Hacky Sells Patches and Poster on Stiff Ride

Captions: From left to right: 1. Hacky, a.k.a. Dave Wedemeyer of Team Stiff, who covers himself with Team Stiff patches until he sells them all, often after participants get loaded and want a sentimental reminder of the ride. I buy mine when I’m sober. And I stay sober. Hacky has ridden a century in each of 35 states. In August, he’ll be riding a century in Idaho. His camouflage kilt is cut like a Roman legionnaire’s. 2. MelonHeads Norm Kasten with old pal Deb Sayres, remembering good times and catching up on each other’s news. (My husband Jim took the photo of Norm and Deb.) 3. The Subtle Savages’ bus and beer stop, which my husband stopped at and I passed on. (Jim also took this photo.) 4. Chris Welzien, a happy face at Odie’s Bar in Ely, Iowa.

My husband Jim didn’t have too much trouble taking a crowbar to my fingers as I hung on to the doorjamb as we left with our bicycles for the Stiff Ride. I knew that huge hills and equally beautiful scenery awaited me, but it was the huge hills that daunted me and kept me immobilized in front of my newspapers and multiple cups of coffee as long as possible.

Jim, patient as always, gave me a deadline, waited me out, served me a nice breakfast sandwich of a wheat English muffin, an egg, two strips of bacon, a cheese slice, and then gradually let me know it was time to be out the door.

Jim, of course, had been up for hours, awakened by little Chloe, our year-old grey-and-white tabby, who knows that breakfast time is between 4:00 and 5:00 a.m., whether Jim has to work that day or not. After she eats, Jim grooms her with a comb-like brush. She used to hate being groomed, but now she loves it. After a top grooming, she rolls on the floor on her back and lets him groom her little tummy. When he’s done, she thanks him by grabbing him by the leg and giving him a little love bite.

Once at Sutliff, we decided to ride the Stiff route backwards from Sutliff to the Shack in Cedar Rapids or to Odie’s in Ely, depending on how long it took the rest of the MelonHeads to get to the Shack and then depart for the rest of the ride.

We heard rumors that the MelonHeads had just arrived at the Shack as others were leaving. NOT a good sign. Then we heard from later arrivals at Odie’s that the MelonHeads had left the Shack and were headed toward Odie’s. We decided to eat lunch at Odie’s and wait for them. We waited a very long time.

We enjoyed Odie’s, enjoyed the reconnoitering with old and new friends, and enjoyed taking photos of various characters and characters in their T-shirts, but we stayed there much too long.

So after the long stop at Odie’s, when the MelonHeads stopped at the Subtle Savages’ beer stop on F-12 about six miles further down the road, the road to Sutliff, I decided not to stop.

“Just how many beers does it take to ride from one town to another?” I asked myself.

“Too many,” I decided.

The Bloody Mary with vegetables I’d indulged in at Odie’s was bitter, so cold comfort there. I decided to put my frustration into my legs and climb hills. I stopped only once for water on my way to Sutliff. If I was a churl not to stop for more beer, so be it. I don’t even drink beer, so just how many hours should I sacrifice for the consumption of said liquid refreshment?

I had to drink Seagram’s wine coolers at Sutliff because they don’t sell hard liquor. I’d sure like to know why not. I thought I hated wine coolers more than I dislike beer, but I was desperate. I had two wine coolers and remembered my frozen-faced guardian’s sister, who was even more frozen-faced than my guardian. The sister was married to a top Seagram’s executive. The Seagram’s wine coolers were not bad. They had a hint of a buzz to them. They weren’t as good as a good gin-and-tonic or a good Bloody Mary, but they were better than expected: berry sweet, but not horrible.

As usual, we had the experience at Baxa’s Sutliff Bar of seeing local boys walk in after we’d ordered food and get their food in five minutes while we, dressed in MelonHead jerseys, bike sandals, bike shorts, MelonHead kilts, and carrying our helmets, experienced a full hour delay. At least we were waited on. Unless the local boys ordered their food ahead of time, which is possible, bicyclists are still waited on after first, locals; and second, motorcyclists.

Tom Hammer, the MelonHeads’ fearless leader on most occasions, especially on a bicycle, boycotted Baxa’s for a time after a scrap with the owner involving a differentiation between “slow food” [for bicyclists] and “fast food” [for everyone else]. When Hammer came inside yesterday, he refused to order when he found out it would take an hour to get his food.

When I fearlessly lead Hammer for brief periods on a bike, he passes me on the hills and offers terse, firm advice over his shoulder as he soars uphill like, “You have to work on the hills, Maria.”

Reinforcing his point, he then leaves me in the dust.

I don’t care. I’m progressing. Rick Spear works us hard in RPM class on Tuesday evenings at Iowa City’s Core Fitness gym. After his classes, even the hills around Sutliff don’t seem as bad as they used to.

Thanks, uh, Rick. Any time you want to let up on us a little, that’d be okay with me, but you are upping my game.

Something else wonderful happened at RPM class. The incredibly poor clip-in pedals on the Core Fitness exercycles are so hard to clip into and clip out of that I hurt my right hip badly in class when my right leg flailed wildly off the pedal because, of course, I couldn’t clip in, no matter how hard I tried. The sudden flailing of my leg off the pedal hurt like hell, but the wonder of it is, I think I tore loose the tight scar tissue that had hampered my right hip replacement recovery. Now it hurts to walk but it feels better to bicycle. I’ll have to keep moving to make sure I can stay mobile with this extra jig in my jog.

I already bought my Stiff patch for this year.

“Must...get...beer,” the cartoon bubble in the patch, doesn’t apply to me, but it applies to most participants.

I look forward to framing the Stiff poster when Hacky mails it to me on Monday. I promised to mail him the cost of the postage. (I already paid him for the poster.) The poster has the same graphics as my favorite Team Stiff jersey. I’d own it if I were a Stiffy, but I’m a MelonHead with a watermelon helmet. I’d hate to stop winning costume contests that I haven’t entered.