RAGBRAI Fever

Over the weekend, the Register's Annual Great Brike Ride Across Iowa (RAGBRAI) began in Glenwood, just south of Council Bluffs/Omaha (NE).  Next Saturday it will pull into Davenport after seven days of riding the highways and biways of rural Iowa.

Followers of this blog (both of you), know that I started this as a way to document my RAGBRAI experience in 2010.  You know that I rode all week and had a blast.  It was demanding and challenging and fun.

So, today is day two of the ride, from Atlantic to Carroll.  (You can see the route maps here.)

And I'm sitting in my office.

Ugh.

I wish I were there.  I wish I were riding my bike, eating homemade treats baked by people raising moeny for a new roof for their local church or a new jungle-gym for the community park.  I wish I were drinking beer to rehydrate after a 65 mile ride, swapping stories with teammates, and sleeping in a tent. 

I have RAGBRAI fever.

And following some folks on Twitter who are riding is allowing me to vicariously ride along with them.  And it is fueling the fever.  It's like an itch I can't scratch.

At least not today. But soon. Very soon.

Thursday afternoon I'll be driving to central Iowa to meet up with Team LIVESTRONG in Grinnell.  I'll camp overnight with them and will be riding days 6 (75 mi Grinnell to Coralville/Iowa City) and 7 (65 mi Coralville to Davenport).

As part of Team LIVESTRONG, I committed to raising funds for LIVESTRONG.  If you are interested in donating to support the cause, you can contribute on my donation webpage.  I am 83% of the way to my goal for this year.  And thanks to all who have contributed this year and/or last.

Side note: Saturday will be crazy in Davenport.  In addition to 20,000 (or so) cyclists rolling into town, Davenport will be hosting it's annual Bix Fest. Bix Beiderbecke was a Davenport native jazz musician.  With the Bix Fest is the Bix7 road race for runnners.  There will be about 10,000 runners in town as well.  Plus all the people there for the jazz festival.  Should be a crazy weekend in the Quad Cities!