Biking Brian’s Blog

Steve – bike electronics/lights guru – drove up from Peoria to join me for the first half of today’s ride. With neither of us real familiar with the town, we took the direct route to Sycamore try to find the bike path to the Fox River. The path was not easy to find – we…

The best way to head east was to cross the river over to Rock Falls and then out through Dixon Road. Until it closed down recently, the steel mill in Sterling was the biggest employer in the area. Years ago, management had mansions in Sterling, while the workers lived in housing across the river in…

(I’m sure many of you are waiting with bated breath for this update, since I’ve been pretty quiet lately…) Since I was in a hotel, I had planned to get an early start (no camping gear to pack) and have breakfast at the place in town that was open at 6 AM. But because I…

Joe had given me some routing advice to go east out of the city. I was glad to get his advice on that, since according to the map there were not many roads going in that direction. It was already in the high 70s and really humid when leaving Joe’s at 7 AM. The heat…

I got an early start at 7 AM and went to the breakfast place in town. Soon thereafter, my hosts from last night showed up, and I was invited to the “regulars” table. About half of today’s ride was on bike paths. While I believe that the safety claims of bike paths vs. roads are…

I hate it when I forget to mention something in a previous report! Yesterday, I got my first horn honk in Iowa. At that point the road had a straight through and right turn only lane, and apparently the driver behind me didn’t like my presence in the straight through lane. After he passed, I…

Gary cooked up some eggs, pancakes, and bacon for breakfast, so naturally I had to stick around for that. I thanked them for their hospitality before exchanging e-mail addresses and taking off. On the way out of town I spoke with someone who has lived in Storm Lake since 1955. The recent use of immigrants…

I used the RAGBRAI bike ride route for today, it’s available on the internet at (dead link). The hard part was finding my way out of Sioux City. I followed a city street which I thought would become a paved county road. It instead turned into gravel, and I had to get down to US…

At 6 AM I was already packed and ready to leave the motel at first light. Apparently someone else had the same idea – I waited for them to leave before doing so myself. I found the Super 8 motel further outside of town – they had a room already available at 7 AM, so…

The first half of today’s ride was rolling hills and cornfields. The first cafe was 40 miles down the road in Newcastle, which made a good lunch stop. After that the terrain flattened out, and after Ponca – ten miles down the road – the highway widened out and traffic increased for the approach to…