1-day bike trek across Iowa is less crazy than it sounds

Sat June 19 2010
Posted Jun 20, 2010
3,147

By Kyle Munson kmunson@dmreg.com When I first heard about Team I-24's bicycle sprint across Iowa this weekend — essentially RAGBRAI in a single day rather than seven — I admit I was a bit exasperated. I assumed it was another symptom of how we tend to fast-forward everything these days — our lives as content on demand to be skimmed rather than savored. You mean we can't even enjoy a pie-laden, weeklong bicycle tour anymore without abridging it into a breakneck race? But then I met some of the I-24 bicyclists and their crew and decided that they've got the right idea. I'm just envious of their prowess to be able to pedal across Iowa, from the northwest corner of the state to the Mississippi River access in Harpers Ferry, in a mere 24 hours. (Hence the "I-24" name.) So they're not following this year's winding RAGBRAI route from Sioux City to Dubuque. Yet it's a northern route, a straight shot along Iowa Highway 9 (or county roads that run parallel to it). The 11 riders range in age from 26 to 62. Ten men and one woman. All Iowans save for one rider from Chicago and a breast cancer survivor from Denver. It will mark the most ambitious two-wheel trek for each of them. Many of the riders gathered Thursday night at Sean Arndt and Carla Pope's West Des Moines house to prepare. The couple — empty nesters with four boys all graduated and gone — moved to this town home last summer in large part because it was close to bike trails. Arndt, 43, is a rider and one of the primary I-24 instigators, while Pope is among the support staff of eight that will roll along with the bikes in four vehicles. "That's looking clean, Bob," Dave Foster, Arndt's chief co-conspirator, told Bob Irving as the latter rolled his gleaming bike into the trailer carrying the team's gear. "Has anybody found a pedal wrench?" Tim Lane, the elder statesman at 62, asked the group. The I-24 path: Start at 4 a.m. Saturday on Iowa 9, near the Iowa-South Dakota border northwest of Larchwood. Roll into Harpers Ferry about 22 hours later. Total distance: 304 or so miles. There's a strict 10-minute break every 38 miles. Think of a NASCAR pit stop: The support crew sets up the coolers of food and drink in advance of each break. Riders grab individual baggies filled with nutrition bars, peanut butter bagels, ibuprofen, whatever keeps them going. Water and Gatorade are refilled. There's first aid for blisters. Bike mechanics along the route were put on call. Insurance documents were gathered, and a doctor friend from Florida is among the support staff. The team drove the route to inspect it. Arndt biked half the route three weeks ago. I-24's preparation has been extensive and detailed, including five major warm-ups around central Iowa: two 100-mile joyrides, two 150-mile forays and one 200-mile monster on May 8 in which the first 83 miles blasted the team with vicious headwinds. The I-24 scheme was hatched at the start of the year at a bar, El Bait Shop in downtown Des Moines. That made sense, since a pitcher or two of beer would be necessary to get me to sign up. But that didn't answer the obvious question, "Why?" "I posed that to you the other day," Foster said, pointing to Arndt, who already has logged 6,000 bike miles this year. Lane had a quick response: "Because I failed miserably twice." Lane has ridden 34 of the 37 RAGBRAIs. But he had to abandon his own 24-hour trans-Iowa attempts - seven years ago because of extreme heat and mechanical failure, and again three years ago in the middle of a tornado warning. This week he woke up at 3 a.m. daily to condition himself for Saturday's early start. The specific inspiration for I-24 was a viewing of the documentary "Bicycle Dreams" about Bob Breedlove, a Des Moines physician killed in 2005 during the Race Across America. "Let's do something huge," was Arndt's reaction, and the meetings at El Bait Shop began in earnest. Another inspiration was Mike Trevino, an elite marathon runner and mountaineer as well as bicyclist who grew up in Fort Dodge and now lives in San Diego. In 2005 he zoomed across Iowa via 273 miles of Iowa Highway 92 in just 10 hours and 37 minutes. "He's a Superman," Arndt said. "We're a bunch of middle-aged folks." Trevino also came in second in 2004's Race Across America — a 3,000-mile odyssey of sleep deprivation. The mental challenge is the bigger hurdle for marathon bicyclists assuming they have trained, Trevino said. After a while you "saturate all the receptors for pain," but the mind can keep playing tricks. "You literally start hallucinating," Trevino said. Examples: Mailboxes along the roadside become people. Bushes and shrubs appear to be animals. Ernie Fisher, a retired science teacher who runs Precision Cyclery in West Des Moines, said he set a record for trans-Iowa bicycle rides about 25 years ago when he crossed from Westfield to Dubuque, 329 miles, in just 16 hours. He's been giving I-24 some pointers. "Iowa has the history of RAGBRAI, riding from one river to the other," Fisher said. "Just like any sport, you want to say, 'I've been there and done that.' " By the time you read this, I-24 very well may have been there and done that. Shortly before noon Saturday, the bicyclists were 114 miles into their ride and enjoying a quick break at the Danish Days festival in downtown Ringsted. (Sounds a lot like RAGBRAI, come to think of it.) They started the morning 40 minutes late but by this point had pedaled their way a half-hour ahead of schedule. "The wind is very strong and at our backs," said Carrie Crawford of the support staff. "It just couldn't be any better." By about 4 p.m. Saturday the team had reached Manly, east of Interstate Highway 35. "We are ahead of schedule still, but the heat of the day is starting to test the riders a little bit," Crawford reported. By the end of today some of the riders may have done even more after their Iowa crossing. "I already asked Dave if he wanted to bike Sunday afternoon," Arndt said. Count me out. My Father's Day weekend might include treks between my living room and kitchen. But not from the Missouri to the Mississippi. Kyle Munson can be reached at (515) 284-8124 or kmunson@dmreg.com. Connect with him on Facebook (Kyle Munson's Iowa), Twitter (@KyleMunson) and his blog (DesMoinesRegister.com/KyleMunson).