Fueled by Porkchops and Beer

Thus far, after completing 3 days of riding across the state of Iowa, I have come to the conclusion that people on the Tour de France are doing things completely wrong. Those clowns ride like crazy while drinking water and gatorade and munching on power bars and energy goo. I have also learned, to my horror, that once they start in the morning, Tour riders do not stop until the end of the day. That's dumb.

Here in Iowa, we start early. After about 5 miles, we then stop for coffee. After another 7 miles, you stop for a breakfast burrito and a banana. Then you high five some kids in a small town, before you go visit Mr. Porkchop. Mr. Porkchop is an old guy who serves porkchops and yells "AAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!" at passing bikers. He serves no side dishes. Your meal consists of a giant porkchop. By about 2 or 3 pm, the budwesier beer tent usually comes into sight. Finally, i like to roll into town about 3 or 4 and then sit around and talk with my team about how awesome we are.

We recently have landed at Ames, Iowa, which is by far the biggest town we've seen so far. I imagine that, against all better judgement, we will go big tonight to mentally prepare ourselves for a repeat performance tomorrow.

RAGBRAI Preseason

Wow wow wow. I am currently on a weeklong bike ride across the state of Iowa entitled the RAGBRAI, which has over 10,000 riders. Our team is known as Team Harold, and we have a bus. The bus ride from the Lou to Iowa was enough to warrant an entry in itself.

The first five minutes of the bus ride were quite dull, so it was suggested that we have a cold beverage. Fortunately, George , (my father-in-law andan Anheiser Busch employee), made sure there was a keg on the bus. As you would expect, most of us calmly sipped our drinks and discussed capital gains taxes and religion. One individual however, was not so calm. Let's call this individual "Joseph" to protect his identity. "Joseph" is 68 years old, a complete unknown to the team as of a week ago, and apparently completely crazy. All of us are highly seasoned in the ways of Budwesier consumption, however, Joseph was lapping everyone.

At this point, Joseph looked around and decided that he needed to armwrestle someone. He chose Brader. Brader was by far the biggest guy on the bus, half of Joseph's age, and looks like a pro wrestler. You may find this hard to believe, but Brader won. He also nearly ripped Joseph's arm off. fortunately Joseph never felt it, since he was speaking jibber-jabber and had to be restrained for the rest of the bus ride. He kept asking for revenge on the big guy and wanting to know where he was, even though he was two feet away.

Eventually, we arrived at Iowa and Joseph was had lost control of all emotions, including his bladder. Hardy, his sponser from Team Harold, then had to turn around and drive the guy all the way back to Missouri. Bizzarre.

Currently, I'm just hoping i don't do anything so horrible that i get voted off the island and sent back home.

I Like to Ride my Bicycle

This was actually written back in March, but I’ve been delayed in posting it.
Now this is not as exciting as my newest music video, but it needs sharing nonetheless.

I’m coming to the US this summer. And during that time I will take part in the RAGBRAI with team Harold. This is a bike ride across the state of Iowa. Team Harold involves Jen’s dad George, a bus with a party deck on top, and much more than I have time to explain.

I have now been on my first two bike training rides. In Manila. The first ride was the most dangerous thing I have done since that invisible orangutan attacked me on the way down Mt. Cotopaxi in Ecuador a few years back*. There is a strict caste system for the roads here. SUV’s are on top. Cars are below, followed by motorbikes. Bicycles are well below that, only slightly above small animals crossing the road. I only traveled from the bike shop to my home, which was about a half mile. Unfortunately this was during rush hour on a weekday. Wow. Apparently I like to jump in the deep end.

The second ride was a better idea. I left at 7 am on Sunday morning, when traffic is at an all time low, and pollution is at only 450% what it is in LA. My biggest concern was this strange thing known as “foot clips.” For you ignorant non-bikers out there (obviously unlike myself), these connect your shoes to the pedals of the bike, thus maximizing your power and your potential for disaster. I made it out to the Mall of Asia with no problem. Here you can bike around a 3 km loop with about 300 other people until the temperature reaches that of magma.

On my way home I was quite proud of myself and was showing of to the people ahead of me in the jeepney (like a bus). Suddenly the jeepney stopped to let a passenger out. With my cat-like reflexes I stopped, only to realize I am still connected to a bicycle. Gravity did not stop, and I immediately fell into the guy who got off the jeepney. I’m sure his blog reads something like, “I was having a great day until this crazy-ass white guy on a bike fell into me.”

I then made sure I always at least had my right foot out of the clip, which did me absolutely no good when I toppled over to the left and saved myself only by grabbing onto the hood of a stopped jeepney. I used my extensive knowledge of Tagalog to ascertain that the driver said, “Hey you crack-smoking whitey! Get the hell off my jeepney!”

I’m still riding though. Granted much of it is indoor on the stationary bike. I’ll keep you all posted.

* I suffered from altitude sickness whilst climbing (successfully I guess) this 18,000 ft volcano in Ecuador in 2005, and am probably lucky to be alive. This happened before the existence of this blog. I have recently recovered my chronicles of the entire Ecuadorian adventure, and despite the sound advice of my publisher, am considering sharing those with the world.