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Temperatures were starting to increase by this day of the ride. The early morning hours weren’t nearly as cool as the previous two mornings.
Jeff had plans to continue on beyond Iowa Falls at the end of this day because he wanted to stay overnight with our Auntie Veronica, who lives in Eldora, IA. Because of this, he planned to ride alone, ahead of the rest of us. When he got to Iowa Falls he was going to get his bag, that included the tent, set up the tent close to the truck, and then continue riding to Eldora.
This day contained the “century loop”. One day of each RAGBRAI contains an extra loop that riders can ride and achieve a 100 mile day. The normal mileage for the day was to be 71 miles, but if you rode this extra 29 miles loop you’d achieve 100 miles. Jeff, Brian, Ryan and I decided to do the century loop, but Josh’s knee was a little sore so he decided to do just the normal 71 miles.
We passed through one neat little town on this day. They had set up a bike parking area righ down the middle of the main street. I tried to get a couple pictures of it.
Iowa Falls had erected an arch over the road as we entered the town, similar to what Lake View had done a couple days earlier.
When I got to Iowa Falls I immediately found the baggage truck, and then spotted the tent that Jeff had already set up. I also found Josh sitting there waiting. After a couple hours Brian rolled in. He had been riding with Ryan most of the day, but had lost Ryan during the last couple miles into Iowa Falls. Brian and Josh began riding around town looking for Ryan. While they were doing that, I happened to walk about 50 feet down from our campsite and noticed Ryan laying on the ground. Apparently, he had been so fed up with riding for the day that when he arrived at that point he didn’t even look for the tents. He just laid down and figured we would find him.
We camped at the local high school once again. Showers were right at the high school, but outside, once again some sort of temporary set-up.
As we walked from the campgound to the shuttle bus stop I noticed an interesting team bus. They called themselves “Team Blonde”. I don’t think I saw any of the riders from this team on the road, well maybe one or two.
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