as soon as we got back. Another close friend who couldn’t make RAGBRAI committed to next year. “I wholly agree with these ideas of doing regular trips,” he wrote us. “Retreat is the right word. Just turn off everything that’s work- and business-relat-ed, spend time with the people that mean the most, forget about what time it is or what you have to do, and just enjoy life.”

We’ve gone our separate ways since RAGBRAI. Jeff started law school. Mikey

returned to college. Kyle got into film school in California. Bone’s wife had their first son, Alex. My days are full with writing assignments and spend-ing time with my wife Jess. We haven’t all been together since we spent 24 hours a day in each other’s company.

One rider we met called RAGBRAI an “utter divorce from reality,” and it was true. It’s a bubble that exists for a week, or in our case, a precious few days. At first, I didn’t understand what drew people to ride through cornfields. Then I realized we didn’t need anything more than that.

Is this heaven? Nope, it’s Iowa.

The Register’s Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa (RAGBRAI) was Tim Cigelske’s first bike tour and he plans to make it an annual tradition with friends. Cigelske is a journalist living in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

A most unique tandem. Creativity is a trademark of RAGBRAI riders.

Full pack, half bike. This guy seems ready for just about any circumstance.

Up and over. Participants who think Iowa is flat are in for more than a few surprises.