Road Blocks & Green Lights

Training for RAGBRAI has been a blast so far! But, like any challenge, I’ve encountered some roadblocks and some green lights. Here are a few of the things that make me grumble, and some that just plain make me happy:

Roadblocks

-The back wheel of my fancy, shiny, new bike keeps slipping out of place. The quick release just isn’t tight enough and it’s causing me unneeded stress.

-It’s been a cold stormy spring. I strongly believe stormy weather waits for Monday and Tuesday so people don’t feel so bad about being at work on a gloomy day. But Monday and Tuesday are my days off! Bad Mother Nature, Bad.

-Along with RAGBRAI, I’m training for The Copper Creek Sprint Triathlon in June. Sometimes I feel like I’m not giving either training the attention it deserves.

-I literally live in the middle of the city. Getting to a country road to just crank out some good mileage is a good drive away.

-This Neil Smith Trail. I had a heck of a time following the trail past Union Park. When I finally spotted the trail under an overpass I was on, I cut through the grass only to get about a quarter mile before construction... (Photo) It will be awesome when it’s finished, but that’s just the kind of thing that happens when you try to train for RAGBRAI in the city.

Green Lights

-My Greater Des Moines Regional Trails map. I love it. Get one at the Des Moines Bicycle Collective

-The cycling community. You can’t be mad about taco rides out to the Cumming Tap and Wheels and Heels events. Those are the types of things I love about the Des Moines cycling community.

-Riding my bike to the downtown Y and then meeting up with the Meredith Trail by Principal Park and riding around to Grey’s Lake. I feel like I’m getting some of the best experiences of my neighborhood all in a six mile ride.

-Skunk River Cycles. I love all the local bike shops, but these guys are my favorites.

-Spandex. All this bike riding has me checking the tags on my clothes. I love spandex and I look darn good it in after all this riding!

Things Cyclists Love

During my RAGBRAI training, I've come to accept, and often love, the cycling culture. It's a group of people unlike any other, who have some surprising similarities within their diverse levels of commitment. Here are just a few I've become rather fond of as well:

Taco stands: I have been participating in the Twitter event “Bike School” with cyclists from all over the country. Inevitably tacos come up. We like soft shell, hard shell, beef, chicken, fish… I had a turkey taco today. If there’s a question a cyclist doesn’t know, they answer it with “Taco!”. It’s like in Sunday school when the kids don’t know the answer… they just answer Jesus. Most of the time they’re right.

In fact, one of my bike buddies Sam is the proud founder of Tacopocalypse: A Taco stand that will be making an appearance at the Downtown Farmers Market this summer.

Fancy beer and PBR: From my experience, bike snobs tend to be beer snobs. Beer snobs that like Pabst Blue Ribbon… I went to a meeting for my RAGBRAI team, Team Skunk, and when I arrived someone quickly informed me that the biggest issue we were covering in the meeting was, ‘Who’s going to get the beer, and what kind they should get’. Apparently last year there was a mix-up and someone bought bad beer, and the beer that was there had to be rationed.

Hats with tiny brims: I am still working on my T-Chart of the pros and cons of a hat with a tiny brim versus a hat with an average sized brim. If baseball caps are good enough for baseball players, why do cyclists need these special tiny brimmed hats? There’s nothing going on 45 degrees above the horizon that we need to be able to see without moving our heads… Tiny brims are irrelevant… But I want one SO BAD.

Spandex: There’s nothing like a helmet and a padded, spandex onesie to tell the world you’re a serious cyclist.