RAGBRAI and TRIRI

These acronyms stand for "the Des Moines Register Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa" and "Tour Riding In Rural Indiana". We had the pleasure of doing these two organized rides this summer. RAGBRAI was a moving circus of somewhere around 15,000 riders on all kinds of bikes riding as a big herd across Iowa over a 7 day span. Towns compete to be on the route as it is a big boost to their local economy. Food stations abound ranging from "pork on a stick" to "designer peanutbutter sandwiches" to homemade icecream. Evening accomodations were in our tents on a trusty air mattress though we did have the great fortune to stay at a cottage for one evening. Mostly, the route was flat or slightly rolling except for the last day near Dubuque when we had some major hills. We met many interesting folks and saw more corn than we thought existed on our 442 mile journey which began with touching our rear tire in the Missouri River and ended with our front tire in the Mississippi River. ..........The TRIRI September Escapade was 6 days of riding covering about 285 miles in beautiful and HILLY southern Indiana. Only 200 folks were on this event which used the Indiana state parks for overnite stays - these parks have incredibly nice lodging just like a motel and had excellent buffets for hungry riders !