That’s how we (Moo / Karla and Oink/Kristin) feel. We aren’t sure how it is already the middle of July… Despite our lack of blog posts, we are still planning to participate in RAGBRAI this year. That said, consistent with our lack of blog posts, we remain undertrained and unprepared for four hundred plus miles of peddling in Iowa.
On a positive note, we are really excited for an expanded Team CycLees this year! As you can see from the side bar of this website, we’ve found ten other crazy people who think the idea of riding through Iowa on a bike in late July sounds fun. (Well, at least they did before Summer 2010 actually arrived filled with waaay too much heat and humidity.)
On a negative note, we are missing our cousin Evan / Rabbit, and Moo’s husband Matt / Lonestar. We will certainly miss Rabbit’s sense of humor, his engineering capabilities (no clue how we’re going to get Oink’s horn on her bike this year) and, well, to be honest, his extreme height as it was good to draft off of him when it was windy. And we’ll miss Lonestar’s ability to find the most entertaining RAGBRAI food (heart-attack-in-a-bowl / beef sundae anyone?), and his leadership when we are in a double paceline formation.
In any case, while we haven’t done enough riding to prepare for RAGBRAI, we have done a LOT of talking and emailing about RAGBRAI. Team CycLee’s preparation has literally included a couple hundred emails and at least one hour-long conference call. Honest-to-goodness. And that doesn’t even include the actual IN PERSON conversations! We’re taking the non-riding part of our preparation very seriously… here are a few excerpts:
****
Moo: So, we didn’t do a lot of blogging this summer. How can we convince our faithful readers that we’ll survive RAGBRAI this year?
Oink: We have faithful readers?
Moo: Good point.
****
Oscar Meyer: Dear Team, I am sad to report that based on our training ride this past weekend, our fearless leaders appear to be totally undertrained for Ragbrai… Moo and Oink were unable to finish their piece of pie - a shared piece of pie!!!
Oink: In our defense, it was hot, it wasn’t rhubarb pie and there wasn’t any ice cream. But we might change our target for the week from Church Ladies with pie to Schwan’s trucks with drumsticks.
Moo: I am super excited about the prospect of chasing the Schwan’s man!!!
Oink: Moo, I referenced chasing the trucks, not the men.
Moo: Oh yeah.
****
UPS: Dear Team, Team Cyclee is a bit unorthodox, but it seems like adjustments I can live with. One question, a very important one... can we still use butt buttr' with tingling menthol while riding with Team Cyclee?
PUMMEL: Toothpaste (mint gel) and Noxema is permitted.
****
Geezer: Moo and Oink, can we breach the subject of "virgin" painted on calves?
Oink: Dad - NO WE CAN NOT WRITE VIRGIN ON PEOPLE'S CALVES. (I can't believe I'm having this conversation with my own father.)
****
Moo: Speaking of packing, I hear Firecracker is almost done packing.
Oink: I know. What an overachiever. How did she get on Team CycLee again? I bet she trained, too.
***
Oink: Phew! I would have forgotten – and THAT would have been a disaster!
****
Anyway, our bags are almost packed (complete with horn and pickle) and tomorrow we take off for Dubuque. We’ve purchased extra tent fans in an attempt to manage the heat and humidity, but we think keeping a sense of humor and a good amount of patience in our pocket will get us further than the extra fans. And hunting for Schwan’s men. I mean Schwan’s ice cream. (Where there are men there is ice cream. Or something like that.)
We are excited to have such a big group this year and, if the ride is anything like the conversations we’ve had so far, it should be pretty entertaining.
Four rows in (thanks OM),
Moo and Oink
No comments:
Post a Comment