Travel of a Different Kind…On Two Wheels & Pedaling

When was the last time you were on a trip and wished you could slow down to appreciate an area more? I’ve had that feeling many times while traveling. But next week I’ll be traveling across Iowa and taking my time…likely about 12 to 14 mph (maybe faster on most of the downhills).

All next week I’ll be bicycling across Iowa as part of the 41st Annual RAGBRAI ride. Below is my steed who will carry my on my 400+ mile seven day tour from the west side of Iowa to the east side (see route map):

Specialized Roubaix Elite Apex

My Steed: 2013 Specialized Roubaix Elite Apex

This will be my first year riding RAGBRAI, both a birthday present and challenge.  A large part of the reason things have been so quiet on the blog for the past half year is all the time required for the 800 miles of training rides; after day job, family, and then riding there hasn’t been much time left over for photography or the blog.  But, what happens when you put a photographer on a bike for 7 days to tour parts of Iowa he has never seen?  The goal is one interesting photo travel log.

20130718-100444.jpg

Home on the Road…

Luckily, RAGBRAI is a well planned and supported ride.  After 40 years of practice and, some years, supporting over 10,000 riders they have it down.  We’ll be over night-ing in camp sites in our host towns but we’ll have all of our overnight gear hauled for us between each town. My trusty REI tent will be my home for those 7 days.  But, anything I need during the day will have to be carried on the bike (aka, hauled by me), hence I had to re-think my usual photography kit.  The 5D Mark 2 is sitting this one out; taking it’s place is a Nikon P330 which was recently picked up as a replacement for a lost Canon S95.

I’m planning on taking photos on the P330 (maybe a few with the iPhone), transferring them to my iPhone for some quick editing and then posting here on the blog at the end of each day. Since RAGBRAI is a ride and one that draws participants from all over the country and even from over seas, I’m looking forward to meeting some interesting folks and creating some great stories.  Stories that I’ll be documenting here as well as the iPhone keyboard will allow.

I look forward to you following along during the week.  Nightly posts here, real-time updates via Twitter and Google+ and for the gear heads you can follow my daily progress via Strava.

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