The Best of RAGBRAI '96
- tailwinds
- downhills
- friendly blond townspeople with northern accents ("We're just so
glad to have ya!")
- funny bikers (see "Teams" list)
- crowds of macarena dancers early in the week
- some karoake singers
- pie (homemade. warm, with ice cream)
- pork products (Big big big sausage and "Poooooooooooork Choooooooooooops!")
- Burma Shave-like signs hawking treats coming up
- warm showers
- sleeping in 50 degree weather snuggled in a sleeping bag
- biking with Kath
- eating with Kath
- great smooth road surfaces
- beautiful green rolling hills, blue skies full of puffy white clouds
and red farms
- the first sighting of the water tower
- $2.50 dinners
- perfect weather all week
- extended wear gas-permeable contact lenses
- cell phone
The Worst of RAGBRAI '96
(and the best were much better than the worst were bad)
-
- headwinds (one day)
- uphills (seemed to be fewer of them than downhills...is that possible?)
- crowds of macarena dancers later in the week
- some karoake singers
- rumbles (those concrete divets designed to wake up drivers before
major intersections. You could hear hundreds of "RUMBLES!!!!" calls just
before you hit them.)
- cold showers and long walks to get there
- KYBOs ('nuff said)
- gravel (a few miles of it over two days)
- bumpy road surfaces (not much of that either)
- a few bug bites (not very itchy)
- wet towels
- Mardi Gras beads and team stickers on road kill! (bad but funny)
- $1 bananas
- long lines everywhere, but you do get used to them and you meet a
lot of people
- running out of food
- bum knee
- pig farms (whew!!)
- towns without cell service
Teams on RAGBRAI '96
- Team Bad Boy - loaded to the gills, BBQ grill, full bar, stereo; the
only requirement is that it can be carried on two wheels; wooden
platforms are okay
- Team Dragbrai - aka Chicks with Dicks
- Team Skunk - about 90 of these black shirst with white stripes hit
Guttenberg en masse; rumor has it they don't shower all week
- Team Tails - cattails, raccoon hats, et.
- Team Wafer Thin - ala Monty Python's "The Meaning of Life"
("I can slice it wafer thin ...")
- The Air Force Team - Aim High (they flew)
- Team Dairy Aires - Wisconsinites ("Won't you smell my dairy air?")
- Team Iwanna - Dove Bar, Get Off This Bike, etc.
- Team ? - I don't know their name but they had toilet plungers on their
helmets
- The Cat in the Hat Team - not very aero dynamic
- Killer Bees - their initiation involves swarming
- Tall Dogs
- Team Meoff - Jack, Flip, Tell, Piss, etc.
- Team Bikini - lycra seat covers helped reduce chafing
- Tame Loner - An oxymoron and a GPS guy from Allen that I met on the
Collin Classic
- The Big F Club, of course - the "F" stands for "Fun"
- Team Marine - rumor has it the Air Force team showed them up this
year, but only because Team Marine had been the major military force
in years past
- T C Tours - Touring Cyclists
- Spoke Folk
- Team Boner - various types of bones on the helmets
- Team Cockroach
- Team S. N. I. F. F. - never caught what it stood for
- Team Chamois Fanois
RAGBRAI Slogans
(seen on t-shirts, overheard or just plain made up)
- If you're not having fun, lower your standards
- What goes on RAGBRAI stays on RAGBRAI
- Just because I rode with you today doesn't mean I'll sleep with you tonight.
- Just because I slept with you last night doesn't mean I'll ride with
you today.
- You're far too uptight (Cheryl, to a pin-stripe suited dude, just
before she F'd him with a club sticker)
- Spring Break for adults
- If you want something, ask for it. You just might get it.