This year I was only able to fit in one day of riding on the Register's Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa (RAGBRAI). Instead of the last year or two, I rode 100 miles in a single day rather than over two days, from Fort Dodge to Eldora.
My 2015 observations:
* We need more bandwidth! Cell phones worked OK on LTE out in the country, but in the small towns where everybody stopped, there was no data going in or out. You'd think RAGBRAI and its vendors would find a way to end the data gridlock.
* There was a significant delay on the ride due to two bridges being under construction within a couple of miles of each other. This is unacceptable to any veteran of the ride. We know RAGBRAI is supposed to work with the Iowa Department of Transportation to make sure the route doesn't run into this kind of thing.
* It can get a little lonely on the extra 25 mile loop that allowed for this year's optional 100 mile day. I've done that three times now, and it helps to have someone else with you. Unlike the regular route, there are few riders and almost no organized places to stop along the road.
* Still hard to find church-stand fruit pie on the ride. But I did, a fine slice of apple pie. There were several other varieties, but again saw no pineapple pie this year.
* The usual big corporate food vendors were there (Farm Boys, Mr. Pork Chop, Tom Tenders, Beekman's Ice Cream), but the biggest crowd I saw by far was at the new Iowa Craft Beer Tent. Rumor is that it drew the largest crowds all week.
* Drones! Saw drones overhead capturing video of the ride in a few different towns. It would make for a good chamber of commerce presentation.
* Best jersey seen this year goes to Team Good Beer. Nothing special about the name, but they had lederhosen-style jerseys, which were awesome.
Showing posts with label Beer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Beer. Show all posts
Sunday, July 26, 2015
Wednesday, July 23, 2014
RAGBRAI - 2014 Edition
Just off another two-day jaunt on the Register's Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa (RAGBRAI). Similar to last year, I rode a little over 100 miles in the two days, this time in northwest Iowa. My 2014 observations:
* Just because somebody puts up a snow fence and sells beer within the perimeter, it doesn't mean you should call it a beer garden.
* Confirmed: Northwest Iowa is the flattest part of the state. Day 1 had maybe one semi-serious hill to climb.
* You could not ask for a better overnight area than Okoboji and the Iowa Great Lakes. Anyone who went to the main entertainment venue in Arnolds Park saw a nice sunset over West Lake Okoboji, and heard great live music.
* Found no pineapple pie this year!
* A little disappointing to not see some of the cycling 'teams' that made RAGBRAI semi-famous, like Team Whiners or Team Roadkill or Team Killer Bees. Age must have broken them up, because it's hard to believe I didn't see any of them over those two days.
* It's not the heat, it's the headwinds.
* Best jersey seen this year goes to Old Fart Cycling Team. Their motto: "Age & Treachery Will Always Triumph Over Youth & Agility."
* Just because somebody puts up a snow fence and sells beer within the perimeter, it doesn't mean you should call it a beer garden.
* Confirmed: Northwest Iowa is the flattest part of the state. Day 1 had maybe one semi-serious hill to climb.
* You could not ask for a better overnight area than Okoboji and the Iowa Great Lakes. Anyone who went to the main entertainment venue in Arnolds Park saw a nice sunset over West Lake Okoboji, and heard great live music.
* Found no pineapple pie this year!
* A little disappointing to not see some of the cycling 'teams' that made RAGBRAI semi-famous, like Team Whiners or Team Roadkill or Team Killer Bees. Age must have broken them up, because it's hard to believe I didn't see any of them over those two days.
* It's not the heat, it's the headwinds.
* Best jersey seen this year goes to Old Fart Cycling Team. Their motto: "Age & Treachery Will Always Triumph Over Youth & Agility."
Thursday, July 25, 2013
RAGBRAI - 2013 Edition
Spent another two days this week on this year's 7-day Register's Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa (RAGBRAI), entailing slightly more than 100 miles. This year's observations:
* RAGBRAI needs more portable toilets on the front part of each day's ride. There are plenty in the overnight towns, and in the daily halfway 'meeting' town. But in the first 25 or so miles of the day, they can be very sparse, not including cornfields. I propose they set up an area of 100 or so portable toilets around the 10-15 mile mark. This is where most riders, souped up on breakfast and/or coffee, need the break. Food and retail vendors would even help to pay for the cost, knowing there will be a logjam of riders there (pun very much intended).
* One of the most dangerous things about riding with so many others is actually going uphill. My second day was very hilly, and so many people are barely pedaling or walking up these hills that you have a relatively unsafe blob of riders together, wobbling on bikes in a small area. On most occasions, the better riders have to move way over to the left just to keep their cadence going and avoid a crash.
* Three years ago I blogged that there was hardly any pie on the ride anymore. I'm happy to say there were several places selling a variety of fruit pie (yea for pineapple pie!) on the two days I rode. One place even had fried pie on a stick - an awesome combination for riders.
* Speaking of food on a stick, one of the best RAGBRAI stops ever had to be the Iowa State Fairgrounds. Yes, it was too close to the start of the day to get a huge crowd, but if ever there was a perfect venue for these cyclists, it was there. Lots of food, shade, even indoor restrooms. As I tweeted that day, the only thing out of place was that the riders were better dressed in their spandex than most usual fair goers!
* Speaking of stops, determining what will be successful is really part art, part science. I think the best strategy is being separate in the country, and together in the town. Vendors on the road who are too close to each other won't get big crowds, nor will places on the the edges of a town that has a centralized vendor area. Having beer and music isn't enough to draw a good crowd anymore. Being unique helps, but still, it has to be in the right location.
* My favorite team name was Team Brick. Slogan: If it was well built, we laid it! And there was a tie for my favorite t-shirt. One said, "Forecast for tonight: Beer. Low standards. Poor decisions. Beer." The other said, "Does this shirt make me look drunk?"
It was two days of carefree fun. Is there any other kind?
* RAGBRAI needs more portable toilets on the front part of each day's ride. There are plenty in the overnight towns, and in the daily halfway 'meeting' town. But in the first 25 or so miles of the day, they can be very sparse, not including cornfields. I propose they set up an area of 100 or so portable toilets around the 10-15 mile mark. This is where most riders, souped up on breakfast and/or coffee, need the break. Food and retail vendors would even help to pay for the cost, knowing there will be a logjam of riders there (pun very much intended).
* One of the most dangerous things about riding with so many others is actually going uphill. My second day was very hilly, and so many people are barely pedaling or walking up these hills that you have a relatively unsafe blob of riders together, wobbling on bikes in a small area. On most occasions, the better riders have to move way over to the left just to keep their cadence going and avoid a crash.
* Three years ago I blogged that there was hardly any pie on the ride anymore. I'm happy to say there were several places selling a variety of fruit pie (yea for pineapple pie!) on the two days I rode. One place even had fried pie on a stick - an awesome combination for riders.
* Speaking of food on a stick, one of the best RAGBRAI stops ever had to be the Iowa State Fairgrounds. Yes, it was too close to the start of the day to get a huge crowd, but if ever there was a perfect venue for these cyclists, it was there. Lots of food, shade, even indoor restrooms. As I tweeted that day, the only thing out of place was that the riders were better dressed in their spandex than most usual fair goers!
* Speaking of stops, determining what will be successful is really part art, part science. I think the best strategy is being separate in the country, and together in the town. Vendors on the road who are too close to each other won't get big crowds, nor will places on the the edges of a town that has a centralized vendor area. Having beer and music isn't enough to draw a good crowd anymore. Being unique helps, but still, it has to be in the right location.
* My favorite team name was Team Brick. Slogan: If it was well built, we laid it! And there was a tie for my favorite t-shirt. One said, "Forecast for tonight: Beer. Low standards. Poor decisions. Beer." The other said, "Does this shirt make me look drunk?"
It was two days of carefree fun. Is there any other kind?
Monday, July 23, 2012
This Year On RAGBRAI (2012)
Cycled the first leg of the 40th Register's Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa this week. It went through my hometown as well as a few other towns I spent a lot of time in growing up, so there was extra interest for me. Here are this year's comments, to extend what I wrote in 2011 and 2010 :
* In the past, I've always ridden in the middle or front-half of the ride, meaning an equal amount of riders were behind me and in front of me. I've always wondered if I was missing something wild by doing that. After all, the old saying is that RAGBRAI is like a mullet - business in the front, party in the back!
This year it so happened that I stayed well to the back of the ride, and it turns out you miss MORE that way. Some of the roadside stands that looked like fun places to stop were getting ready to shut down, and the riders weren't that much fun to talk with, because they were all just trying to survive the heat/ride. (That's one reason they were in the back.) You want to be around as many people as possible during the ride and every stop within the ride, that's the best way to enjoy it.
* A couple of new team names that caught my eye were take-offs of the LiveStrong organization. They were BeerStrong, and LiverStrong. I'm not sure it's good form to use the name of a cancer-fighting organization to promote heavy drinking.
* A lot of folks talk about drinking alcohol on RAGBRAI. A lot of folks actually do it. But I think more folks talk about it than do it, especially on the hottest day in Iowa since 1988. The most overheard, overused phrase on RAGBRAI is, "You can't drink all day if you don't start in the morning." Most of them mean water.
* Ratio of fit, 20-something girls to overweight, 50+ year old men on the ride: 1-to-100.
RAGBRAI XL. A little bit different than the RAGBRAI III I rode on in 1975.
* In the past, I've always ridden in the middle or front-half of the ride, meaning an equal amount of riders were behind me and in front of me. I've always wondered if I was missing something wild by doing that. After all, the old saying is that RAGBRAI is like a mullet - business in the front, party in the back!
This year it so happened that I stayed well to the back of the ride, and it turns out you miss MORE that way. Some of the roadside stands that looked like fun places to stop were getting ready to shut down, and the riders weren't that much fun to talk with, because they were all just trying to survive the heat/ride. (That's one reason they were in the back.) You want to be around as many people as possible during the ride and every stop within the ride, that's the best way to enjoy it.
* A couple of new team names that caught my eye were take-offs of the LiveStrong organization. They were BeerStrong, and LiverStrong. I'm not sure it's good form to use the name of a cancer-fighting organization to promote heavy drinking.
* A lot of folks talk about drinking alcohol on RAGBRAI. A lot of folks actually do it. But I think more folks talk about it than do it, especially on the hottest day in Iowa since 1988. The most overheard, overused phrase on RAGBRAI is, "You can't drink all day if you don't start in the morning." Most of them mean water.
* Ratio of fit, 20-something girls to overweight, 50+ year old men on the ride: 1-to-100.
RAGBRAI XL. A little bit different than the RAGBRAI III I rode on in 1975.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Thoughts on RAGBRAI 2010
For the uninitiated, RAGBRAI stands for the Register's Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa. It's a weeklong trek of about 10,000 bicyclists, who ride roughly 60-80 miles per day from the western to eastern border of Iowa. (If you need to know more go to ragbrai.com.)
2010 marked the 38th RAGBRAI. I've been on all or parts of 9 or 10 of them, including the third RAGBRAI when I was just short of 11 years old. Owning a 10-speed bike was a big deal then; helmets and biking jerseys were not.
This year I rode from Sioux City to Storm Lake on Sunday (72 miles) and Storm Lake to Algona on Monday (100 miles). (If you followed me on Twitter at @streffbuddy, you'd have received rolling updates!) RAGBRAI has evolved over the years, and mostly in a good way, with a few exceptions. Here are my thoughts from this year's ride:
*The average age of riders keeps going up. The aren't so many in the 20-29 age group anymore, and that used to be the main age not so long ago. RAGBRAI is slightly more family-friendly now, and it's mostly comprised of people in their 30s and 40s, and plenty in their 50s.
*RAGBRAI riders used to be in better shape than they are now. About half of today's riders would be considered overweight, and wearing tight bike shorts doesn't help their appearance. This may be correlated to the average age being higher, but it more directly correlates with Americans' poor diets. Even factoring in what can be burned off during a 450 mile week of bike riding, I'd say many riders have a net weight during RAGBRAI week, plue they generally eat and drink too much and don't exercise enough for the other 51 weeks of the year.
*Speaking of caloric intake, while there is a lot of food and beer consumed during the ride, there really aren't enough food and beverage vendors along the way. I think most communities on the route simply can't get their mind around how much eating and drinking is done by the thousands of riders in a short period of time. Lines have become way too long. In conjunction with this, there aren't enough portable toilets, either. Plenty of tall corn on the roadsides, though.
*The ride and riders are much safer now. I never saw a single rider without a helmet. Law enforcement keeps vehicles off of the route in both directions, and there are ambulances dispersed at short intervals. Still, there were several crashes, some serious. I personlly saw two riders go down crossing some railroad tracks. (They were going slow so they were not seriously injured, other than bruised egos.)
*What once was a given on RAGBRAI - church-run pie stands - has suddenly become obsolete. I saw a total of two places selling pie, in two days, and one of them had run out. It seems like the only sweets being sold on the route now are cookies and bars. I'm used to having one or two pieces of fruit pie every day on the ride. WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO THE PIE ON RAGBRAI?
In summary, RAGBRAI is still a fun and challenging endeavor. Everybody should put it on their bucket list, at least for a day or two.
2010 marked the 38th RAGBRAI. I've been on all or parts of 9 or 10 of them, including the third RAGBRAI when I was just short of 11 years old. Owning a 10-speed bike was a big deal then; helmets and biking jerseys were not.
This year I rode from Sioux City to Storm Lake on Sunday (72 miles) and Storm Lake to Algona on Monday (100 miles). (If you followed me on Twitter at @streffbuddy, you'd have received rolling updates!) RAGBRAI has evolved over the years, and mostly in a good way, with a few exceptions. Here are my thoughts from this year's ride:
*The average age of riders keeps going up. The aren't so many in the 20-29 age group anymore, and that used to be the main age not so long ago. RAGBRAI is slightly more family-friendly now, and it's mostly comprised of people in their 30s and 40s, and plenty in their 50s.
*RAGBRAI riders used to be in better shape than they are now. About half of today's riders would be considered overweight, and wearing tight bike shorts doesn't help their appearance. This may be correlated to the average age being higher, but it more directly correlates with Americans' poor diets. Even factoring in what can be burned off during a 450 mile week of bike riding, I'd say many riders have a net weight during RAGBRAI week, plue they generally eat and drink too much and don't exercise enough for the other 51 weeks of the year.
*Speaking of caloric intake, while there is a lot of food and beer consumed during the ride, there really aren't enough food and beverage vendors along the way. I think most communities on the route simply can't get their mind around how much eating and drinking is done by the thousands of riders in a short period of time. Lines have become way too long. In conjunction with this, there aren't enough portable toilets, either. Plenty of tall corn on the roadsides, though.
*The ride and riders are much safer now. I never saw a single rider without a helmet. Law enforcement keeps vehicles off of the route in both directions, and there are ambulances dispersed at short intervals. Still, there were several crashes, some serious. I personlly saw two riders go down crossing some railroad tracks. (They were going slow so they were not seriously injured, other than bruised egos.)
*What once was a given on RAGBRAI - church-run pie stands - has suddenly become obsolete. I saw a total of two places selling pie, in two days, and one of them had run out. It seems like the only sweets being sold on the route now are cookies and bars. I'm used to having one or two pieces of fruit pie every day on the ride. WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO THE PIE ON RAGBRAI?
In summary, RAGBRAI is still a fun and challenging endeavor. Everybody should put it on their bucket list, at least for a day or two.
Monday, November 2, 2009
Real Men of Genius
For almost 10 years now, Bud Light has run a series of mostly radio commercials called 'Real Men of Genius.' These ads sarcastically glorify an unsung hero for a particular invention, or occupation, or just something they do. These are the funniest radio ads ever, hands down. Even the titles are funny. (Check the Wikipedia entry for Real Men of Genius for more about the ads, a list of every ad, and a link to the audio for each.)
Included in these Bud Light ads are spots about unappreciated inventors/inventions, like books on tape, or jean shorts. (Some inventions are better than others.) I've been thinking about these ads over the past month, the result of conversations I've had with people about great inventions that 1) are not fully appreciated, and 2) should have been discovered long before they actually were.
For example, the wheeled cooler. A fantastic and simple labor-saving invention. But decades ago we had wheels, and we had coolers, so why did it take so long for somebody to come up with wheeled coolers? Here's another: In-line roller skates. Think how that would have revolutionized roller derby! And in the food catagory, kudos to the walking taco inventor. There will be no royalties, but the dude who invented that has immeasurably improved our lives.
If you're reading this, I'd love to hear your 'Real Men of Genius' nominees in the inventor catagory. In the meantime, you should listen to those ads on the internet, and get ready to laugh.
Included in these Bud Light ads are spots about unappreciated inventors/inventions, like books on tape, or jean shorts. (Some inventions are better than others.) I've been thinking about these ads over the past month, the result of conversations I've had with people about great inventions that 1) are not fully appreciated, and 2) should have been discovered long before they actually were.
For example, the wheeled cooler. A fantastic and simple labor-saving invention. But decades ago we had wheels, and we had coolers, so why did it take so long for somebody to come up with wheeled coolers? Here's another: In-line roller skates. Think how that would have revolutionized roller derby! And in the food catagory, kudos to the walking taco inventor. There will be no royalties, but the dude who invented that has immeasurably improved our lives.
If you're reading this, I'd love to hear your 'Real Men of Genius' nominees in the inventor catagory. In the meantime, you should listen to those ads on the internet, and get ready to laugh.
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