“Iowa Nice” is a real thing!
John experienced this kindness first-hand riding his Pocket Rocket for the 2024 RAGBRAI, the largest bike-touring event in the world. Beyond the actual event, John took the opportunity to visit his grandparent’s former family home in Omaha, Nebraska, and connect with the incredible communities that welcome thousands of riders each year. Read more about John’s experience, his favorite moments and view photos from the 450-mile journey below.
– “One of the things I love about my Bike Friday is that the bike makes everything – the riding and the experiences I get to have on the bike – much more accessible, with very little compromise and with a lot more fun. Plus, I like riding a unique bike that people ask questions about! I was quite amazed at the 5 or so riders I saw during this year’s RAGBRAI on “other” folding bikes – which do fold, but with what would seem a very compromised ride – not so great when you need to cover about 450 miles in a week. You see all kinds of bikes (new, vintage, racing, recumbent, trike, mountain, gravel, hybrid, e-bike, single, tandem or triple, folding and not), and all kinds of riders during RAGBRAI.
A RAGBRAI highlight was stopping at a roadside food stop set up for cyclists at an Amish farm, and with my friend Ofer, taking opportunity to talk to 4 or 5 Amish girls, all teenagers, except for the most talkative one, a 21 year old. We learned they had no cell phones, computers, or any technology, just a landline phone that would not be in the house, but perhaps in the father’s adjacent shop, to facilitate business. If she hadn’t been there providing support to passing cyclists that day, our talkative 21 year old friend said she might be working in the garden, or perhaps in her father’s shop, where they produced timber tech (plastic-wood composite) outdoor furniture. She was newly married, meeting her 20 year old husband at a cousin’s wedding (a typical place to meet a spouse). Ofer and I both appreciated the chance to speak with them and learn about their lives.
At another farm side food stop, we sat down in folding camp chairs and discovered we’d sat in with the owners of the property – the grandma and grandpa, head of household, and a couple of the adult children and cousins, who then pointed out their kids, running the snack table concession (where they were keeping and updating a US map for riders to mark where they were from). I asked my go-to question – What would they be doing that day if they weren’t hosting all the riders.? The patriarch worked as a driver for the local farm chemical outfit; he explained that normally he’d be delivering seed, fertilizer, chemicals and whatever else farmers needed to exactly where they needed it, but that with all the riders, his company was shut down for the day. The matriarch worked at a school and was off for the summer, now helping a brother pack up his house after the passing of his wife. I felt so fortunate to have the opportunity to be invited into other people’s lives in the way that I was, and glad that I snatched the opportunity and didn’t let it pass by.
Another personal highlight was getting to visit Omaha, where both my maternal grandparents grew up. A couple weeks before leaving, I’d sent a letter to the people who live in my grandma’s childhood home; I had just a family name and address for them, but reached out, explaining my connection to the house and that I was coming to the area for the ride. We arrived at the house and visited for 20 minutes on the front porch with Adrian and Maggie (Maggie had still warm fresh baked chocolate cookies for us!), an 80 year old couple who have lived in the house for 40 years, raising their son there. My great grandfather built the house himself, and others in the neighborhood. Maggie had shared my letter with a neighbor who wrote to me; she grew up there, the 9th of 10 kids, returning to the home a few years back to care for her mother. She said some of her older siblings remembered my great grandfather (though he passed in 1969!), that he was kind to neighborhood kids, sharing fruit from the trees he grew in his yard.
I mentioned some of the characters I saw. Another was an older rider, riding with a foot long pink plastic pig bungee-d atop his rear rack – I learned he was from Atlanta, Georgia (not a surprise given his accent!), 77 years old, and on his 36th RAGBRAI. I kept seeing him ahead of me; he must be doing a few things right! One day I spent 20 minutes riding and chatting with a woman from Iowa, a flock of blue ribbons from the Iowa State Fair fluttering from the rack above her rear wheel. Turns out she is a champion pie baker, passionate enough to bake 18 pies for last year’s fair!
Of course a lot of the fun was getting out to experience and see stuff that may be common in Iowa and at RAGBRAI, but interesting to me as they are not things I experience in my home city of San Francisco – the water towers with town names emblazoned upon them, old town squares anchored by county courthouses, row after row of cornfields; the smoked pork chops, homemade pies, homemade ice cream churned by John Deere tractor motors; the Gothic House made famous by a painting, a house that was part of the Underground Railroad; the welcoming Iowans, out on their front porches waving as we pass, offering water, ice pops, or even free beer; the Griswold, Iowa firefighters with whom I spoke, standing in front of a freshly cleared site along the town square and proudly showing off the poster board mounted plans for the new firehouse, after the town successfully raised the needed $500K…
I guess I could go and drive by all this stuff, or ride a regular bike to see and experience these things, but my Bike Friday makes it all the more accessible and that much more fun.”
“The world awaits, but it won’t come to you – you have to go pursue it with your Bike Friday!”
– John T.
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