Setting up for the 'BRAI
Back in March, former banking colleague Larry Baerveldt called from St. Louis to see if I'd be interested in joining a
team that would be signing up for the 2008 version of RAGBRAI. After investigating the official RAGBRAI website, I
got interested. It sounded like just the kind of adventure an idiot like me would find entertaining and challenging. Problem
was, I didn't have a road bike - I'm a mountain biker who's never owned a bicycle with skinny tires. The only thing I
knew about bikes designed specifically for pavement was that they seemed poorly designed for Chicago's city streets.
Some of those potholes were scary on my full suspension mountain bike. After some education and advice from my roadie
friends, I had a basic idea of what kind of road bike to look for. I found just what I needed from dirt biker buddy and
Florida resident Lee Daley, who had just bought a Specialized Roubaix and was about to sell his Trek 2300.

In May, Lee shipped me the Trek and I began the process
of figuring out how to ride it. First thing I noticed was the
gear shifters integrated into the brake levers. The last
road bike I'd ridden was my aunt's Schwinn with old style
shift levers, circa 1985, so obviously I'd missed this nice
little advance in technology. The front fork and seatstays
were carbon fiber, very cool. The red and black color
combo was badass. It was a nice bike.

I was too afraid to do my inaugural ride on city streets,
so I took it down to the farm and rode it 15 miles into a
20 mph headwind in padded mountain bike shorts. Padded
shorts or not, it was damn uncomfortable. Wrists, ass,
inner thighs...it all hurt. I loved the speed (with a
tailwind) and pedaling efficiency, but I had some work to
do in the comfort department.

After flipping the reversible handlebar stem to raise the
bars a bit, adding another layer of bar tape to help keep
my hands from going numb, and switching to Lycra road
bike shorts, I could ride longer with less discomfort. But
the seat, which seemed specifically designed for the
torture of my ass, had to go. I was 30 seconds away from
buying a comfy mountain bike seat at Performance Bicycle,
when I saw a neoprene seat cover. Problem solved, money
saved, and my ass has thanked me ever since.

For training, my goal was to reach the point where I could
ride 60-70 miles for a couple days in a row without feeling
like death. There was one 60-mile ride in the country
where I actually thought mortality was imminent, but
eventually I was able to ride 70 miles in one day, up and
down the Fox River path in the western Chicago suburbs,
with no ill effects. I was ready.
Mountain bike tendencies prevailed with Time pedals. I had to draw the line
somewhere...road pedals and the need for another pair of shoes for road
riding were making things get expensive in a hurry.
Next up on the RAGBRAI to-do list was figuring out how to get myself and my gear to the starting town. Our group of
riders, calling themselves Team Joyride, were planning to gather in St. Louis and drive a rented Winnebago RV to
Missouri Valley. I wasn't much interested in traveling to St. Louis and then spending 7 hours in an RV, so I booked a
flight to Omaha and shipped my bike to a special FedEx drop point in Iowa.
The box in which Lee Daley shipped the bike was reused for its trip to Iowa.
A charter service called Pork Belly Ventures reserved a
spot for me on their bus from Omaha to Missouri Valley,
about 30 minutes from the airport, where I would meet
Team Joyride. All of this went off without a hitch, and I
joined the team on Saturday, June 19th at our host
family's property just outside of Missouri Valley.

Part of Team Joyride's planning for RAGBRAI was lining up
a place to park the RV each night. Our goal was to find a
family willing to let us park at their house, camp on their
lawn and use their bathroom. Each overnight town had a
housing committee that helped match up teams with
residents willing to open their yards to campers. We
divided up the towns among the team; I was responsible for
housing in Missouri Valley and Jefferson.

With that, I was good to go. As for the riding itself...
Keep on reading!
Takes a lot of stuff to ride a bike 7 days in a row.
The official 2008 RAGBRAI jersey, courtesy of my parents.