100.14 mi / 6:49:40 time / 14.7 mph avg. / 25.5 mph max. / 1224 ft. climbing
Staying at Sibley Town Park

When you’re in Iowa, the second question everyone asks you (after “Where you headed?”) is “Have you done RAGBRAI?” That’s a hugely popular organized ride that crosses Iowa in a week, with 10,000 riders per year. The route goes from west to east, and is different each year. It’s apparently quite the boon to small-town economies if they are lucky enough to be on the route (I’ve seen towns with dedicated websites for it). When I asked the lady operating the store in tiny Fenton if RAGBRAI had ever come through there, she was almost indignantly proud to say that it’s been through twice, and they’re famous for feeding the cyclists homemade pies (“we don’t got no pies today, though”). I think it probably helps me out a lot to have such a highly visible cycling event in the state; it makes everyone familiar with the concept of riding bicycles on the roads, so I don’t seem so strange to them.

Ok, then the ride. After more rain at night, the morning was actually dry, so packing up was fairly easy, and I could even see the sunrise again. But then shortly after, the fog rolled in, along with the clouds. Eventually it turned into a light drizzle, but was tolerable. I made it onto SR 9, which finally put me back onto my planned route. Lunch’n’library today was in Estherville. If only libraries served food, they’d be the ultimate location. Free WiFi, bathrooms, and comfy chairs to rest my weary butt. Though the librarian today didn’t seem to know what WiFi is. “What? Oh, that? Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, and with the weather today…” But it worked, just as it has in every library so far.

Right out of Estherville I did a 200 foot climb, so I spent half the day riding at around 1300 ft. and then half riding at around 1500 ft. You can actually see the notch on the detailed elevation profile. In the midst of that plateau is the “Great Lakes” region of Iowa, which really aren’t all that great if you’ve seen the real Great Lakes, but I guess they’re natural, which must be rare in the area. About a quarter of Iowa’s State Parks are located in the area, but it was too early for me to stop. Though the rain did stop at that point.

I discovered that they farm more that corn in Iowa, they farm wind too. I’d noticed on Osceola County’s website they made a mention of their windmills, and it’s true, there were quite a lot of them. Yesterday I’d seen three Oversized Load trucks go by, each carrying what looked almost like an airplane wing. Today I finally put two and two together and realized they were blades for a windmill. I think it was the enormous size of them that threw me off. If you imagine each blade of the windmill being a really, really long semi truck spinning around, that gives you an idea of the scale. It’s funny, every once in a while somewhere I’ll see a yard sign that says “No Wind Farms!” I think “who could be against wind farms?” Maybe I’ve just been seduced by the clean-energy marketing, but when I see them, they’re almost beautiful, and a symbol of high technology. Maybe it’s just the ethanol growers who don’t want ’em.

I’m camped at a town park/swimming pool/golf course in Sibley. Just after I arrived, it started drizzling again, so I set up the tent under a picnic shelter to dry it out, and cooked dinner there too, and then transferred everything over once it stopped.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 22nd, 2007 at 11:29 am and is filed under bike. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.