The Baccoon Ride on the Raccoon River Trail

Captions: From left, Maria Houser Conzemius; Jim Conzemius; the High Trestle Trail, the Baccoon metal glass, a rumpled Baccoon Ride T-shirt from the dirty laundry (so you can see it before I wash it).

We registered for the Baccoon Ride on the Raccoon River Trail several weeks in advance. For us, it was only $50 apiece. A friend told me that registration prices were jacked up to $70 apiece later about a week before registration was closed, which really shocked me. She decided not to go because by the time she and some friends thought about registering, registration was too expensive for her taste.

Since we registered way in advance and picked up our stuff the night before the ride, we were lucky enough to get a T-shirt apiece with a white background with a rowdy pig in a bicycle helmet on the front and two metal glasses with the RAGBRAI logo and the Baccoon Ride or Raccoon River Trail insignia (nothing like the old-fashioned cups with handles that I thought they’d be) and a chance to ride the ride with a few freebies on the way, mostly in the way of food, and a chance to contribute (by means of our registration fee) to the Dream Team and the Iowa Bicycle Coalition.

The Dream Team is a good cause. Originally and possibly still out of Quakerdale, a residential treatment facility for teens, the Dream Team is composed of about 20 of those kids who ride on RAGBRAI and have the time of their lives. As a social worker, I once had a young woman client who told me that her week on the Dream Team during RAGBRAI was “the happiest week of my life.”

The Iowa Bicycle Coalition has been disappointing so far. I’m not aware of any legislation to protect bicyclists that has come out of the group, but maybe some day . . . .

Of the people we know we saw T.J. Juskiewitz, the RAGBRAI organizer, and Janelle Rettig, Johnson County Supervisor, and Robin Butler, Janelle’s spouse, who works for the City of Iowa City. We saw them the night before the ride when we were collecting our free stuff.

Apparently, only the first 3,000 riders got stuff at registration. Don’t be too sad if you didn’t get anything. The stuff we got was nothing to write home about. I have a size medium cotton T-shirt with yet another boisterous pig in a bike helmet (that theme is getting old) you can have mine for free if you want it. Just email me at mconzemius@gmail.com. First come, first serve.

The small $4.00 cheese brat at Jamaica, where Tommy Jo’s Tojo’s Restaurant and Bar is, seemed like a bit of a rip until I put mustard on it and ate it. It was the best brat of any kind I’d ever eaten. It was skinless, cheese filled, crispy, crusty, tasty, and grilled to perfection. Bagley’s (sp.?) Meat Locker produces them locally in or near Jamaica. I wish we could get them here. I was told that the Waterfront Hy-Vee in Iowa City has them.

I scurried over there Monday morning to look for them under the Carroll or Holstein Brand, but though employee Ray M. looked high and low for them, even back in the freezer where customers can’t go, he couldn’t find any. He took my name and phone number and said he’d keep looking and get back to me.

(Update: Ray M. called me back Thursday, July 25th, and said he found Brewer’s Family skinless brats buried in the freezer, packaged by Arcadia, and they come in the following varieties: jalapeno, hot cheese, cheddar cheese, and beer cheese (?). They’ve been put out for customers to buy.)

After I praised the Bagley’s Meat Locker brat, produced locally near Jamaica, to the Jamaica grillers, they gave me a free one to thank me for recommending them to fellow bicyclists. I tried to give my free brat away because I was full after eating the first brat plus a free, homemade molasses cookie with ice cream inside and bacon pressed into the top of the cookie. It was surprisingly good. No takers, though, so Jim and I asked the nice grillers to cut the brat it in half. Then I put mustard on each piece, and we each ate half. Yum! We did have room for it after all.

The Cazador back in Ankeny on NE Delaware Avenue is the best Mexican restaurant anywhere in Iowa, in my opinion, so we ate there two nights in a row. I ordered steak fajitas, and with the leftovers, I’ll be eating fajitas for lunches and dinners for days to come. (Jim, my husband, won’t eat anything with grilled onions and red peppers, so he won’t share them with me.) That’s okay. More for me!

The Stiff Ride is coming up. The Rash Ride as well as the Baccoon Ride are behind us. The Stiff Ride will give us some good hill work as we train for RAGBRAI. The ride is going through Sutliff, and you know what means. Big hills!

Our favorite weekend getaways are bike rides out on the High Trestle Trail beginning in Ankeny and out on the Raccoon River Trail out of Perry, which has the Hotel Pattee. The trails are beautiful, the locals are friendly, and unlike locals on other bike trails we’ve been on, they get it that we bicyclists bring money and commerce to their area. Restaurants, bars, motels, and bed-and-breakfasts on the trail are thriving. That’s the kind of environmental and eco-hospitality and bicycle friendliness that Johnson, Washington, and Linn Counties could learn from. The Nite-Hawk in Slater on the High Trestle Trail is the best example of good food, good drinks, good service, and friendliness from locals and the proprieters. The bathrooms are first class, maybe because the Nite-Hawk used to be a city building?

The Flat Tire in Madrid and other businesses on the High Trestle Trail sprang up overnight and did well immediately. The Flat Tire, for example, was erected as a metal pole building in June, and in July a bunch of us went due south off route from RAGBRAI to check it out. Soon hundreds or thousands of riders were cavorting at the Flat Tire Lounge, both inside and out, and the bar must have made a lot of money in drinks. The Iowa State Troopers were soon upon us, of course. They always find out where the off-route RAGBRAI parties are. (The troopers’ visit was memorialized by a bicycle hanging from the bar’s ceiling with a yellow helmet hanging from the bicycle with an Iowa State Trooper decal stuck to it.)

The Flat Tire is close to the High Trestle Bridge, which is 13 stories above the Des Moines River, so it’s a picturesque location and heavily frequented, although I like the Nite-Hawk better for food, drinks, service, and comfort. Food is catered outdoors irregularly outside at the Flat Tire Lounge. It’s more of a bar. There was no food available when we were there.