Jay’s Note: This is the beginning of a running two-week adventure log for RAGBRAI. Each day I’ll be posting a journal entry and some pictures from our trip that begins in Virginia, lands us in Iowa for a bike ride, and then eventually gets us back to the East Coast.
Every year our family loads up with our trailer and travels to Iowa for the longest-running touring ride in the country, RAGBRAI. 30–60,000 cyclists, 7 days of bike riding, and lots of corn and country to soak in along the way. Bonus: now that we live in Virginia, the ride is a great way to catch up with cycling friends who still live in the Midwest, ride with them, and have a few beers. RAGBRAI is a highlight of every summer and is always a great time.
Anyway, we’ve been preparing for the ride for the last few weeks and now that we’re less than a week out it’s crunch time.
Our logistics are set: we leave on the 15th for the Buckeye Lake KOA in Ohio, then a stop in Starved Rock State Park on the 16th to meet up with a friend who’s coming with us, then (as is tradition) a stop in Kellogg RV Park in Iowa on the 17th, before we inevitably make it to Day 0 of RAGBRAI in Onawa, Iowa on the 18th. And, a new addition this year! We have a brand new Kia Carnival that we’ll be towing our InTech Flyer Pursue (with rooftop tent!) with across the country. Four kids, three adults, three bikes, and all of our gear… here we go.
This year’s RAGBRAI is a short one: only 391 miles. I’ve been training in the mountains of western Virginia for months to get ready for this. It’s time.
In no particular order, here’s what we’ve been putting together:
- We pulled everything out of our trailer, organized, got rid of a lot of gear (a very important step), and then re-packed everything in.
- I’ve tuned up my bike, given it new brakes, and cleaned it all up with Muc-Off.
- We had our Kia Carnival outfitted with a new trailer hitch and brake system. The Carnival has a few inches more clearance than the Chrysler Pacifica we used to tow the InTech with, so we’re hoping it helps with ground clearance in some of the fields RAGBRAI puts campers in.
- A new addition this year is the portable Starlink Mini, which I’m hoping works even if the cell towers are all overloaded in the rural Iowa towns we’ll be stopping in.
- Also a new addition: a Honda EU3200i generator to supply electricity on the hotter days when we’re not hooked up to shore power. The first day is supposed to be 105 degrees!
Bonus Note: I just read a great New Atlantis book review of The Tonality of Thought by Byung-Chul Han (article written by Matt Elmore). The book asks an important question: what’s come of freedom in the digital age? And, as it turns out, freedom has come under the thumb of a new power — not a power of repression, but one of seduction. The seduction to be liked, the seduction of comparison… basically, the algorithms that run behind social media and how they influence our behavior toward giving up our own freedom to focus. Or, as the article quotes Han, “What makes power more effective is not coercion but the automatism of habit. An absolute power would be one that never became apparent, never pointed to itself, one that rather blended completely into what goes without saying.”
I particularly liked how the piece highlights a way out of the madness. One that I try to practice daily myself. Namely, getting outside of oneself by being drawn out and toward the other: a piano, a jukebox, a digital camera lens…
This was a particularly good read on the eve of doing just that: getting out, experiencing the world on two wheels, meeting new people, looking at cows and corn, and being drawn outside.
Our attention is in demand. As the Flobots say… there’s a war going on for your mind. We are the insurgents.
Trip pictures from the day:
