484 Miles, Lots of Pie, Sunscreen, Pork and Fun...

Team CycLees successfully made it through RAGBRAI 2009. Observations, comments and lessons learned...

• Iowa is not flat. (Okay we knew this but it was reaffirmed over and over and over... and over... and over... again this year.)
• Rhubarb pie is still the best. (We conducted extensive testing.)
• We need cushier bike seats.
• Moo and Oink will never be fast moving in the morning, especially at taking down tents. Despite our best efforts, the remaining CycLees waited for us most every day... or just left us behind. :) And our bags will always be on the "Late" truck.
• Showering with your cycling clothes on using a garden hose works just fine.
• Little Farms Organic Ragbrai Blend Coffee rocks!
• The amount of talking Moo does in the morning is inversely related to the amount of sleep she gets the night before... therefore more snoring and more rain = one chatty Moo! :)
• Watermelon is a tasty cycling treat on a warm day.
• We are sad we missed the pork burgers... We were in Iowa for a whole week and had BBQ pork, roasted pulled pork, pork loin, pork tenderloins, sausage, bacon, ham... but no pork burgers this year. Apparently we weren't searching in the right places...
• Geezer knows what he's talking about... those Smoothie Guys whip up a tasty treat.
• Boulevard Beer is good.
• Shortcake and Yellow Rose are the best ever... They provided us with water, gatorade, cold cloths on a hot day, Icy Hot, Aleve, and the Pie/Cake/Coors Light combo!
• Lonestar needs to start out with SPF 85. While we progressed from SPF 30 to SPF 55 to SPF 85 by Friday, we should have just started with the big dogs.
• Lonestar and Dillo need pace line tutoring... next year we'll bring out diagrams and maybe white boards.
  
• Oink needs a new Pig horn for her bike by next year. Her little Piggy weakened on Day 2 (all those hills!) and all it accomplished by the end of the week was lots of laughter everytime she tried to "Oink". (And, shockingly, no bike shops on the route were selling replacement pigs...)
• Rabbit is still the Rabbit. Oink gave him a run for his money this year in the end he will remain a Rabbit and she remains a Pig.
• We can't wait til 2010!