RAGBRAI day 0, arrival at Sergeant Bluff & The Expo!

At 07:00, nine of us (and our gear and bikes), and the driver, packed into the GOATS van for the 5 hour drive to Sergeant Bluff. All along the way we were passed by trucks, cars and vans with bicycles in carriers. It looks like all of Iowa and most of the surrounding states are mobilizing for RAGBRAI. While our driving route to Sergeant Bluff is south of where we will be riding, it clearly indicates that this will be an epic rolling 7 day RASCAL (Riding around Soybeans, Corn and Lakes) ride. We just stopped for gas and I ate 2 huge snickerdoodle cookies and two huge peanut butter cookies. I’m starting to get excited…. For a variety of reasons I didn’t train nearly as much as I would have liked to for this hot, long, hilly ride. But, as brother Ken said “it should be a piece of cake, it’s only one state”. And anyone could do this if they trained enough and had a proper diet, etc. but it takes a real athlete to perform under these adverse conditions. There are 12,000+ people camping out all over Sergeant Bluff- population 4,900 . It took us a while to find our camp area to set up our tents (the +/- 12 Galena Goats camp with the +/- 100 Siouxland Cyclist’s). We have an organizational meeting with Siouxland in one hour then head to the Expo where various food, beverage and equipment vendors will be set up. We had a spaghetti dinner at a middle school that was a fundraiser for the dance team.