According to Kevin’s on-board computer, the mileage breakdown goes something like this:
Day 1: 74 miles
Day 2: 81 miles
Day 3: 64 miles (100 miles for Greg)
Day 4: 53 miles
Day 5: 82 miles
Day 6: 61 miles
Day 7: 50 miles
Which brings the blogBRAI total to 465 for Emily, Amy, and Kevin, and 501 for Greg!
blogBRAI
This post is coming late. I know. Our apologies. Yesterday moved way too fast for anyone in the blogBRAI team to really catch up too. We were moving, organizing, and finishing our ride… then preparing on how each of us was to get back to the east coast. Never-the-less, our last day on the road went something like this: Emily and Amy woke up with the rest of team Conehead but quickly made it out on the road for fear of not making it to Dubuque, IA on time. We all knew it, but their fears were unfounded! Both the blogBRAI girls had whipped up into excellent bicycling shape by Day 7. Emily and Kevin switched after 21 miles of riding leaving Amy, Kevin, and Greg to finish out the week. Emily would await at the finish line to join in the Conehead cheer!
Day 7 was hilly. We all knew it was coming and were anxiously approaching the ride. Much of the downhills and uphills were tractable. Amy proudly announced that her fear of not braking while screaming down a hill was a thing of the past. There was, however, one monumental hill that burned a look of fear into even the most experienced riders eyes: Potter’s Hill. This was a mile plus at a 19% grade. Greg couldn’t make it in his single speed, that was a given. Amy made it part of the way only to stumble and fall fractions of a mile from the top. As for Kevin? It is still unclear; all we know is that he made it up part and walked the rest.
After many-a-more hills we made it to Dubuque with time to spare. The Conehead team congregated at a park just before our ride into town where we practiced the team song and planned our riding formations for the final stretch down to the muddy Mississippi. Emily and our bus driver, Gary, were down by the water to cheer us all in!
Post dip we grabbed some walking tacos (if you don’t know what that is, just use your imagination) and a handful of crispy egg rolls to go. Our parting shot will be one for the ages; Henkes hands in the middle for a “pound” and a shared appreciation for a week spent sleeping in the same bus, supporting each other on the route, and reflecting all of the wonderful personal accomplishments achieved along the way!
The last time from the field…
blogBRAI
During Day 6 we were officially saturated by the RAGBRAI experience! We woke at 6:30 to the pitter-patter of rain showers on the roof of our bus. Fortunately, the days route ran right by our host’s house in Waterloo. As we scrambled to put together our bikes and personal belongs for the ride, the rain picked up to an outright downpour! Greg and Kevin left town sooner after it was declared that soon even worse weather would be blowing into the area. Emily and Amy (the smart ones) would stay behind in the chase car to meet the boys en route.
Greg and Kevin made few stops in “the rain that never once let up”. They pedaled more-or-less straight for 62 miles and arrived in Manchester, IA shortly before noon to meet Emily and Amy at the overnight field. As if the gods were, in fact, conspiring against the blogBRAI team all morning, the skies clear shortly after the boys finished for the day. The rest of the Coneheads trickled in until about 3:00 pm.
Our bus and driver, Gary, suffered some minor difficulties after a run in with the law. There was, apparently, a mishap with the licensing and registration of the bus and, as a result, it was stranded at a highway patrol vehicle stop. About and hour and some alternative driver searching later we ended up with a young fellow from Des Moines named Jeremy who helped us pick-up the bus and drive it to our host’s field! Many thanks Jeremy! After that little speed-bump, it was time to relax with a cold brew and eventually seek out some food in downtown Manchester.
We are currently reporting from The Coffee Den in Manchester, and despite their overwhelmingly slow internet and mediocre coffee, it has not been a bad temporary base for blogBRAI. Off to a church dinner with an empty stomach. Mmm!
Tomorrow is our last day to ride! Oh how the time flies! Stay tuned for more updates and some parting thoughts from the team.
blogBRAI
UPDATE: There were 21,000 riders on the road yesterday. We had heard that they were expecting well over the 10,000 but we had no idea it was that high! This information came to Kevin from a state trooper who was holding a click-counter in his hand all day!
Day 5 started out like many of the other days this week. We left Charles City at about 7:00 and headed straight out of town. A visit to Farm Boys has now become a standard operating procedure at 15 miles into the morning.
During our ride through towns we continued to experience the rural America we’ve been seeing all week.
While Greg chipped away at the 82 mile day, Amy and Kevin took some time to enjoy a Mr. Porkchop porkchop and had a brush with some of the fabled Midwestern pirates of RAGBRAI!
Uncle David stopped to visit with Emily on the side of the road to update his blog along the way. Now THAT is some hardcore blogging!
We arrived into Waterloo, IA earlier than some of us had expected; Greg was first, followed by Amy and Kevin. Our host family for the night couldn’t have been more accommodating. They had planned a dinner for FOUR groups (they had a big yard) and we spent most of the evening drinking beer, eating fresh-picked corn, and playing an impromptu game of roller hockey in the driveway. RAGBRAI riders vs. our host’s kids.
After dinner we turned the a/c on in the bus and hunkered down for a good night sleep. There were rumors of storms and rain in the morning. We went to bed hopeful!
blogBRAI
We have to take a break from our regular reporting to let our readers know about an injury that has occurred during RAGBRAI(!!!). No, everything is fine in IA, but Greg’s dog, Ruby, suffered a mild foot injury while attempting to flee her room at the doggy resort during a thunderstorm yesterday. Those who know Ruby personally will no doubt understand this behavior in light of her dislike for thunderstorms and it came as no immediate surprise when Greg got a phone call from the vet while on the road.
UPDATE: Ruby is back from the vet’s office and is on her way to a full recovery. She had stitches on her two left legs and bruise her right back leg. She is wearing the “cone of shame” as she heals in the Downtown Dog Resort’s luxury suite :)
Greg
We were welcomed into July 28th, in the town of Clear Lake, IA, at 3:00am by a horrific thunderstorm, which produced bone-shattering rumbles and bright white flashes. It woke up the group but passed through the area quickly. Those on the Conehead Team that had decided to sleep in tents that night quickly revised their decision for the coming nights after the downpour that accompanied the fury. The blogBRAI team remained dry and happy in the confines of our team bus.
In the morning we made a quick departure out of Clear Lake and set out for a day that was to be one of the shortest at 52 miles.
One of the first towns we came across, Cartersville, IA, had setup a massive man-made pond and fashioned some sort of industrial tree swing to hang out over the deep end. As one might expect on a day in the mid-80s, the line to jump was long despite the $5 fee.
Kevin, Amy, and Greg then met Emily on route so that Kevin could switch out as the support car driver (Emily would take to the road). During the short break we learned of our fame in the Mason City Globe Gazette. Greg also had time, during the stop, to give the RAGBRAI famous Landshark recumbent rider a Valpo sticker.
…Kevin found some relief along the way…
Emily and Amy continued on and met Greg, and the rest of the Coneheads, in the last town of the day for a beer (or five). Greg had to stop before town and collect some Devonian fossils first (ever the explorer). In town, with cool beers in our hands, we danced in the hot sun all afternoon!
Tomorrow we go for 82 miles; the fun might have to wait for Friday ;)
blogBRAI
Being hot and sun burnt was the name of the game today! After playing some catch-up on previous blog posts we are now reporting live from Cabin Coffee Co. in Clear Lake, IA. For the past few days we here at blogBRAI have been struggling to find wireless in the rural mid-West. This may come as a surprise to those of us living near big east coast cities, but we think that it speaks volumes about the continued technological progress that is occurring in rural areas across our fair country. Cell phone coverage, with the 10,000 riders of RAGBRAI trying to call out on only two major networks, has been slow, spotty, and full of dropped calls. Upon our arrival to Clear Lake we were also disappointed at their lack of preparedness; the designated camping fields were reported filled by 8:00 am this morning, forcing our bus to be parked about ten minutes outside of the downtown.
Ok, ok. We digress. We had a great day, despite the heat advisory. Before we set off Greg was adorned with an official Cone head leg tattoo and the entire team posed for a group picture.
For most of the day we biked through immense and vast wind farms that stretched from the eastern horizon to the western horizon. Many Iowans get their electricity from this power, but in a conversation with a local business owner we learned that most of the “power” is bought by and supplies folks in Florida!
Normally these windmills were best seen while visiting the “RAGBRAI restroom” in the cornfields (women to the left of the road, men to the right).
Today was one of the easier days biking with only 60 miles to complete. We hit many towns early in the day and caught up with one of the RAGBRAI roadside staples: Mr. Porkchop. Greg reports that his favorite part of the day is cruising through the smoke plume coming off of Mr. Porkchop’s smokers… mmmm… piiigggg!
Kevin stopped to enjoy some pie, another RAGBRAI staple.
Greg and fellow Cone head, Jen, stopped briefly in Garner, IA to endulge in pork tenderloin sandwiches and strawberry-banana smoothies… the eating on RAGBRAI never ceases… where else would we get our energy from???
Later in the day Amy and Kevin stopped at a bar to use their bathroom. One drink and a little dance didn’t hurt the RAGBRAI mood either!
Due to Clear Lake’s unpreparedness, our bus, at the end of today, was far from any showers, so we had to do it the Henkes way and improvise. A garden hose, a city municipal worker, and an open fire hydrant later we had a cool, very refreshing shower. This spectacle drew many onlookers and the attention of a Mason City Globe Gazette reporter and photographer. We told him our story and he nodded with front page-like approval.
What is in store for Day 4? Who knows, but you can always stop by here tomorrow and check out what trouble we’ve gotten ourselves into!
blogBRAI
We awoke Monday morning after a nights sleep cooled by the gentle lake breeze. Greg prepared for his century ride and Amy and Kevin saddled up. Emily was to meet us halfway and switching with Kevin to finish the rest of the day. For those not familiar with the lingo, a century is a 100 mile bike ride in one day. This day on RAGBRAI adds an additional loop to the regular 80 miles of Day 2.
The morning consisted of breakfast burritos and coffee at a great little joint called Farm Boys and we rolled up to Emily with full bellies and evaporated sweat on our brows. The tops of our knees, our upper cheeks, and our mid-forearms were also feeling the heat. Applying plenty of sunscreen has become a routine morning exercise.
The usual agricultural field backdrop to the ride persisted, however, today we seemed to see more of the crazies out… perhaps the tempt (or threat) of a century ride goes straight to a RAGBRAI rider’s head!
Before his century loop Greg loaded up on his favorite RAGBRAI snack: PB&Js with potato chips, pickles, and a slice of american cheese. The folks at PBJam, and the rest of the conehead team, think that he is either crazy or pregnant.
Amy, Greg (post century), and Emily all met up in the last town on the route before heading into the overnight town in Algona, IA. A tired and sun soaked Greg stayed behind to meet the rest of the group for a beer; he drank two, was ditched by the group, and made a hungry, thirsty, and lonely ride 10 miles to the next town. When all was said and done Amy did about 80 miles, Emily and Kevin about 40 each, and Greg completed 100 miles on a single speed bike!
The rest of the Cone head century crew posed for a picture as we ended our day in a front yard in Algona (with a beer in each hand).
What’s in stall for tomorrow? A 60 miler with less than 1000 vertical feet of climb? Pshhhh…. no problem! ;)
blogBRAI
So we decided that the first day, Sunday, would be the perfect day to rep our Valpo buddies. Amy and Kevin started us off by rocking a Valpo sticker all the way across country to Nebraska. But Sunday morning started by putting on our new VSP t-shirts, distributing the stickers amongst riders for an aggressive urban advertising campaign, and starting to randomly hand out brochures.
The ride started out immediately with several steep hills and big crowds as we headed out of Sioix City, IA en route to Storm Lake, IA. As us east coasters expected, we were in agricultural fields before we knew it.
The stops we made in the towns along the way were mostly to fill up water bottles and camel packs, as well as to slap some stickers around the small town mid-West. Can you spot the sticker?
In the last town we all stopped to have a cool beer at the Miller Lite tent. This also served as motivation to get us all in to Storm Lake.
Greg finished the day first, soon followed by Amy and Kevin; we all reconvened at our team bus and jumped in the lake to cool off after a hot, hilly day. A friend of the team, and Storm Lake local, was nice enough to take us all on a tour of the lake in his speedboat and to fix our whole crew a dinner of burgers, beans, and fresh veggies. Their generosity was overwhelming and it ended up being a perfect end to a nearly perfect first day on the roads of Iowa.
blogBRAI
We arrived in Sioux City in typical Henkes fashion: horn honking and people screaming out the window. We were Sioux City-ing about an hour before our teams’ bus and drove around the RAGBRAI campgrounds and convention center where the majority of the RAGBRAI sanctioned events were taking place. We eventually met our compatriots and engaged in some meet ‘n greeting and good ol’ fashion beer drinking. We set up our bunks in the bus and helped Uncle David assemble his tent.
We checked out some of our new Team Conehead schwag while some of our teamates assembled the Cone Man. This Cone Man will be invaluable during the coming week as it will guide the way to our bus when we riders enter the final towns in the coming days!
We then headed to the Missouri River to do the traditional rear-tire dip…
And, lastly, before we all settled into our chairs to have the last beer of the night, the entire Conehead team posed for a picture… we DID have one misfit (drunk as a skunk) from next door who came in to make a cameo (can you spot him?)
I left from Baltimore, MD early Saturday morning and set off west aboard a Southwest Airlines 737. The ride was a bit bumpy, the boarding process was stressful, and the landing in St. Louis, MO, where I was to transfer planes, was rough! After a 2 hour lay-over, Emily’s plane, inbound from Raleigh, NC (by way of Philly) landed and soon there after we took off for Omaha. As promised, in the Omaha airport I sipped down a cool local wheat beer as we waited for Kevin and Amy to pick us up!
In a timing alignment rarely achieved with our level of “flying-by-the-pants traveling”, we stepped out on to the curb and the gear-laden Chevy Trailblazer turned the corner.
… and, I had another beer…
We all jumped in and hit the road; bound for Sioux City… the starting line awaited!
Greg
Maybe the hardest thing I will have to do on this trip was the first; saying goodbye to my wonderful pooch Ruby. I arrived home early from the laboratory today with a list of pre-trip items to attend to… as always I was greeted by a “happy dance” from the mutt retriever Ruby. Her excitement grew once she saw me preparing things for the “doggy hotel” in downtown Baltimore. I am convinced my dog likes boarding more than she likes living at home. While away I often get emails from the kennel staff exclaiming how wonderful as dog she is; they call her “Ruby Mama” and she gets high marks in playing, kissing, and patience(!!!). If you lived with her this would shock you… I am not sure patience would describe her insistence to walk in the morning, nor would her slobbering classify as kissing of any sort. At any rate, she is a great dog and I’ll miss her until I return!
Greg
The road to RAGBRAI is a long one. Amy and Kevin know this first hand as they made their way across our beloved country, with gear and bikes, headed toward Omaha, NB to meet Emily and Greg as they fly across country tomorrow (Saturday) morning.
Reports from the road were sporadic and short; they included several anecdotes of Amy sleeping in a nook in the folded-down back seat of their Chevy Trailblazer, and Kevin, as per usual, drove exactly five over the speed limit for miles on end. Rest assured they were in no hurry; a text message came in late tonight with word of their post trip relaxation as they enjoyed some cold beverages and watched the mid-western sun set below the bountiful horizon. A beautiful week is ahead!
Also, big ups to the Valpo boys, you were rep’d on the Henkes mobile half of the way across the country!
blogBRAI
A mundane question you might say; well not on RAGBRAI! A change in the weather could mean the difference between wet or dry, happy or miserable, sanity or insanity… so, you might suspect that here at blogBRAI we are going to be paying very close attention to the weather, the heat index, and the pollen count while we are in the field. The image above was snagged from dailymail.co.uk and incidentally happened to be snapped in 2008 on July 4th in Sioux City, IA, our starting city!
Now that we are DAYS(!!!) away from the start line of RAGBRAI 2010, we can see reliable online weather forecasts extending until Monday night (the 26th for those of you keeping track at home) and Tuesday. Here is what I can gleam from the wonderful people at the Weather Underground:
Sunday, from Sioux City, IA: The week will start off partly cloudy with high temperatures around 90 and lows in the 60s for Sunday night.
Monday, from Storm Lake, IA: Again we will ride under partly cloudy skies with highs in the 80s and lows at 60, yet again, for Monday night.
Tuesday, from Algona, IA: Partly sunny, only this day happens to have a 20-30 percent chance of thunderstorms, with high temperatures rising to the mid-80s.
All in all, I would say, not a bad outlook. It looks like there won’t be a chance for any real weather until Tuesday (fingers crossed) and we will be riding some of the way with partly cloudy skies. Perhaps the intense July sun in Iowa will be waiting us for later in the week; or just maybe a REAL mid-Western thunderstorm lurks! Us east coast boys are only used to those late evening T-storms which blow in and out in twenty minutes!
Greg
First, the update: Yesterday, Kevin, Amy, and their sidekick, Heather met Greg and his gear in northern Virginia. Ever the efficient group we also made a stop at the IKEA furniture store at Potomac Mills. In his usual, stubborn fashion, Greg left way too early from Baltimore and ended up at IKEA with time to spare as the NC contingent was stuck in northbound I-95 traffic. Fortunately, the bike was easy to pull out of the back of the truck and Greg took off for an impromptu, urban wheel through the concrete jungle.
When the day was done, Greg’s bike headed south on the back of the Henkes’ mobile along with his camping gear, helmet (safety first), and some new acquired Valpo threads. All in all it was great to have at least part of the blogBRAI team together and we all spoke of our excitement for the impending ride!
Now for some fun; head over to The Big Picture blog for some stunning photojournalism of the Tour de France thus far… just seeing people on bikes gets us here at blogBRAI ready for the open Iowa roads!
… that we are doing RAGBRAI. An earlier draft was sent out, by mistake, over the facebook.com. Our apologies to those who read that first draft. At any rate, here we go:
#10 Our last RAGBRAI trek was in 2002, this year the beer tents are legal for us all.
#9 It’s a free trip for the broke college students! Why not?!
#8 50-50-25-21… is perfect 2010 number sequence to do a physical challenge.
#7 We think that every one needs to return to their roots…part of ours just happen to be corn fields.
#6 Fruit pies, walking tacos, and pork chops are calling our names.
#5 Other than weddings, it a sure bet to see the Henkes herd.
#4 To test Emily’s patience.
#3 There must be at least a few hot cycling babes out there for Greg.
#2 To see Dad try to control 10,000 bikers.
and the number one reason we are doing RAGBRAI this year (#1): Because Mom signs us up for everything!
Emily and Amy
Imagine PBJ’s in hand, water bottles filled, bikes ready in anticipation for today’s Chapel Hill ride…..and I casually say, “How are we going to live without the jolt of a cup of java before each day’s ride?” Kevin simply replies, “Well, I suppose we could drink caffeinated pop.” And then we both chuckle…”pop”: the mid-Western term used for a carbonated soda. You can take the boy out of Iowa, but you can not take Iowa out of the boy!
Amy
Ok, we will relent and give them credit. These two have a talent for following maps… errr… maybe it isn’t talent… how about a “misguided sense of adventure”? Either way, they will, no doubt, get us through each day on the trail with RAGBRAI only days away! Things are all coming together with plan for a NoVA rendezvous this Saturday between Greg and Amy and Kevin to pick up the Balti-moron’s gear and tote it half-way across the country. Greg has recently received a smattering of new gear for the ride; including a new computer battery (for those internet cafe updates from the field), a Pelican case for his camera (the better to photo-journal with), and the schwag from our boys at Valpo Surf Project.
Check out the route in the link below. We are trying to set up a GPS node so that you know where we are updating from in the field! Stay tuned!
http://ragbrai.com/data/2010/ragbrai-main-map-2010.php
Amy and Greg
Indeed he does. As is such, I would like to introduce you to a new dimension to the blogBRAI reader experience; I will be asking for advice, via poll, on what beer to consume during the entire trip. My hope is to post the options for upcoming specific beer-drinking locations the night before I actually visit… in the mean time, it is up to our readers to pick which beer I should enjoy… who knows… perhaps a picture of me drinking said beer will appear soon thereafter!
Cheers!
Round 1: Omaha Eppley Airfield
When: Immediately after getting off the airplane. This is literally the first thing I will do on the trip. Big decision. I’ll even hold off on the post-airplane pee to drink this one!
Greg
With word of some Valpo Surf Project schwag on the way we wanted, again to remind our followers of the, as of yet, one and only philanthropic wing of blogBRAI; our unwavering support of the VSP team! If I wasn’t DOING RAGBRAI, I’d surely be at the To DC, With Love street festival on Saturday, July 31st. If you are in the area now be sure to pick up some tickets on the link above to help the Valpo guys get that money!
Greg
Our morning started with a coffee (Starbucks, no less) and a thirty minute drive from the town of Napa, through St. Helena, to Calistoga, CA. By the time we arrived at the Calistoga Bike Shop in our sleek rental Nissan hybrid, the caffeine had set our awareness levels to just one, easily surmountable notch below ’ready to ride.’ The day before we had arranged our bicycle rentals and tour with the team at the bike shop and all that we were left to do that morning was size-up some nice Jamis commuter bikes and helmets (safety first). Once organized, geared up, and relieved (we all had to take turns in the bathroom) we departed for our first stop at the Twomey Winery.
At Twomey we enjoyed several crisp, summery white wines and sampled some of their reserve Pinot Noir… a staple of any Napa/Sonoma Valley tasting experience! After speaking with the server about the grape growth process and harvest we moved on to the Dutch Henry Winery which was purported to have fine wine, barn dogs, and a sturdy reputation for a heavy pour!
All was confirmed. We even got the server to open a special reserve bottle… our second on the day… mmmmmm!
We made some friends… errr… we mean we happened to make friends with the server at the 4th-stop winery, and soon after continued on our merry way. There were many photo worthy moments on the trip and we did out best to take advantage of every one!
The third winery wasn’t really worth a mention. Poor service and a bad pour… two things that the Henkes clan can not tolerate! At our 4th stop we met up with our friend (made at Dutch Henry) who poured us a whopping 9 tastings of their wonderful wine. They got the blogBRAI Gold Star of Approval for their attitude, the quality of their wine, and how tipsy they made us when we re-mounted our bicycles to hit the last two stops… woooo!
Some of us (**cough** Emily **cough**) ended up getting a little too daring later in the afternoon, while headed to our last stop, and crashed in the gravel along a long road lined with fragrant olive trees. This stopped car traffic to the vineyard’s tasting room and by the time we arrive to grab a stem, the word was out: The Henkes’ were a comin’! Perhaps Emily secretly had excellent foresight and was getting her wrecks out of the way early in anticipation of those straight, flat, and, at times, unforgiving Iowan roads!
Our day ended far, mentally, from where it began as we returned our cycles to the bike shop and grabbed some food for the road… perhaps there were some lessons learned here; the last time we all did RAGBRAI it was in 2002 and half of our family was unfit for spending any time in the beer tent. If anything, our ride through Napa taught us that either a) some of the blogBRAI team should focus on the road during the day and leave the beer drinking for the night, and b) others, quite simply, should just work wine or beer tasting into more of their training rides! :)
On your left!
blogBRAI
(more to come on the great Napa Valley Tasting Ride 2010)
A message from Emily, 21 years old, college student…
Attention my recent 21 year old birthday friends… do not cycle while on a wine tasting tour:
Cheers… I mean… ouch,
Emily
This past Saturday, after a long few days of housework, spring cleaning, and wine sampling at the Henkes house in Baltimore, MD, Mom (Amy), Dad (Kevin), and I headed out to the slick trails around the Baltimore-Washington International Airport for a ride. As an aside, this adventure was to be timed and precisely completed because back at the stable isotope geochemistry laboratory at Johns Hopkins University I had samples running on our sensitive instrument (physically, not emotionally, the emotionally sensitive one that was await our return was my dog, Ruby). For me, at least, the fact that samples were “on” was playing over and over in the back of my mind for the entire wheel. Actually, I am sure Mom and Dad weren’t thinking of laboratory work at all at any point in the ride. Anyways, back to the ride!
We set out from the airport observation area where large, commercial aircraft can be seen sluggishly falling out of the sky and hitting the rubber scarred runway. In fact, nearly thirty seconds after we set off, I insisted we take a quick break as the trail had placed us slightly above the main runway. Watching flight is amazing (especially when it has to stop!)
I made us stop again on the other side of that same runway to see the aircraft force themselves upwards through the muggy Maryland air. This, fortunately, was the ideal spot for a (clearly) posed picture where the entire ride might have just been completely summed up:
The ever impatient crew chief (Kevin, Dad, or “that balding guy over there”) stood at the ready while I posed for this very important photo opportunity.
It wasn’t but a couple more miles before we reached the otherside of the airport where the winding trail lead us up a mild hill from which we could see the entire airport spectacle unfolded before us in one frame.
With time on our side we made a bit of and extended detour and headed quite a far way down the Baltimore-Annapolis bike trail which had intersected the BWI trail at one point. The scenery was not nearly as active as it was around the airport, however, our biking compatriots were; they were out on that Saturday in droves! We all got to practice yelling “on your left!” as we deftly navigated the trail. Once we had traveled far enough, we turned back on the B&A trail and headed toward the car. Upon arrival we all exchanged high-fives and Dad proudly announced the total mileage: 32. Our longest training ride yet!
The bikes were secured in their truck rack and we headed back to Baltimore… but not before a well-deserved stop at the local 7-11 to snag a quick Slurpee to quench our overheated bodies!
(on your left) Greg
Ok. So this is a bit late. I’m sorry. Forgive me. With academics over, with the sweet smell of summer in the air, and with that black pavement cooking in the summer sun I would like to usher in a new age for blogBRAI. One that is more regularly updated; one that is filled with developments, accomplishments, and celebration of everything bicycle!
Here we go… err… I mean here is how we went! A couple of weekends ago I surprised mom (Amy) with a visit to NC after I completed my winter/spring semester up in Baltimore. After a Swell Season concert in Raleigh on a Friday night, the whole Henkes clan geared up for a little Saturday morning jaunt off into the rolling Carolina countryside.
We made, what was essentially a loop, out across some agricultural fields and then returned back into Chapel Hill, NC proper with maybe a bit too much enthusiasm.
As we rode, we all had to remind ourselves that this was just a training ride and that despite our 20 mile round trip, we were not in RAGBRAI-ready shape quite yet.
If you know my Dad (Kevin) you will no doubt understand me when I say he was the only one of us four that was a bit impatient about the pit stops. Mr. General Electric had a mission and he has been pruned for years by the corporate world to keep to that goal! We make fun of him, but we might need this is the type of stick-to-it-ive-ness at mile 60 on a RAGBRAI day.
When we would break, the old man would pile on ahead but eventually found us further up the road after scouting the way. “Which way?”
Whatever the circumstances, it is important to keep a positive attitude and wear it on your jersey sleeve! If you ask me, that is how we will make it through the week of RAGBRAI without running each other off the road ;)
… so dearest readers (if you are still out there) blogBRAI is again (re)opening its doors to cyberspace… please keep up with us!
(on your left) Greg
This just in from the North Carolina training grounds of your physically fit blogBRAI team… Kevin and Amy spotted the following on their most recent wheel:
1 Squirrel
1 White Tailed Deer
1(.5?) Groundhogs
1 Unidentified Snake
1 Carolina Wren
1 Small turtle
2 Opossums.. or is that Opossi?
What do they all have in common? Well, they were all perfectly still AND plastered (like flipjacks) to the road, baking in the hot Southern sun. Yep, roadkill. “How gross!” you say. “Why would I want to know that?!” you demand. Well, one of the Henkes’ favorite traditions on RAGBRAI is to don discovered dead animals with Madri Gras beads to pay respect to the road gods. We thought it polite to let you know, in advance of the ride, why pictures of flattened raccoons, rabbits, or rattlesnakes may show up on our humble blog in July. Your welcome.
Ride on!
Greg
We wanted to give a little shout out to David D. from GE Power & Water for his patronage. It was a nice surprise to see our first response from the GE Imagination at work cycling initiative. This virtual race started yesterday and as we cycle either inside the gym or outside on our own rigs, we will collectively add each mile (team Henkes x4 putting up those big numbers) to a possible big W when the chips all fall!
The race is on and it is a perfect training device for us… com’on GE co-workers, take our lead here on blogBRAI!
Kevin
Unless you cycle regularly this simple term is unrecognizable. It is not even a complete sentence, yet it is remarkably clear: I am passing you on your left side. It is a common courtesy, a cyclist’s mantra for safety, and a right of passage. This gentle reminder is also an apt metaphor for life: be polite, cautious, and kind as you pass a slower ‘bicycle’. There is no need for the passed to turn their heads and no verbal replies are required. Just an “on your left” as your bike, or ours, sails by…
This message, readers, is a preamble and our way of introducing, to those who will follow blogBRAI during our RAGBRAI tour, the unspoken constitution of the cyclist. One of the best parts of the upcoming ride is knowing what wonderful people we will meet along the way. That is a statement of fact. For those RAGBRAI XXXVIII prospective riders who have picked up on our twitter page we hope to meet you out on those dusty Iowan roads. Keep us abreast to your location, your favorite food stops, and where the cheap beer layeth!
Amy and Greg
This was an easy first choice for us and certainly made sense after some readers emailed us with this suggestion: to ride in honor of the Chilean based VALPO SURF PROJECT. Kevin has been traveling in Chile for the past 11 days on GE business and has witnessed the beauty of the country and the kindness of the people, the devastation of the recent earthquake, and the need to encourage the at-risk youth in this Latin American country.
The VALPO SURF PROJECT began as a dream amongst Greg’s fellow Bates College classmates Henry Myer, Jon Steuber, and Wiley Todd. Well done boys and we’ll be surfing the streets of Iowa in your name come July!
PLEASE help Henry, Jon, Wiley, and the other VSPers in their mission @ http://www.valposurfproject.com/donate-now/
Amy
We, here at blogBRAI have been busy with life other than cycling and, to be honest, it doesn’t feel good. Academics are winding down, visitors have come and gone, international travel is nearing it’s end, and the thick pollen has cleared from the air. Now it is time to raise the checkered flags and start peddling. Who’s in for a 30 miler?
Greg
I write to you, readers, with a mission. You see, our last RAGBRAI (XXX) in 2002 one member of the Henkes family indulged, selfishly, despicably, audaciously in the most frowned upon RAGBRAI tradition: Saggin’. Saggin’ is when one, possibly prematurely, decides, in the middle of the day, that he/she is done cycling. The decision results in a call to the proverbial “Saggin’ Wagon” for an immediate pick up (preferably, for those stronger bikers witnessing this roadside defeat, before a ‘melt down’). Our collective goal is to never let a Sag happen in 2010.
The way I figure, the best way to prevent a Sag is the perpetual threat of embarrassment via public humiliation on this blog; which is why I am committing to post every occurrence of Saggin’ during our RAGBRAI week.
Moreover, in a preemptive effort to out the largest offender I am, here, posting a picture of her in a vehicle. Be not mistaken, in the event of a real Sag call she would NOT be smiling and neither would those who would be accompanying her.
I’ll end here with a little blogBRAI mantra:
“Don’t be Saggin’ and thereby draggin’ the others around you down”
Greg
On the road in Iowa we will have the pleasure of riding alongside, and being supported by, The Weitz Company, Inc. of Des Moines, Iowa who have aptly renamed themselves The Coneheads of RAGBRAI. Their claim to fame is sporting a construction cone on their bike helmets. The Henkes’ tie into this group is through Uncle Dave: a battle-hardened, veteran RAGBRAIer whose love of homemade pie and the freedom of the open road will certainly become a topic of discussion on this blog in the future. Our family can thank Uncle Dave for injecting us with the RAGBRAI fever and we look forward to seeing him (among others) in July!
Our four lives have not been challenge free: we have had brushes with cancer, uprooting, death, rejection, and both job and college adjustments. But throughout all of this change we have always held that family comes first, our health is precious, and passing it forward is essential. So, we are asking OUR READERS for help in choosing a few organizations we can “ride for”, ”donate to”, and “promote” along our bicycle journey this summer.
Please email suggestions to: blogBRAI@gmail.com
Kevin, Amy, Greg and Emily
For those of you that don’t quite ‘get’ the whole RAGBRAI ‘thing’ here is a brief, concise history. Us Henkes’, never known for getting mired down in details of the past, look forward to making our own little historical mark this July!
RAGBRAI: The longest, largest and oldest bicycle event began in 1973 with two Des Moines newspaper columnists, Donald Kaul and John Karras. It was designed and casually announced on July 22 to promote riding secondary Iowan roads from The Missouri River to The Mississippi River. In fact, that tradition remains; dip your back tire in one river and your front, upon completion, in the other! Make no mistake, it’s not a race, you can never win. But the seven days and six nights camping in rural towns across the state involve a whole lot of sun, food, music, beer and the coveted tailwind (remember, Iowa is flat, folks!). This all helps to carry you along the way if, of course, you are lucky enough to get a much sought after registration number!
Amy
As we reported before here, Amy has been diligently keeping up with her training by participating in local 5k road races and Kevin continues to head out on early morning rides through NC country roads. We here at blogBRAI are starting to get a little more organized: check out some witty updates on the road to Iowa from Emily via our new twitter page. It’ll have you laughing out load and wanting more!
One would think that because I was born and lived the first twenty-one years of my life in Iowa that my answer to the question “What is RAGBRAI?” would be simple. The truth is far from it. Growing up I may have heard it on Channel 7 KWWL but never paid much attention to that July news. I simply understood that it was mostly talk amongst the big city folks in Des Moines and Cedar Rapids. On hot summer Sundays I would catch a glimpse of it in the local paper. I suppose that it isn’t hard to imagine that RAGBRAI rarely rode through Clayton County.
In 2002, RAGBRAI XXX offered me a chance to show my wife and two children the rural Iowa where I grew up; not the cities and museums, but our productive land, the warm people, and its 4H culture. For me, riding through “The Bread Basket of America” brought back memories from my youth of “putting up” hay at Uncle Virgil’s Farm, drinking Old Style in the Sny Magill parking lots, driving though dust clouds of the limestone gravel roads, and learning the fine art of calling a cow: “come-bass!”
Here in 2010, my position at GE (which for years has kept me on the east coast) has exposed me to the advancement of green energy technology developing in Iowa corn fields since I last dipped my tires in the muddy Mississippi in 2002. This year I look forward to seeing more of those iconic wind farms and powerful ethanol plants as I cycle in the mid-western plains. For now it’s time to get in gear and train for those 442 miles!
Kevin
blogBRAI has a new email address: blogBRAI@gmail.com
Please contact us if you would like to subscribe to our email list. This will notify you when a new post goes up!
Today Amy (Mom) hit a milestone in her RAGBRAI XXXVIII training regime: She posted a 35 minute 20 second time (that’s about an 11 min/mile for those keeping score at home) in the Winemore Benefit 5K in Chapel Hill, NC. Initial reports had her in good shape and high spirits post run. We are all so proud!
Greg
In the summer of 2002 I arrived in Iowa from where our family was living (at the time) in Yarmouth, Maine. This was a time when cell phones were reserved for the elite, gas was cheap, and John Mayer’s hit “Your Body is a Wonderland” happened to be playing from my bicycle radio bag while beginning RAGBRAI XXX on the banks of the Missouri River. Our longest training day into Portland, Maine was 30 miles. I remember thinking: how was 480 miles going to feel?
That accomplishment was just a thin layer of understanding during that 7 day challenge. I vividly recall the 100 degree heat, my road map staring back at me from my handlebars, the mile 16 crash which I am reminded of, now, by the large dent that remains in one of my quadriceps, the food I so craved: Chex Mix, Gatorade, spaghetti, creme pies, the feeling of A/C in a stop-over town’s only bar, the evening comfort of a toilet seat (and getting the chance to flush), the free garden hose to fill my water bottle and drench my face, the Motorola Talkabouts that kept us together, and the roadside cheers at the end of the day. I hated standing in line to shower, sleeping in a oven-hot tent, the rain that forced me to ride the Saggin’ Wagon on our last day, the head winds that tempted me to quit, and the sight of a man collapsing on a hill, only later to find out he had died from cardiac arrest.
Mostly, I will never ever forget the realization, when I was able to visualize, on a Iowa road map, the half way mark… I was cycling across an entire state! This year I will celebrate a birthday, just a few weeks prior to RAGBRAI XXXVIII, and there is no better way for me to ring in 50 than on a bicycle.
On your left, here I come!
Amy
We Henkes’ wanted to acknowledge a couple compatriots in cyberspace:
Asiawheeling continues to explore the ‘Extremes of Experience’ on their cycle themed tour of the Asian continent. In addition to some Iowa roots they will provide us with both energy and inspiration here in the blogosphere and as we move forward on our own two wheels!
Cities of the Plain has, and will, provide our bike gang with up-to-date jams, diddies, and musical magisteria. This will undoubtedly be needed in July while we cruise through the expansive, dull agricultural fields of the CotP’s namesake.
Our RABGRAI XXXVIII adventure begins! Stay tuned for more posts, pictures, and training updates in the near future.
