At some point, I’ll go back and fill in all the days leading to this end, but for now, I need to switch to small pieces.
I’m in Team Zippy bus, headed west, back towards the heart of Iowa. The ride is over. We took the pictures, then took showers one more time in the portabke shower. Then pack up, load up. And go.
Yeah, I realize home is the other way, but my car is in Mason City.
Quit some time later, we pulled into a town for gas, and I looked out the window to see a familiar mural painted on the side of a two story building.
I yelled out – I know that. We’ve been here. I took a pic of this mural two days before. It was hard to get a picture with the porta potties in the way, so I let AI remove them. (See blurry nondescript lower right corner)
We biked thru here, 2 days ago? I remember because….
Trying to attach the mural to another memory. I cannot. I need something else.
So I whip my neck side to side scanning for signs and markers in other places along the road, anything to confirm a spot of this tiny town.
None. No signs or banners. No vendor tents. Certainly no crowds, not even a soul outside.
You know the scene in the TV show or movie – the one where con men use a place as a front, taking a barren place and converting it into an office or shop?. And the protagonist returns with the authorities at the end of the movie saying “Here, it was here, just open the door and look inside…”
And it’s all gone.
“We got to be ourselves. Our best selves. Among our people. All nonsense stripped away. Just left with what really matters… and the moment.”
Maybe that’s just it. Why that there was nothing else my eyes could grasp onto to prove to me I’d been here just days before.
The group talked about salt a lot in the morning. I remember overhearing a final checklist command on this morning: “Everyone have their salt?”
To the surprise of nobody reading this, I don’t pay much attention to the nutritional insights of a bike ride. I like water over Gatorade, a peanut butter sandwich instead of any kind of energy bar, and I always pass on those goo packets filled with sugar or whatever else is in them.
But by the time I reached the second big stop—after riding hard for more than two hours—I was craving the saltiest food I could find.
It’s not hard to picture what these host towns look like on RAGBRAI. Just imagine being in a rural place, and then imagine that place is hosting its annual summer fest. There are 50 people in line at every vendor tent. Hundreds are wandering up and down the main street. The crowds are shoulder to shoulder, the bathroom lines are 30 deep, and bikes are propped against every tree, sign, post, bench, wall, and rack in sight. The water stations (picture: PVC built into a frame so that a cross section is 3 feet off the ground and extends 7 feet horizontally, with 12 holes drilled into it) are always placed at the beginning and end of a town.
When I saw the sign for a pizza buffet, I knew two things: (1) Pizza and I don’t always get along. (2) I didn’t care.
Over lunch, I sat and talked with two incredible guys for about 20 minutes. One of them—Tanner—has an unforgettable story. His life took a turn when his legs became paralyzed. I’ll gloss over the details here, but I’ll share the question I eventually asked him, after we’d spoken for quite a while:
“May I ask… how did your mind get through the hard times?”
His answer brought awe. And gratitude. And a quiet reminder that none of us are on a solo journey.
If it’s possible to have a favorite moment, I thought I had mine for the entire week just after lunch.
I’d left my bike up the street, and getting back on it was… a little rough. You know those moments when you sit down or stand up in a way that doesn’t feel quite right, and your body lets out a little comment. “Oof.”
Okay, I thought. Thirty miles down, forty-something to go. There’s no hurry. Just enjoy.
And so, less than a half mile up the road, I decided to start looking at the RAGBRAI license plates—those little rider tags distributed to every bike, fastened just below the seat. A 4 x 6 index card-sized badge listing the rider’s name and city, with a bold square on the left to show how many times they’d been on this ride.
I went hunting for zeros.
And I found one—actually a pair—just a few pedals later. “Hey rookies, great job!” I called out.
And like so many others that would join me on this ride, we aligned our pace, turned toward each other, and exchanged smile-filled questions for as long as the conversation lasted. While the entire week would become a fraternity beyond comparison, I learned to love being Year 0.
Then came the moment. One of them asked the question nearly everyone asks: “Are you with a group?”
And just then, as if scripted, Team Zippy roared past. Tara’s voice lifted above the breeze: “There’s David! From Team Zippy!”
I glanced left and right—the rookie pair beside me smiled knowingly. “That must be them! Go get ‘em!”
So I pushed down, veered left, and sprinted to catch up with Zippy flying up the road.
But just ahead, I spotted Tanner, riding his recumbent bike alongside his teammate. I veered back right, called their names, leaned in for a fist bump, and then turned left again, returning to take my place at the back of Team Zippy’s line.
This was my third time in the pace line—a tight formation where riders draft off each other to cut through the wind. (Yes, that’s what it’s called—pace line, not “draftline”.)
I knew what to do now. Eyes on Robin’s shoulders, not the wheel directly ahead. Keep my tire staggered just to the right—eight inches behind the next rider. Look for hand signals. Listen for shouts. At this pace, a surprise rumble strip wouldn’t be fun.
My favorite learning, though—the one I finally applied this time—was how to anticipate the pattern. When we slowed to overtake riders clogging the left lane, Robin would almost always burst forward to return us to pace. In the morning, that created gaps I had to fight to close. This afternoon, I stayed ready. No gaps.
We went another 7–8 miles together, flying up to 25 mph, and I marveled at how good it felt to move through the wind like that.
As far as scenery… well.
I’m almost certain that if you stripped away the riders, the party towns, the sheriff-patrolled intersections, the RAGBRAI tents, the clapping spectators in lawn chairs—if you took all that away and asked me to retrace my steps, alone—I wouldn’t remember a single landmark.
It’s northwest Iowa. There’s green. There’s corn. There are gravel roads to the left and right. There are some rollers, but nothing I’d describe as a hill (yet). There are farmhouses, but none distinguishable from the next. And that’s it.
(limited pictures today, the wifi is abysmally slow).
If you want to join me for a moment, imagine this.
It’s sometime just after 6am, although you don’t know it yet. Your first thought of the day is not about a to-do list. It’s not about anything. But it’s the one where you are trying to remember what happened yesterday.
You are lying on a mattress pad and sleeping bag, it’s far too warm to be under more than a thin blanket inside your tent. Outside, there’s a sound of a car alarm going off and the faint rhythm of footsteps, both near and far. No—update—the nearby sound is just the wind brushing against the base of a tent.
You’re still tired, but far too curious to disappear into sleep. You start to remember the last thing you did last night. You said goodnight to someone and they told you that the world would be moving by 6am.
So you lie still, latching onto the sounds for the next few minutes, imagining what’s around you. People are awake , that’s for sure, but they’re still talking in hushed tones. There’s light, but it’s not bright. An occasional car engine—maybe—but it’s distant, fading almost as soon as you notice it.
Eventually, you glance at your watch. 6:10am. You peek out through the fabric screen and then crawl out of the tent. Two companions have already emerged, and they’re looking past you.
You turn, to follow their gaze. What are they looking at? And you see it.
As the sun rises, endless line of bikes is already moving down the road and over a hill.
My team and I all wake around the same time. Riley and Tara first, actually. Everyone else knows the routine, but I do not.
Coffee is made in a pot outside the bus. A few begin taking down their tents. I grab a toothbrush and a bottle of water and walk to the roadside. Sometimes one rider. Sometimes four. Sometimes 10. It’s nonstop—all just beginning a 72.5 mile journey. It’s cloudy. The wind will be light, but against us. A field to my left is still filled with tents. So from wherever these riders came from, there are hundreds and thousands still to come. Robin says it will be like this from now until 9am, and many were on their way in darkness. Rush hour never looked so beautiful.
Breakfast is eggs with sausage or pancake mix sealed in bags and cooked in hot water. I choose the eggs, served in a tortilla. Eggy in a baggy (pronounced beggy to rhyme).
Our bus—long and filled with every supply imaginable—is narrow from all that it holds. The space between couches and storage bins is barely a foot across. So when half a dozen people all need to get in and out and around, it becomes a delicate dance. Sometimes it’s easier to disappear out the front door, circle around, and re-enter through the back.
Not for the first time, and probably not for the last, there are two hours for which I simply don’t know the sequence. I remember folding the tent. I remember someone handing me a banana. At one point, someone asked about sunscreen, and someone else laughed about underwear. But if you asked me the order, I’d just shrug. Somewhere in that blur, we all changed, ate, organized, packed, brushed teeth, and paused several times to watch the bikes go by.
After it all, I looked back at the field to my left, the tents were gone.
We set out as a team, all together, waving goodbye to our driver just before 8:30.
I felt no soreness or fatigue from the previous day, though I was curious how the wind would affect our pace. That question barely had time to form before it faded into the motion of the ride.
Robin—who I’d previously described as a bike shop owner and Tara’s friend—is more than that. A minute into our ride, easing under a flag and past hundreds of waving onlookers, I realized there was already a 20 foot gap between me and the team.
Hmm. Okay. This is not a warm-up lap. Noted, and I pull behind them, taking my spot last in line.
We turn a corner and ease up a hill. We are single file—Robin first, Tara right behind, then the kids.
“Do y’all move up and back in the pack?” I ask. No, they reply—almost surprised by the question. Robin pulls the entire way, they say. Okay. Interesting. So maybe we won’t go fast?
In response—or rebellion—I separate slightly from the rear and let myself glide downhill. A few pedal strokes for emphasis, and I’m cruising wide and past them all, dodging in and out of other riders. The other riders now seem to move at a pace that makes for an easy obstacle course. I continue for a mile without looking back, just enjoying the moment. And when I finally ease off the pedals for a half a second, they appear and tear past me.
Tara yells with a smile, “There’s David! Go Team Zippy!” They are fast. Fast as a team, and fast compared to the 90% of the RAGBRAI riders who ride in groups, but not in a line, and not with a Robin.
That first feeling will happen quite a few more times today, but I don’t know it yet. I quickly pivot to grab onto the back of the pack. A few miles later, I rotate up a few spots being waved up by Riley and Scott. We’ve already passed 700 people and I think—with the smile of a ten-year-old—we’re going to pass everyone. We are going to pass everyone. This is fun.
I see jerseys and team names and riders in groups and solo. Team Duzer, and Team Stray Dogs, Burrito Bandits, Miller High Life, Pink Flamingos, the Iowa Valley Bike Club, and hundreds more. I want to memorize all the team names, but there are too many.
The first celebration town is 10 miles in. We dismount and ride the obligatory down-and-back past a church pancake breakfast and dozens of tents selling coffee and everything else that can be consumed on a summer morning. None of us need food or drink, so we’re back on the road in a few minutes.
About five miles later, the road turns north. For the first time, we’re no longer heading straight into the wind. I expect a break—maybe a chance to push a little—but I’m not prepared for Robin to take it over 25 mph.
At around mile 17, I’m ready to drop off. For a moment, I wonder if that means losing the team for the day. And then, as if the road was listening, we see fists raised and palms open—signals to slow down. There’s an accident about a quarter mile ahead. Gridlock on a country road. It’s the first jaw-dropping view and it’s the first time I see the sheer volume of bikers.
We dismount and wait and then walk. I’m bewildered and thankful for the break. We pass the ambulance and mount back up.
I stay with the crew for a few more miles and then I break off watching as they disappear ahead in line of an endless line.
From Mason City to South Dakota and back again. Sort of.
Tara said we’d aim to leave by 10 a.m. to head to Orange City—our launchpad for RAGBRAI— which was only a three-hour drive*. My plan was simple: make the 2 p.m. shuttle and begin with the sacred tire dip in South Dakota, and then ride a quick 23 miles back in time for the opening ceremonies.
Spoiler: That didn’t happen.
At 9:15 a.m., I wandered across the street from the furniture store and grabbed a coffee and what may very well be the world’s best quiche at Three on the Tree in Mason City. No picture. Just trust me. By 9:35, I rolled into the bike shop—first to arrive, feeling ahead of the game.
And then time disappeared.
In the next two hours? Controlled chaos. Fifteen people crisscrossing the bike shop even though our team totaled nine. I met a mom, a sister-slash-aunt named Trisha, Gordon, a neighbor, and a mysterious man who materialized and dematerialized at will. Bikes were loaded onto the roof of a full-sized bus.
Gear was sorted, questioned, redistributed. Solo cups were debated. I tried to be useful.
I caught on to a few things.
Keep your stuff in your drawers.
Laundry bag goes up top.
I’m borrowing the three compartments labeled “Greg.”
Front tires get stored behind the bus’s couches.
Coolers in front, help yourself to anything
Hooks above, magnetic and marvelous.
Speakers swing out when we stop.
Bus gets 4 miles per gallon and plays ice cream truck music.
Ya know, all the usual.
By 11:15, I mentioned a quick bathroom stop and was sent back to the furniture store, then the house to leave my car in a garage then aunt/sister Trisha would drive me back. Sometime after 11:45, we hit the road.
Inside the bus, we sat on couches facing one another like a rolling living room heading west. I ran the numbers—I won’t make the final 2pm shuttle to South Dakota. But it’s RAGBRAI. Someone will be heading west from Orange City. Plenty of time. Plenty of daylight. I’ll find a way.
We stopped four times, for gas and red solo cups and to fill the water tank which will make showers and one other stop that I can’t remember why, but that I inspected every inch of the outside of the bus during it.
A little detour slowed us when a closed highway forced the bus, which has a max speed of 55mph, onto gravel roads and down to 25mph.
By 4:45 p.m.—25 hours after leaving home in Cary—I arrived in Orange City, 22 miles from the South Dakota border. The scene was electric: tents in fields, RVs in rows, bikes everywhere. Adrenaline hit. These are my people. Let’s go.
Team Zippy snagged a prime parking spot. We unloaded bikes, popped up tents, pulled out chairs. Once we were settled, I darted into my tent and changed into gear.
“Wind’s blowing west, not east,” I told Robin and Tara. “I’m gonna fly to the border and figure out a ride back. I want to do 23 miles today and tire dip—not 46.”
“Have fun,” they said. “See you soon.”
The ride felt like flying. I peeked down at my Strava app a few dozen times in the first five miles. Uphill, downhill, wind at my back—I was hitting 25 to 30 mph with ease. Passed at least 60 riders heading east. I was alone, in rhythm, and grinning.
By the time I reached the South Dakota border, I had logged 23 miles at a 22 mph pace.
The tire dip itself? Well… underwhelming, if not for the three locals sitting nearby, fishing. No doubt they’d seen dozens of like-minded visitors that afternoon, and they greeted me from afar.
“Woo-hoo!” I yelled. “I’m in South Dakota!” They roared back “Woo-hoo’. It was perfect.
The plan was to find a ride back. A kind stranger, a friendly team, a spontaneous shuttle. But out near Hawarden, Iowa, it was quiet. No cyclists. No signs. I sat on a curb for 15 minutes. Waited. Listened.
Then I got back on the bike.
Somewhere around the 2nd of what would be 30 rolling hills, I spotted a jersey ahead of me, pedaling my direction. I caught up near the top of the next climb. Her name was Brittany—a paramedic from Cedar Falls—and when I asked if she minded a riding companion, she said sure.
For the next 20 minutes, we rode side by side. Conversation made the miles disappear. My first riding companion.
Then: lightning.
Brittany screamed—louder than expected—and I turned to assess the sky.
“I think we’ll beat it,” I said, lying.
It turned out, Brittany was once struck by lightning. On a camping trip. In a lake.
So we pedaled harder.
The rain caught us with 13 miles to go. Whatever words we exchanged in conversation before the rain turned into joyous exclamations as we became soaked to the bone. I remember seeing a sign that said we had eight miles left, and realizing that two strangers were laughing like old friends, pedaling through what felt less like a storm and more like a river. We were drenched. Every inch. It wasn’t warm or cold. It wasn’t harsh or gentle.
It was just… perfect.
I declared myself no longer a rookie. Said it felt like my first big-league home run: a 46 mile border ride on Day 0, caught in the rain, and a riding partner to mark the moment.
About half a mile outside of town, Brittany’s friend found us—concerned but relieved. He’d driven out to see why responses to messages didn’t get a reply. A quick picture, a high five. A smile. And we split.
I rolled back to the Team Zippy bus, dripping wet, to the sound of cheers and laughs. I was home.
Dinner? Two cold leftover chicken fingers and a Gatorade. There was talk of food trucks a mile up the road, but nothing sounded better than dry clothes with Team Zippy whilst sitting on a floorboard in the front of a converted school bus.
It’s almost 11:00 p.m. now. I’m warm, I’m dry, and I’m crawling into a tent that stayed dry.
They say the sounds of a new day will find me before 6 a.m. I’m ready.
Tonight’s lodging comes with throw pillows, a price tag, and a story.
This couch—where I’m typing—is the kind that fell off a truck. Literally. Tara Brick tells me it happened during delivery. “We’ll try to spruce it up and sell it at a discount,” she shrugs. It’s that kind of place. Brick Furniture. Fourth-generation. In Mason City, Iowa. Still standing, still welcoming.
Tara owns the store and offered me a bed —well, one of twenty-seven, my pick —down in the basement of the 3,000 square foot showroom. A maze of end tables and reclining chairs creates an unintentional obstacle course between mattresses. Some of this weeks riders might be still at home, in a tent, or at a hotel. I get a showroom basement. And somehow, it feels perfect.
I’ve never slept in a furniture store before. Or in Iowa, for that matter. Or biked across a state. Or biked with a group of strangers.
It’s not, however, the first time I’ve set out for a journey without knowing what was around every corner. But it’s been a while since I’ve felt this, the indescribable feeling of being so present and alive in a minute at the outset of new. And I couldn’t be more excited.
Here I am.
The night started in Mason City at 9:30. Right on time, having crossed the Mississippi River long before sunset, and then driving west and north. I listened to The Emerald Mile on audio on the route, inviting tales of adventure through the car speakers in into my soul.
I arrived at the wrong address first—Tara’s home—and got to meet the family who was knee deep filling bins with freezer bags stuffed with daily outfits and rain jackets. Then, after the shortest hello from the doorway, rerouted to the right place: a bike shop, just a mile away. Tara texted as I was en route. We’re here. Come on in. I parked, and entered.
Tara was wiping down her chain and turned to smile and greet me with a hug. Her friend and the team’s hero who owns a bike shop, Robin, helped me stash my gear in the corner—gear bags and boxes and bins piled around us, as if they were stocking up for a small village. A half dozen fantastic bikes were up on lifts and parked next to work tables.
I took a quick inventory, and in one corner, saw what had to be 35 bottles of chain oil. We are not underprepared.
I dropped my duffel, made a comment about overpacking, and watched them not flinch. “We’ve got space,” Tara said. “Only nine of us this year.”
Making sure the message was conveyed, I said that I packed a SodaStream. I, uh, kinda really like that fizzy water.
Tara’s eyes widened. “I’ve never had one. I love carbonated water.” Boom. Ice broken. Gift found.
i made the first trip back to the car to get my bike, and beamed with pride as Robin gave it a once over. That’s a good one, he said. I looked past him at two stunningly crafted bikes behind him, clean and shiny and new and built for speed. He is no stranger to bikes, having built and sold and fixed them for decades. Leaving back on my handlebars, I felt a twinge of pride for my own, thinking of the miles it had taken me.
As I returned to the car and brought back camping gear, Tara nodded and said, “I see you’re no stranger to camping.” Well, no. I am, in fact, quite a stranger to it. But I couldn’t be less worried, I replied, wondering if I should have actually set up the tent once in my living room, or at least made sure all the poles and stakes were in the bag that clinked together as I’d felt around the outside of the bag yesterday. Nah. Where’s the fun in that?
I’m fairly certain the last two times I camped were in Colorado with Justin surrounded by mountains 15 years ago, and in Kenya with Jeff surrounded by hyenas and elephants 10 years ago. In other words, I am as brave as my companions, and a step above inept otherwise. For all my lack of foresight and missteps, I know when and where to lean into others.
The full-sized bus parked outside the shop is leaving tomorrow for Orange City.
So for me, this is where RAGBRAI begins.
And tomorrow, RAGBRAI’s expo and festival. The official unofficial start. Pedaling begins Sunday. Unless… well, there’s supposedly a way to hitch a ride from the starting point during the expo a little further west to South Dakota and tire dip in the Missouri River. Then make the quick 20 mile ride towards the start on the back of the wind. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
These are the extent of decisions for a while as my daily to-do list for the next week is:
wake
ride
eat
sleep
Anything else is a bonus
Tara will stay here tonight as well, upstairs above me in another corner of the furniture store, just to make sure I’m comfortable. Her family is across town packing up.
Who does that?
That kind of reckless generosity. That unfiltered, radical hospitality. That “join us” spirit you usually only read about in small-town novels or your favorite kind of summer. Simple, kind. When I’d texted her earlier , an update on my arrival time saying I’d crossed into Iowa, she sent a smile and short reply. “Welcome.”
Tara told me, “A few years ago, we had 60+ riders. Everyone slept here [in the furniture store] the night before.” No words. Just awe.
However many RAGBRAI traditions I’m about to learn, this one—this odd, cozy, unforgettable welcome—is the first. And already the most meaningful.
Speaking of traditions, to the folks back home…
Yes, mother. Tara had a box fan in the basement of the furniture store too. It’s loud, kinda like the one that Grandma Landeck had upstairs. I’ll sleep like a baby.
And yes, Pat & Tucker, I shoved a whiffle bat and balls into my tent bag. As one of the two of you would combine to say, “It’s not like we have a lot of work to do… finding 3 people out of 15,000 bikers who want to play wiffle ball after a long day… we just gotta find them.”
Time to drift off to sleep.
——-
Morning edit:
If you’re in the market for a new mattress, might I suggest the Sealy Posturepedic Brehham Hybrid Firm? No matter where you’ve been—or where you’re going—you’ll sleep like a king.
RAGBRAI. rewired. 