Embarking as a first-time RAGBRAI rider chronicling the week from the bike seat, I pledged to myself not to complain about the old tropes of heat, hills and headwind.

But let me grouse enough to say that I think I have the knees of a 70-year-old - not one of the 70-year-olds on the Register's Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa who blew past me on the hills, mind you.

"Just wait until you find out what kind of (posterior) you have," one man remarked along the highway.

OK, I pledge not to complain about my hiney, either.

I could hardly hop out of my father's minivan with the "SAURKRT" license plates shortly after 6 a.m. in Glenwood before Laurel Darren came running up. She's a fellow journalist who's chronicling the ride for the Rock Island Argus and the Dispatch in the Quad Cities. She's also the official massage therapist for the Air Force Cycling Team.

I didn't get a massage, but Darren did insist on inking a large, black "V" on my right calf to indicate my virgin RAGBRAI riding status.

Then I proved I was a RAGBRAI virgin by nearly pedaling off with my bike helmet still in my dad's minivan.

I didn't stop pedaling until the third hill, where Diane Malcolm was sitting in a John Deere Gator with her husband, Dale, and their fuzzy miniature American Eskimo pooch, Izzy. Malcolm spurred riders on with a clanging cowbell and encouraging words.

The sounds of RAGBRAI intrigued me: The clickety-clack of gears at the bottom and top of hills. The whoosh of wind downhill. The warning shouts of "Car up!" for oncoming motor traffic. The cacophony of bad classic rock from bike stereos. More clickety-clack from bicyclists' shoes walking through the streets of Silver City, the first pass-through town. Eruptions of laughter as Pancake Man lobbed his hotcakes all the way over his food tent to see if the next customer could catch them on a plate.

I stopped counting hills - not complaining, mind you - at about the fifth one. Coincidentally, that's also where the first $5 bloody marys were served on a farmstead. (I didn't partake, although maybe that would've helped my knees for a few miles.)



The first day of RAGBRAI also was a road tour through my childhood stomping grounds, including my childhood Methodist church in Silver City where my parents still play piano and organ, and numerous high school classmates in the Carson area. I succumbed to my first piece of RAGBRAI pie along Pottawattamie County Road M16, at Todd Richardson's farm where pork chops, a pie stand, spray mist and free cans of Busch Light drew a giant crowd.

Besides old friends, throughout the day I met new faces who made my sore knees seem like a puny complaint.

Matt Donovan of Ankeny, who works as an engineer in West Des Moines, is in-line skating the RAGBRAI route.

"I just have a bad back - can't ride a bike," he said, downplaying his bravado.

Turns out Donovan, 37, was a pole vaulter in high school in St. Louis - topped out at 13 feet, 6 inches - and probably landed on his neck wrong one too many times. So he has four crushed vertebrae and at least a half-dozen herniated discs as a result.

Deb Rozeboom of Sauk Rapids, Minn., was standing nearby and may have topped that story by explaining how she took a bad spill last year on the fourth day of RAGBRAI. She got caught in a cluster of sudden stops near a food stand east of Rockford, hit the bike in front of her and took a spill. She broke her left arm and suffered through treatment for weeks until corrective surgery in October.

The 32-year-old has a 6-inch plate and six screws in her left arm and showed off her scar.

But she was determined to return this year for her second RAGBRAI.



Then there's Blake Anderson, who manages the Brown Bottle restaurant in Iowa City and is skateboarding rather than biking his fifth RAGBRAI. He's also raising money for well-digging in Africa (through whoisblake.com).

"This is definitely the longest and hilliest day that I've been on a skateboard," he said, also lugging his tent in a backpack. I provided moral support by walking alongside him up one hill on Iowa Highway 92.

When I pulled into Carson, the midpoint town, some cover band was blaring its rendition of Guns N' Roses' "Sweet Child O' Mine" - the same song that used to blare from car windows as I scooped the loop here in high school.

I'm not sure that pedaling all the way across the state in the depths of summer is much more mature a pastime than loop-scooping. But then I do see RAGBRAI is a testament to how columnists' kooky ideas can have staying power and inspire serious change.

That's why I'm going to push my feeble knees over the hills and through the pie stands for the rest of the week.

That, plus Matt Donovan, Deb Rozeboom, and Blake Anderson would make me look like a serious wimp if I quit.