I was lucky enough to spend the last two weeks at a friend’s beach house with several friends and ride almost every day with one or more of them. As of this week I have ridden almost 3,000 miles in about one year getting ready for my big ride (and enjoying myself most of the time J ) I am still essentially on my training schedule with a few weeks lacking for total miles but getting on my bike at least three days each week and even lately riding ten out of thirteen days and EIGHT DAYS IN A ROW. While these rides at the beach have been relatively short (20 – 25 miles) they have been fairly windy which should be good experience for what I’ll be facing in Iowa.
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| Lena "Leaning" at the Beach... |
BIKE
I recently had my bike tuned up which included a through
cleaning (which is almost for naught now) and a new chain. According to the
mechanic, we ‘flat land riders’ tend to wear out our chains more than others
since we have constant pressure on our chain the whole time we are riding - sure. And
I have a new "rough road" rear tire on my backup wheels so that I can use it if I choose
to ride on the optional ‘gravel loop’ on Day 2 of the ride. I am really looking
forward to that segment since it will be the first ever gravel segment in RAGBRAI.
PACKING
I have packed a tote full of ‘stuff’ that I might need and
am in the process of organizing my cycling clothes so that I can minimize the
amount of luggage that I will be carrying. Nonetheless…it will still be a lot
of stuff.
RIDING
As for riding my bike I rode today and am planning to ride
on Saturday and the following Monday and then taking the rest of the week off.
I will be heading west on Thursday the 16th to meet up with my
friends in St Louis and then on to Sioux City, Iowa for the start of the ride
on Sunday the 19th. We will be riding from Sunday through Saturday
when we end up in Davenport on the Mississippi River. See: http://ragbrai.com/routemaps/2015-route-maps/
for more details on the route.
AND KEEPING YOU UP-TO-DATE
I plan to write a blog posting each day of the ride to talk
about the highlights of the day and share a couple photos….that is if the
internet service holds up each evening, I’m sure that it will be tough to get a
good signal in many of the smaller towns but I’ll try because I know the tens
of readers I have will on the edge of their seats waiting to here what’s
happening. I will also create a separate FaceBook page and post the blog there
with more photos as the days roll on. You should be able to find the FaceBook
page by looking for “James’s Ride to RAGBRAI” in FaceBook. AND, as if that is
not enough, you can follow me in near real time if you have a “MapMyRide”
account and follow me using my username of “JMGARD58”. Then you will need to
click on their “Live Tracking” option and you will be able to see me as I ride
the roads of Iowa.
That is about it for this week at the beach…
see you in Iowa! ! !
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