Biking With My Son

RAGBRAI is an annual bicycle ride across my home state of Iowa. RAGBRAI is a seven day ride averaging 4-500 miles and each year it draws almost 15,000 riders.

I rode my first RAGBRAI in 1976 when I was young and riding thousands of miles a year. I rode RAGBRAI with my friends , we were all young and fast. Today I am a middle-aged out of shape father of eight. This year I decided to ride a day with my 11 year old son Jason.

It was one of the best days I have ever had on the bike.

Jason and I decided to Ride Thursday from Cedar Falls to Independence. The route was 62.9 miles and mostly flat. On the other hand the day was well into the 90's with high humidity. We started early and had a great ride. Jason quickly adopted to riding in a crowd and learned to get on and off the road safely while announcing his intentions to other riders.

I was on my newly triplized bike — a classic Bridgestone RB-1. My son was on his mountain bike. At about twenty miles, Jason was chomping at the bit and I sent him on ahead with some spending money to meet me in the next town. I took my time getting there. I stopped to take some pictures and buy a smoothie. By the time I got to the town, Jason was nowhere to be seen. We had agreed to meet at the entrance to the town.

Unfortunately, this was the town that everyone decided to party in. The place was packed, you had to get off and walk your bike because of the crowds. I walked through the town twice, looking for Jason and could not find him. We did not have a contingency plan so after about an hour and a half, I decided to move on.

I had stopped about three miles out of town to get some water and my cell phone rang. It was a message. Jason had borrowed a cell phone and had left me a message. I called back and the lady who answered said that she was no longer with Jason. She went out of her way to look for him. About twenty minutes later, she found him and sent him up the road to meet me.

Eventually he found me. By this time, it was getting late in the day and we rode to the next town to have lunch. I think the heat was getting to Jason because he wanted to quit. I talked him into continuing and we went down the road.

We only had about 13 miles left but 11 of those were into a headwind that seemed to be increasing. As we made the turn into the wind we started down the road known locally as Amish Boulevard. This part of Iowa has a large number of Amish farmsteads. As we rode we saw barefoot Amish kids all over and horses and buggies everywhere. By this time, Jason was dragging along so we stopped in an Amish farm and bought freezee pops. We must have spent an hour or more there in the shade. By the time we got on our bikes again, the winds had died down and the sun was behind some clouds.

As it got late, it was clear that the majority of riders had already passed by. But with the less wind and without the sun, we were re-energized and we took off down the road. As our destination neared, we rode faster and faster until we rolled into our destination.

Along the way, Jason was one of the younger riders. Some of the military riders gave him stickers, a pen and a set of dog tags. The ride was three weeks ago and he still wears the dog tags. He said it was the best day ever. The smile on his face in the photo says it all.

Next year, I would like to ride the entire ride with him.