 I'm Ryan and I'm Allie. After falling in love, we decided to ride bikes across America collecting love advice along the way. This is Love Cycles. No flatties, no laddies, no cruddies. Well, good morning. It's hard to sleep in when there's, you know, tons of people waking up around you at 5 a.m. People here are real excited about riding bikes. Good morning, Allie. Ready for a ride, Brian? Yeah. All right, so the goal is to have as much fun as possible to jump and slip and slides, to eat pie, to make new friends, whatever else happens. I like our chances. Let's do it. I love this. I am amongst my people, the bicycle people. You might be asking yourselves, what the heck is Rag Bride? Well, it stands for the Register's Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa. And it was started in 1973 by some reporters from the Register in Des Moines. And they said, hey, that's ride bikes across Iowa and report about what we see. It became very popular. And now today there are about 20,000 people every year that do Rag Bride. It is the largest bike touring event in the world. It is all about fun and camaraderie and pie and pork chops and good times. And it's a seven-day ride. People ride about 450 miles depending on the route. The route changes every year. And boy, is it a good time. Okay, here we go. So, Allie, we only have 40 miles to go today to get to the next city, but it'll probably take all day to get there because we're going to be having a lot of fun. Are you ready for that? Yes, Ryan. I am ready for that. You know what else I'm ready for? I'm ready for pie and slip and fly. She's ready for pie, ladies and gentlemen. Have a good day. We just rode the Mile of Silence. And that is a time when everybody turns off their stereos and ends their conversations to honor the people who have died on bicycles in America in the last year. There were some signs talking about how there have been five Iowans who have died in the last year. And they've all were kids. The whole idea is to make cyclists and motorists aware of one another so they can share the roads in a peaceful way. And it was powerful. In an event like this where it's usually just a crazy loud party, it was nice to quiet down for a moment and to think of those who have died on bicycles and how we can prevent it in the future. Thousands and thousands and thousands of bicycles all piled up and you know what, none of them are locked up because nobody steals here. Iowa is heaven. There are no bike thieves in Iowa. Maybe there are, but not at Rackbride. Ally is holding a plate of pancakes. What are you doing? I'm gonna have a bite of this pancake. As some of you may know, I'm gluten-free because I'm allergic to wheat. But you know what? Sometimes it's worth it just to eat some gluten and feel sick for a few days or a week. Wow, she did it. That's really good. I'm gonna have another bite. Don't be confused. It's not that I don't love gluten. It's that gluten doesn't love me. Rackbride will be a lot less fun if you're sick, so I hope you don't get sick. It's not that. It's not like a sudden sickness. I'm not gonna like start vomiting all over you. This is the fifth year we've been doing this and we give the seed balls to the riders and we're asking them to toss them out while they're riding across the state and while they're doing it, they're helping to restore habitat for them on our butterfly. And all the extensive use of pesticides and herbicides are wiping out all the milkweed. So the milkweed seed balls are helping to restore the habitat and it is their host plant. The only plant they will lay their eggs on and the only plant that the caterpillar will eat. When the milkweed disappears, the monarch disappears. And in the last 20 years, their population has dropped 90%. So we need to do everything we can to restore habitat. It's a mixture of mud, clay, and soil. One third clay, two thirds soil. And you mix it up until you can work with it and then we insert the seeds in it. Every one of these seed balls is rolled by hand. We started in February and we made 14,000 seed balls and brought them just for red ride. And so we're so happy to be here today to pass them out. I'm going to try not to eat these when I get too hungry because they kind of look like chocolate truffles. Sebastian found this butterfly, got hit by a car, and he's nourishing it back to health. He's also been teaching it tricks. Whoa, it can stand upside down. Let's do a high five. You have to be patient and gentle. Look at that. Don't eat them. Don't eat them. We've been biking by corn for what seems like an eternity and it's just endless sea of corn. And so it seems appropriate that we should finally get to eat some. This is going to be our first bite of corn in corn country and I'm so excited. It's going to be delicious. Sweet corn, yum. It's our first water slide of rag rye and well, it's time to get wet. Warning to all of you slip and sliders, future slip and sliders, a wet chamois is a sure way to get a saddle sore. But I think it's worth it, right? Throw in a little extra squirrel nut butter and you're good to go. We rolled in last night to town and we're pretty much immediately welcome into a family home, treated like we were like we were family, given a big plate of food. And man, it really set the stage for what this event is. You know, people keep on saying the world would be a better place if life was always like rag rye and I'm starting to see what they mean. There's a sense of community here and generosity and real hometown pride that is just really, really beautiful to be a part of. I've been both surprised and impressed by the diversity of cyclists out here, young, old people from all over the world, different ethnicities and really impressed by how much fun everyone's having. People are out here and they're dressed up in costumes and they're playing music and they are just having a blast. I'm also going to say I'm quite impressed by the drinking power. They start early and they go hard. So I've been told that this is what the real bikers do for hydration is they eat pickles and then they take shots of pickle juice. Sometimes in survival situations, you have to drink your own urine. That's what I'm doing today. Allie, we made it. Day one. It's been such a fun day, babe. Thanks for rag braing with me. We're walking in the United Methodist Church for spaghetti. Dinner time. Look, my first piece of pie. This is very exciting stuff right now. I feel very happy to be eating spaghetti. I've been waiting for this all day. So Allie has just traded her ripped shirt to this dude and she got this shirt. All these nice guys from Austin. Now let's see if that shirt fits you. And she told me one morning, I'll never forget it. She said, look, as long as you get it from morning and love me and I know that we're going to be okay. And she said that that takes on a different definition every day, being okay. But as long as I know that we're going to be okay, I will always love you. And I thought, you know what? I can go through anything that comes across my path. As long as I know that that woman's going to love me, regardless of what I'm going through. So 25 years later, we still laugh about that matter of fact, my going away day night that we went through is we went on $10 a day story behind that is when she was pregnant with my son, our second child. She came out one day and I was working in the garage. She goes, look, we got 10 bucks that I can spare the chicken account. What do you want to do? I'm like, you put it together. Best day we've ever had. So she comes out the night before we're coming up here and she goes, I got 10 bucks. We want to go baby. I'm like, it's on here. So we went to Valero. We got these nasty horrible We got a muffin and two red box movies and went home and watched them. Our kids are off at camps and doing their thing now. It's absolutely about loving the other person way more than yourself enough to not tear them down. We've known each other for like 26 years. And we've only been married for five that we, we went through everything together. And then we were like, why the hell are we not married at this point? And we're like, all right, let's do it. But and then it was like everything got tested because from that point forward everything went wrong. And but I mean, I had a house go down with a tornado forces into Texas. I got in Texas for a while. And then my disorder popped up and you want a woman that's going to stay with you when you're completely paralyzed in the bed and you can't move for like two days. And she's she's still there. Shit, dude. You're golden, you know, but no, but at this point, you know, there's nothing that can break us apart. And that's just it's awesome. What do you do when it gets hard? Like, what's, what's the Oh, we yell at each other. Yeah. We yelled at each other many, many times. I mean, you know, I just think you get it off your chest and you come down and say the slide. So the whole the whole reason I think to get married is to have to have children. And otherwise, why get married? Have a party. Because you love your wife party. You could totally agree. So that's a big question. That's my question to you. Like, do you guys think do you guys want kids? I mean, it'd probably be more you than him maybe. But like, is that something? Hey, you asked us to share some really deep feelings. And I mean, if you are taught, we're talking about love and all that stuff, but kids are like a product of marriage. Oh, wow. True. Possibly. Yeah, yeah. Okay, I have another. Because I'm a minister and I've done several weddings and a big part of it. Well, something that I've always made a big part of the ceremony is you gather your friends, your family, your community, and you say, will you support us in this? Like, and you say, Hey, we're all going to be a couple. We're like, you know, this is it. Like, you know, him and me forever. Like, are you guys in on this? Will you support us when times get rough? We're going to come and complain to you and you're going to be like, stick with it. Like, let's make this happen. I got your back. So I've always seen that as a big part of just making that commitment. Like, you know, you're saying knowing that every day, like, I'm going to, I'm going to wake up and this woman is beside me. This man is beside me. You know, like, and she has promised me that she said those words. Like, I'm going to be beside you every day for the rest of your life. And I think for me, that's like a big thing. Will you ever consider having a child? Is that in your foreseeable future? Hey, but her point, her point. No. No? But no. I've just been down there that talks about bikes and derailleurs and shit. What are you guys talking about? Doing up here. Well, I really like XTR because, you know, my daughter just betrothed herself, more or less, to her fiance. But they don't want to have kids. They've said this. It can happen. They've said this. She can say that. I'm just saying. So hold on. Say that or go for it. I'm just saying marriage does not equal having kids. So hold on. So I think that's legit. But long term vision might be there. I would wish that were otherwise. I would wish that I would love to have grandkids. I think they're awesome kids. But I just, so let me throw in on that. I'm 47 and have a 21 month old granddaughter, which is, I get told all the time, extremely young. We get that. But I'll say this, that to his point, it can be a goal or product of a relationship. But my daughter's not married, but has done an amazing. I mean, I couldn't have written out the script in her performance any better than she has done as a single mom. And this little girl, now she's ours, right? But this little girl is special. And so I think that when you focus on, kind of like what I was talking about a while ago, when you truly choose to overlook the bad stuff and buy in, I mean, really buy in, then you can focus on the good. I mean, you guys ride this daily. If you focus on the negative, you know, the sun's hot, the hills fall, it's going to suck. But as far as children go, it does add another level to it. But it also adds this amazing, amazing horizon landscape that you can't get anywhere else. So I kind of like his question, but to his point as well, it's kind of, you know, it's in the middle. It's not guaranteed. You know, it is what it is. But I'll tell you this, that child, I work with kids a lot. I mentor a lot of young boys that don't have dads. And specifically in the high school where I live. And the number one common denominator that we face is that they don't have a dad. And so I believe that children are a product of their environment, a good and bad. And so the community, I love what you said, Allie, the community not only in a marriage, but in our community as it is, in a school, in a church, in a sporting team, whatever, can choose to come together and lift those kids up and raise them because at some point they're going to become us. You know, they're going to be our next generation. They're going to create an influence and determine where we go based on how we treat them today. So I love the questions and the two different angles that come from it. So kind of awkward, hey, you're going to have kids. But at the same time, it is amazing. It absolutely is. You said, yeah, the question about kids is an interesting one because your daughter and the father are no longer together. And they didn't necessarily plan on me. No, they did not, right? So the kids was a... Accident. Right, but another way of saying it is that they have responded or she at least has responded to this situation and has turned out to be a good parent. So the crazy thing is I'd hit a point in my life where I was successful in what I was doing and I had hit a freaking wall. And I will say this on camera that that little girl was probably more for me than her mom. I will admit that. Yeah, awesome. She has been really, really... And she's 21 months old. But it was a reminder to me of how beautiful... All those things were for this. Yeah, yeah, that's nice. That's honest. I like it. Yeah, I like it. It's all the things that are beautiful that we forget. Once your kids are getting older and they start on a path... Hey, Rick, how many kids do you have? I've got three. I've got a 23, 17, and 16. And I've got awesome kids. I do. I've got awesome kids. My wife and I are very blessed. We like to think that we gave them a place to thrive and do their own thing, but back to the kid thing it's a result of... You know, we're all athletes. It's a result of what you put into it. It takes just two seconds to care about somebody else more than yourself. Brian, Ali, Brian, loving Ali more than that. That's what it takes to get through it, especially outside of our immediate relationships. I'm David Walker. I met my wife at age 15 in high school. Wow, good stuff. We've been married for 28 years now. My name is Jody Hunt. I met my wife, Ellen, in 1983. We've been married 32 years. Is there something else? And your favorite color? My favorite color is black. Can you just say? We were punk rockers. My name is Rick Turnbull. I met Heather in 1991 in a Little Bitty College in Southeast Oklahoma, Connor State College. And we've been married for 25 years, August 7th of this year. A few days. What's Spicoli? What about you? Yeah, my name is Spicoli. Met her in San Diego. And we've been married 20 years. 20 years. I'm Glenn Koster. I met my wife in 1991. And we've been married for five years. We've been best friends for a long time. That's cool. First day of RadWri 2018 is in the books. It was fun. The weather was perfect. Ali got to see all the fun, goofy magic of the event. The scale of the event. The people. Man, what a good day, huh? What do you think? Oh, it's an awesome day. It's super fun. Love everybody here. Love the scene. Love the fun. Love the music. Yeah, it's like to be here. And we got in a slip-and-slide, which is very important. And I got a new shirt. Let's not pray at that. Yeah, the new shirt is awesome. Oh. New Orleans. Thanks, Dante. Yeah. And we're sitting here in a field of thousands of people. And I like it. It's a good way to make friends.