We had a couple of great vacations. In June we drove up to Eugene, OR to pick up our new bicycles. They're called Bike Fridays - and the neat thing about them is that you can dismantle it somewhat, fold it and put it in a suitcase for traveling. They have small BMX type tires.They are unique, look kinda funny and elicit all sorts of comments. We actually carry referral cards with us when we cycle and hand them out to people who are truly interested in this sort of bike. Right now it's a fairly small company, but it's growing. We also have a tandem made by this company, it's called a Tandem Two's Day. We took the tandem to Iowa in July for RAGBRAI (Register's Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa) This is a one week ride that started in the northwest corner of IA in a small town called Hawarden and travels across the state. Our shortest day was 47 miles, the longest was 93. The first two days were extremely hot and humid but then the weather got much better. We really did not suffer from the heat. Every night we stayed at the home of a host family either pitching a tent on the front lawn or sleeping inside the house. Ten thousand + people do this ride every year. It's a rolling party, going from one small town to the next eating, eating, eating! The ride always ends at the Mississippi River where everyone dips their tires in the River and celebrates. This year it ended at a very small island town called Sabula. It was too small to accommodate all the cars and buses and trucks that congregate at the finish to pick up riders and transport them back across the state so everyone was encouraged to cross the river to Savannah, Ill. We got in a small motor boat with three others for a ferry across. Would you believe we hit a log in the middle? We all grabbed our bikes and held on tight! Nobody fell in but I think we were all sure that this was the end for a few seconds.
Anyway we got back to Omaha safely, stayed an extra day to visit with some friends and then returned to San Jose.
RAGBRAI is a fabulous bike ride. You see all sorts of riders during the week, from excellent cyclists to those who just dusted off their garage clunker. We've done this ride several times. This was the second year that we took our tandem. I'm the captain and Bob is the stoker which means that he sits in back. I'm in charge of steering, shifting and braking. Usually the bigger, stronger person is in front but because of Bob's vision problem I'm now is front. I was much more relaxed this year and we had a lot more fun on the bike than we did last year.
Kris
