My Personal Trainer Signed Us Up For The RASH Ride

Captions: 1. An elderly couple from Independence who used to wait for us at the RASH Ride breakfast (2016). The breakfast was canceled in 2018 due to rain. 2. Jim and Maria Conzemius on the FOOL'S Ride, April 2017. 3. Bill Versilius, owner/manager of Bill's Pizza in Independence, the guy who should be put back in charge of the RASH Ride! Bill did it better. Sorry, Fred. A bar owner in Littleton complained that he didn't know about the ride till the Wednesday before. He didn't have time to notify his beer distributors and set up a bachelor party on the same day as the RASH Ride. He wouldn't have done that if he'd had more notice.

Jim, my husband and personal trainer, paid in advance for both of us to go on the RASH Ride, which started in Independence, Iowa on Saturday, June 9th, 2018. The 25-mile route, which I insisted on (Jim wanted to do the 50-mile route), was marked as the "66-mile route." The arrows for all three routes went the wrong way and the routes were mislabeled. My job was to register for both of us while Jim got the bikes, bike bottles, our helmets, and gloves.

Our old friend Mike O'Brien of the Rawhide Riders came up to me as I registered for Jim and me and chatted. Later at the first bar he told me his significant other, Rebecca, was visiting her parents in Louisville, Kentucky, so he's on his own. It was good to see him again. We saw him again in Littleton, but later he turned off to do one of the longer routes. He and Rebecca ride a lot.

I got the straight skinny on the arrows, and later an explanation of which route was which, but all Jim needed to know was that 25-miler was "the old route." The next town was Littleton, some 10 miles hence.

We took our cards, skipped the T-shirts (many of our old ones have gone to the homeless), and set off for the first bar on the card, still in Independence on the edge of town. After chatting with Mike and the bartender, we left a good tip, got our cards stamped, and left. I stood on my bike, realized I was holding up the crowd behind me on the sidewalk, and said, "And the elderly shall lead."

As I struggled to get my legs and sore hip over my bicycle and into my toe clips on a bad road with a slight hill near the railroad tracks, a young man yelled, "You're killing it!"

I laughed out loud and laughed every time I thought of it as the young men, women, and Mike O'Brien passed me. I mean, how many women cyclists my age are out there at all? The wind was in my face (and their faces) the whole way. But it had cleared up, I saw blue sky, and the bright green trees and foliage cheered me as we climbed up each hill.

Jim and I have been climbing Scott Boulevard hills in east Iowa City on Mondays and Thursdays to get our hill work in. Jim also rides to work every day, so he's stronger than I am.

I remember about five years ago when I passed our fastest MelonHead rider, Tom Hammer, on the straightaway, but he quickly lost me in the hills.

"Gotta do the hills, Maria. Gotta do the hills," Tom advised.

Well, I've been taking his advice and it's helping, but it's not taking me back to where I was at age 45 or so, when I could fly up the hills on RAGBRAI.

Jim's ambition is to be like Dr. Beasley of Iowa City, who bikes his age every birthday. I think he was 90 years old on his last birthday and he biked his age. I met a 90-year-old woman biking at Terry Trueblood Park this spring. She's going to ride RAGBRAI and will be 91 by July. Her husband explained that he couldn't ride because he has an artificial hip.

I told him that Jim and I both have artificial hips, and only my right one gives me trouble. (You'd have to torture Jim to find out if he has a problem with either of his.) The man's wife crowed, "Now you have no excuse!"

We apologized. We're not sure anyone unused to exercising should start riding a bicycle at age 90+. It's possible, but we've never tried it.