Day 40, 12 September: Montezuma to Iowa City, IA
Today’s ride from Montezuma to Iowa City, 58 miles, started with a cold, wet, dark wake up at 5am in a tent overlooking Diamond Lake, near the town of Montezuma. Now I don’t mind camping at all. It’s the getting up in the dark, walking 100 yds or so to the restroom/showers, in wet grass. Then getting into your cycling kit, prepping your bike, and packing up all your camping and personal gear to be loaded onto Mark’s truck – still in the dark, and wet.
Mark had coffee, and all the usual morning fare ready for us; including donuts, and fried egg sandwiches… still in the dark, and wet, but much appreciated.
The ride itself got off to an inauspicious start when one of us – not mentioning names but he is from the same Company as me – went left instead of right, and then went past the next intended turn. All still in the dark, by the way. It only added a couple miles to the route and some of us are not convinced “he” did not do it on purpose. Apparently “this individual” is in a competition within his Bicycle Club back home to see can accumulate the most miles – and this “person” informed us a couple days ago that he had fallen to 2nd place. We will see if these errant course changes continue before drawing conclusions.
The ride was uneventful – which is a good thing – just more rolling hills… continually up, then down, up then down, repeat. More small towns, interspersed between miles and miles of corn fields. Fortunately, the rain that had been threatening all day held off until we were settled in the hotel.
Today did have milestones, it’s official we went over 2,000 miles to date, and over 70,000 ft of climbing. Tomorrow we leave the state of IOWA, cross the MISSISSIPPI RIVER, and enter the state of ILLINOIS. WOOHOO!
Ron Bowman
USNA 1973 Ride-2-Remember 
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