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We sent our co-worker Hershal Walker out to Iowa to ride the annual RAGBRAI ride. If you haven’t heard about RAGBRAI it’s the largest supported ride in the country (RAGBRAI= Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa). Some 7500 participants riding across the state of Iowa and camping each night. RAGBRI website is HERE for more info. Hershal’s buddy Logan tagged along to handle the bike pedaling duties since Fairdale still hasn’t made a decent dog powered bike. Internet access out in the corn fields has been tough to come by so we’ll work on a full Field Trip post once Hershal gets back to Austin. Potential desktop back ground for Iowa lovers. You should buy a Fairdale Weekender and go on the ride. But the important part is that you should just go on the ride. Typical view out on the road… miles and miles of cyclists. And then at the camping sites… miles and miles of tents.    

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  Marshalltown to Cedar Rapids 85 Miles Good thing we were prepared for last night’s storm because things were well saturated when Logan threw me out of the tent shortly before 6 am. The rain seemed to cool the ground a bit as the morning started a little later than usual. Forgetting his Fairdale Kit on top of the tent seemed to make it hard to put on, shamed further by changing in the middle of the campsite. A risky move made possible by not tripping. Today’s 85-mile journey began similarly to the others, loads of bikes and loads of humans pedaling them toward the next quiet Iowa town. Today I overheard a conversation while surfing the B.O.B. Trailer that, the route is decided by a group of Iowa Cyclists who decide on a number of criteria and a number of factors they take heavily into account are economic.   The mass of people buying 9000 slices of watermelon for One dollar a piece from the local high school Drama club seriously puts money directly back into the community. That watermelon goes great with a piece of pie from this social group, or this school athletic team. I am not in charge of the funds for the trip because of some previous negative experiences with the financial responsibilities, but it was nice seeing the money that was spent go to the communities who welcomed the group of riders. Logan looked sunburned as we made our way past Garwin and Garrison. We ran across some college kids who had a sign that said pool and shouted “your dog can swim too!” so I made sure to give Logan the “turn around and let’s cool off” look so he hit the brakes and we turned around. After the typical small talk about where we were from and such I got ready to jump in the pool and the kid told Logan that it was $5.00 for a swim. I immediately trotted back to the front yard and heard Logan thanking the dude for his time but that was a bit out of our price range. Some Humans on the route sure are funny. Some bikes we saw were amazing. One bike that stood out seemed to catch my attention by the contents of the basket on the bike. The boy in his mid 20s, riding a bike that predated him by at least 40 years and looked like it sat in the barn the rest of the year, had a peculiar accent. He spoke about how he kept the bike well maintained over the long hot miles by using WD-40 every forty miles or so. “Just a little spray, not too much.” He also mentioned that the WD-40 can was from the early 1950’s. I sadly don’t have thumbs but Logan managed to snap this sketchy photo of the contents of the rider’s basket. This was truly a unique rig with an interesting human. We made great time today with significantly less […]

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We landed a Disposed gallery over on Defgrip from our recent Seattle to San Francisco trip. Check it out here!

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Here’s a nice little Parser Frame and Fork build over on the Headtube blog. Thanks for the support!  

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  Webster City to Marshalltown 77 Miles Today was long and straight. There was a lot of time to just sit back and stare at the bikes that seemed to pass on both sides of us all day long. Some of the bikes were pretty wild race machines with aero bars and bladed carbon wheels. Wildly overdone for this type of ride in my opinion, but who am I to judge? I didn’t pedal one time the whole trip. Miles didn’t fall to fast and the day was mildly uneventful, Lots of talking with great humans, and loads of people on bikes riding through the endless hot cornfields of central Iowa. We heard about a storm that was supposed to be rolling through Marshalltown later in the evening in a town along the way so things had to be taken care of once we grabbed our bag from the gear truck. After making camp and walking through the crowded park watching Logan stub his toe on every tent stake in the place, the weather caused us to hide in the tent the remainder of the evening and listen to the gnarly thunderstorm rage outside.

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Lakeview to Webster City 81.2 Miles Today started early. No alarm clock needed as Logan shoved me out the door at about 5 am. Yesterday’s headwind had made a lot of riders rethink their morning. We packed in a rush and jumped on the bike and hit the road before the sun came up. It was surreal being on the road as early as we were with that amount of people. People were quiet or talking about their goals of making it to the meeting town at a reasonable time. The lights on the backs of bikes seemed to make the number of people a lot more noticeable. The red trail of flickering lights stretched out as far as you could see in front of you. Even at 5am. People are crazy… Today was steady. I seemed to fall into a daze as the sun got higher and the miles kept disappearing. Logan fashioned a cover to keep me out of the sun, which I was appreciative of. It also hindered me from sticking my head out and causing more drag so we seemed to make better time if I was napping under the makeshift awning. The Hills started to get gnarly after our meeting town, the first 50 miles of the day’s 80 seemed to fall off with little complaint. The heat was almost unbearable for some of the northerners but having done some miles in the Texas heat, both Logan and I managed to pull through. The last section of the day brought on some of the shittier wind conditions with the stretch into Dayton made possible by drafting as much as possible. Big thanks to anyone who pulled us along on the way! We made our amazing right turn out of the wind and rode into the river valley ending with some gnarly climbs out of Lehigh and into Webster city. More amazing 80’s 90’s rock cover bands to entertain a town full of slightly exhausted fun seeking cyclists. Things got loose but we were in the tent and fast asleep with the masses by about 11 oclock. Thankfully Logan put the tent directly under a lovely fluorescent streetlamp that seemed like a bug zapper for drunken humans but without the usual end result. A rough night’s sleep set the tone for the next day.

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  Cherokee to Lake View 63 Miles Today started out early with the shuffling of tents and the soothing zipper alarm clock that would become the theme song for me getting tossed out of the tent while things are packed up and loaded onto the semi with everyone else’s gear. Today’s ride will end at a lake, I know I am excited and it seems like Logan is looking forward to a relaxing swim after today’s 63 miles. The first 30 miles went by with ease, Logan cruised through the cool morning air and I had a nice smooth cruise. The weight of our rig and myself seemed to pull us up the long hills but I never seemed to receive any thanks. After reaching the meeting town of Schaller, we laid down for a bit of a rest before heading out on the long road once again. The route took us Due east out of Schaller for about 20 miles on a road that doesn’t turn. I had a wonderful 20 mile an hour headwind that helped me stay cool for the boring ride. It seemed like Logan wasn’t as fond of the wind, with no way to draft because of the trailer and an extra 55 pounds of trailer, dog and gear didn’t seem to help either. Those silly aero handlebars and water bottle cages would have helped him out. I’ll need to keep that in mind for future Fairdale Dog powered Tri bikes. The blistering pace set by the piss poor riding conditions gave the humans some common ground to stand on. Conversations about past rides and previous experience with heat and shitty conditions seemed to bond the riders together and help motivate everyone. It was a great vibe. After a right turn and about 30 miles of that beautiful west central Iowa landscape we reached our destination of Lakeview. We bee lined for the water and made quite a few friends while making the mistake of plunging into the warm stale water. Logan didn’t seem to budget for the $6.00 shower so the rest of his afternoon was spent looking for a place to rinse off. After finding a place to clean up we made camp and sleep came easy.

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Sioux Center to Cherokee, 55 Miles The first day started significantly earlier than I thought. The overwhelming sound of zippers proved too difficult to sleep through even tucked soundly under the feet of the sleeping bag. I needed to make sure that Logan had the tent and gear packed up and in the truck by 8 am each morning. One of the benefits of being a registered rider for the event is that they carry your gear in a truck. So you fit all of your camping needs in a duffle bag along with kibble and beef jerky treats and they will carry it to the next camping town where you pick it up and set up camp. So 55 Miles for the first day seemed like a pretty good distance to go on our first day out. Both Logan and myself had done quite a bit of riding in the past but we haven’t had too much time in traffic with the current set up so it was interesting getting used to navigating our way through the group. There were a lot of bikes on the road, it was all you could see in front of you and all you could see behind you. It was nice riding in the Trailer, I could watch the long rolling hills pass as we made our way our through the countryside. The first Town we came to was a Dutch community. They had a variety of Danish dishes for breakfast but with all the miles left ahead, I urged Logan to continue. We made our way through the usually sleepy towns of northwestern Iowa to find that the communities overwhelmingly welcoming to the riders who found themselves in their town, getting a bite to eat and refueling from the ride. People sat in their front yards and sprayed water into the street to cool us off, I tried my best to look displeased but it sure did cool me off. I overheard the human tell groups of people about where we were from and chit chat for a bit and I sure was excited about all the people talking to me. The ride was going well despite the sun that seemed to start to wear on you after a while. We rolled down the long hill into Cherokee Iowa, a cool town that had the local high school grounds set up as a camping spot for RAGBRAI. There were already thousands of people setting up their camps or lounging in the shade after the ride. I somehow managed to lead us through the crowd to a shady tree spot where I could see what was going on pretty well. Sleep came pretty easy after a long day surfing in the trailer so I napped while camp was set up and then we went and walked around a bit to fill up water and such and socialize before heading to bed shortly after dark.

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  Day 0- Today we began our journey from East Moline to Sioux center for the start of RAGBRAI, the Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa. I was sent out from our office in Austin on a mission to accompany Logan, the gentle human who feeds me and will on occasion take me to fun bike events. He sometimes finds himself in over his head, so I was asked to keep a close eye on him, and document the events of RAGBRAI for this very first Field Trip entry.   The six-hour drive across Iowa west bound on Interstate 80 made the state seem stale and endless. The humans kept themselves entertained being disgusted by the terrible choice in radio stations and reading the conservative bumper stickers that seemed to be growing in number as we closed in on the Nebraska border. The interstate was dotted with huge buses carrying dozens of bikes on top with logos and team slogans spray painted on the sides, everything from “God Hates SAGS”, “Team Cuisine” and “Team GoodBeer” I had some terribly inaccurate preconceptions about this ride. I overheard a lot about the distance and the number of humans involved but wasn’t quite sure what to expect.   We ended our journey on four wheels in Sioux Center only to begin our journey on two. Well, three in our case, including my B.O.B trailer. Sadly the Fairdale prototype dogcycle wasn’t quite ready for the long 500-mile journey. Sioux Center is a small Iowa town nestled on the border just south of the Minnesota border. Today it was over-run with some 20 thousand visitors for the beginning of RAGBRAI. There was a product expo and a kick-off party so managing to get a handle on how things worked took Logan a while to figure out. Once the camping location was selected I had a minute to take in my surroundings and relax for the evening while the tent was being put up. We went to sleep shortly after a thirty minute firework display and some people watching.

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Today we are proud to announce the arrival of our new Fairdale team rider Seth Holton. Legendary guru of cycling and all things fun Seth guided our Seattle to San Francisco trip for the first several days. Before racing back home to his bicycle messengering job he gave us all a mystic pep-talk that kept us going mountain after mountain. Look for Seth to be smiling every pedal he takes and check out his new team bio here.  

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