Today we hit a few new milestones in our RAGBRAI training regimen. We went on our longest ride of the season, 28 miles over the whole day, and we made it out of the Ames city limits all the way to Nevada and back. Of course, we spread our riding out over the entire day, and practiced another important facet of RAGBRAI: eating.
After a short ride to Perkins just after noon, we had a late brunch to prepare for the rest of the day. From there we put in 9 miles to one of the notable Nevada landmarks, Dairy Queen, where we fueled up on some more protein (i.e. ice cream), then made the return trip to Ames and stopped at Jimmy Johns for some tasty sandwiches.
Oh, and did I mention that we now understand the significance of tailwinds and headwinds while traveling via bicycle? Well, we do. The ride to Nevada seemed quite quick and easy, thanks to the synergy of our east-bound direction and the Westerly winds at our backs. "No problem!" we thought, "this rural highway bike-riding is a cinch." With our return trip, however, our direction of travel collided head-on with those same winds, and our thoughts turned to words that are not fit to print here.
We now fully understand why RAGBRAI always travels west-to-east across the state. According to the RAGBRAI website, the prevailing winds during Iowa summers are usually coming out of the West.
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