 Hey Amelia we're slacking everybody has picked up except for us. I know we're gonna lose the race. Oh man. I'm gonna late start and lose the race today. Did you find some Iowa coffee? I found some Iowa coffee. How is it? It's like the best cup of coffee ever. That sun feels so good. We didn't have any sun yesterday which was very nice it kept it cool but I am a fan of the sun I am from Colorado we get a lot of sunny days. So the sun is what charges me up. It's time for another day. I'm excited it's been really fun to share this with Amelia. I think she thinks it's bonkers but in a great way. I think she's loving it. You look so majestic brushing your teeth with the Iowa morning sun. Thank you ground. That was a good spot. It was great. You ready to ride bikes? Ready to ride bikes. Let's do it. The sun is shining. Goodbye Pocahontas baseball fields. Have a good day everybody. It may be early but it's not too early for interviews. Here's my first one my new friend here Marco what's up. Never too early man never too early. Hi I'm Marco from California and I want to say I'm basically here at Rag Bride because of this guy. Last year was our first year my wife and I and we found out about this event because of Ryan and his YouTube channel and now we're addicted. We're back this year we're going to be back next year for the 50th and this is just an absolute blast. They just threw a huge party in Pocahontas last night and I did not get enough sleep but I am so looking forward to today. So our first order of business today is to find the gravel route. Where are you gravel? Bye Rag Bride. Most bikes on Rag Bride are road bikes so they wouldn't be able to deal with this but we can because she's on the 600x. And this is a first for me. I've never done the gravel option on Rag Bride. I'm excited to try it out and have a new experience out here. I'm liking this Iowa gravel. It's definitely slower than pavement of course but it's fun and there's a lot fewer people so we can just kind of hang around and think about life right? Totally and just listen to the sound of tires on gravel which is one of my favorite noises. Hi Amelia Shadow. Hi. How you feeling? Fantastic. Love it out of it. I don't like this open road. More of an introvert than Ryan but everyone is more of an introvert than Ryan. So this is a nice break up of Rag Bride for me. Just like fewer people, nature, sound of gravel under the tires. All the good things. All the good things. Look at that view. It's so beautiful. So we don't miss out on all the fun. The gravel route looks like it does meet up in some of the towns with the regular route and here we are. Here's all of our friends. Your bike's awesome. Look at that cool thing. So I've talked about how there's not great vegetarian options on Rag Bride but they're almost always our pickles on a stick somewhere and pickles are good for preventing cramps. Right? Is that right? It's actually kind of a lie but we like to believe it. I was just a buzzkill there. Yeah why did it have to be a buzzkill? It's just like the magic vegetable. These are tattoos of all the streets that I've cycled. I've got New York City in my right arm here and then I have Chicago here and I just keep adding to them every time I visit and this Rag Bride route I get all my Rag Bride routes on my legs. What inspired this idea? I really got into these artists from Paris in the 60s and they would wander the streets of Paris and make these cool maps and I thought I could do a modern version of that. I've kind of just become my life. It's called Psycho Geography. That's cool. What do you have planned for here? Nothing yet. Maybe Paris. That's awesome. So I've seen a lot of interesting bikes on Rag Bride but I've never seen BMX bikes and there's three ombrés right here riding BMXs. What inspired this? This is what we normally ride anyway and I convinced two unfortunate folks to ride with me. So these wheels are 24 inches which is quite a bit smaller than you know a normal bike and they definitely only have one gear so that's why these guys are working real hard. Oh man this house is for sale. We could live in Iowa. It would be much cheaper than Boulder. Yeah a little cheaper than Boulder for sure. House for sale. We saw a sign back there for a historical marker. I'm a sucker for historical markers when I ride my bike and we're going to go check it out. So it looks like this is an old cemetery from 1858 or maybe 858 who knows. We died in a late 18 long ago but because they lived in a completely different world. I mean no technology like we know of today and it's fun to put yourself back at that time and think what life must have been like. There was definitely no Rag Bride back then. You enjoying gravel day? I love gravel day. I like the wide open roads and just quiet but it's a super fun option you know. If you really really like the crowds and that's your jam then you always have the road but for like one day of the week it's kind of nice just to be out here amongst all the corn. Yeah and there's a nice it's just like kind of grounds you it slows everything down you're like because riding with that many people you constantly have to be like looking to your left and to your right and making sure you're not going to like cause a pile up you know but out here that is not going to happen. All right we just met up with the route again and it's time to play Frogger. Yeah you know another thing I'm loving about this gravel route is that we're seeing real nature not just cultivated land look at those wild trees look how beautiful they are oh and look a swamp a real live swamp. Are alligators in there? They're coasters alligators. So we've been riding by hundreds of miles of corn fields I figured we should try some of this stuff although most of the corn that we're riding by is not for human consumption it's for animals. This is sweet corn. How's that Iowa sweet corn? Really good. Really good. Having that corn on the top forever. So these Iowa corn people are really cool they have a mobile truck every day and they have a little educational interactive museum in there and you come out here and the corn is free and they set up all week long it's pretty sweet. So somebody told us about this grotto and we're looking at it now on our left hand side and it looks fantastical. I don't really know what to say about this. Look at this look at the detail it's like a bunch of geodes in there all these crystals. All right Amelia give me some Catholic history. Yeah well I'm I it's been a while since I've done this but I think this is what it is that these are super super ornate stations of the cross so you'll see Catholics who go around and then at each station like this they say a little prayer totally butchering this sorry mom and dad um but uh it's like the most ornate one that I've ever seen uh it's it's pretty fantastic I'm not gonna lie church stuff can be generally very ornate but I've never seen it ornate in terms of using geodes and rocks and whatnot you know you normally see a lot of gold and and things um so this is like the most unique thing that I've ever seen but uh yeah you know what this reminds me of in Casa Bonita the famous restaurant in Colorado there's all these fun caves black Bart's cave that is the final station of the cross and what do you do at the final station I don't remember sorry bad Catholic but yeah that's when Jesus is in the arms of his mother so what's the history how did it all start so the grotto of the redemption was started in 1912 by father Paul domerstein who immigrated here to the west from Germany and when he was 20 years old he entered the seminary in Iowa and two weeks before he was supposed to be ordained in 1898 he came down with double pneumonia and he prayed to Mary saying that if she were to heal him he would build a shrine in her honor and he eventually did get better and was placed here at St. Peter and Paul Parish and started building the grotto of the redemption in 1912 wow and so why all the rocks and gems and stones like what was his inspiration um so he immigrated here when he was 20 years old so he actually took courses on geology in college before he immigrated here so he knew how to like build rocks and like how to form them and where to find them here right on and how many people live in this town I have to like 900 900 so this is a pretty big deal for a small town yeah absolutely and how are we going to take them to build this whole thing 80 years he actually died before it was completed so he died in 1954 and then his successor another priest finished it in 1992 how many visitors do you get a year um I would say around 37 000 I love stuff like this it puts a smile on my face and even though I didn't grow up religious and I don't really know about any of this I just love when humans get creative and this is the pinnacle of creativity it's his life's work which just inspires me to keep on creating it's awesome whoa what'd you find a pond a pond or somebody's pond it looks tropical look at this blue water I know let's see oh yeah oh yeah whoa oh yeah this feels good oh that's nice and cool how's it going you're making friends Amelia I'm making friends I found a new boyfriend oh you did yes that's okay you're really lucky you got a new boyfriend I know right right you guys are fun they're letting us swim in your pool thank you that's what it was made for for people to use right on I love it I love it love this Iowa hospitality you know yeah do you want to hear a little history yeah okay when I bought this place 60 years ago it was just level farmland and the house that I lived in was kind of right there by that bush okay and oh it was a disaster we lived in it for two or three years and then that day I might just say I'm gonna build a new home down here put a pond in here this is a boyhood dream that's a boyhood dream well it's beautiful you created paradise my friend thank you and thanks for sharing it with us thank you thank you for stopping at my place absolutely here we go I love it we're in the Irish town and did you know that I am 75 percent Irish Ryan is a very Irish name wash off all that dust from today there's really nothing in the world better than jumping in water after riding your bike all day okay she says she's a world champion obstacle course racer let's see her get out of the water you can do it you can do it yeah one leg over it's a dead whale yeah roll over you got it this might be the most epic rag bride camp spot I've ever had I mean lake front property can you believe it my hot shower hot and cold but any type of warmth in a shower is always very appreciated wait I just noticed something look at that hand line yeah that Iowa Sun is the real deal it is this island that we're on is awesome I'm making friends with all the neighbors I just met this guy named Dan and he has a very inspirational story Dan how you doing buddy I'm feeling great man loving rag bride 2022 this is awesome love it so tell me how you got here what's the road to rag bride so my road's pretty unique um back in 2013 a healthy guy training was a runner trained for a 10k had a stroke just out of nowhere dropped the ground end up in the hospital for a week still a lot of unanswered questions but I've really been pushing myself to run and do it so after the stroke I was like you know this could have really changed my life this could have ended my life so I'm going to continue to kind of go after these different athletic challenges so from there I went from a 10k to a half marathon to a full marathon to ultra marathons start jumping on a bike my buddy Doug who's on the air force team said hey you should do rag bride I'm like how many miles is it um so he told me and uh I'll give this a shot so now I'm here doing rag bride uh trying to live my best life how'd you have a stroke at a young age man you know 33 years old it was random uh I got up I got up for work one day and I was ready to go and then just dropped to the floor crazy dizzy just just dropped and uh I have no idea what happened wife take me took me to the hospital I spent a week there and it's like I'm really scared I don't know what happened is it is it a tumor what's going on and they wheeled in the MRI and said you know uh you had a stroke here's five infarcts you actually had a stroke and it was scary I feel very blessed to be alive very blessed to be able to do these things and so when something like rag bride comes up it's like if I'm going to live my best life and and go after this and really make it make a change and really push myself after the stroke this is how we're gonna do it so yeah yeah your life I imagine is better now post stroke post stroke you know I'm married have two wonderful kids my wife supports all my athletic ventures she's very proud of what's going on I like being able to do this kind of stuff for my kids to look up to um you know oh daddy's riding a bike oh daddy's riding a bike a Christ I Iowa it's awesome so yeah it's very very cool so island camp is the best it's a great place to make friends look at these wonderful people hi everybody they just made bean burritos for Amelia and I thank you so much you are wonderful you're all from Missouri right yes yeah Missouri so we've gotten to the point in dinner where we're sharing uh baby photos but this is not exactly a baby photo here we go so who is this this is Cooper oh look at Cooper and Cooper was inspired by who by Mira Mira we love Mira we do love Mira she is a doll and we watch the videos with you guys and she's riding on the bike I think Cooper can ride Cooper used to get car sick but now he's riding a bike uh look at Cooper so tell me you have a dog with a really cool name what's your dog's name dozer dozer what inspired you to name your dog dozer you watching your videos I said let's name him dozer is dozer a good boy he's very good he doesn't like my friends he doesn't like your very protective dog oh okay I am a big fan of this campsite so is Amelia she's taking a little evening rest let's go check in with her there she is hey Amelia hey fancy meeting you here what's up how was your gravel day it was amazing it was lovely I can't complain maybe could be the best day we've had so far and we still have four more I don't know it's never ending never any rag rise the song that never rag rise with you forever always always all right well good night I'm gonna go party I'm not ready for bed yet I'm going to party bye see ya why do we wake up so early because today we have a century ride actually 105 miles and everybody else is waking up early so if they wake up we wake up yes that's how it works when's the last time you ran you ran rode your bike 105 miles never never but you have run 100 miles I have so I'm hoping no problem I'm hoping the biking takes less time than running what what do you want me to say you just look cute okay gotta look good for century day would you like to do the honors yeah thank you ground you were perfect you were the best campsite yet yeah definitely the best campsite I mean look at this lake front property five stars so 2002 I'm guessing this is not your jersey not mine at all actually my mother's so what's the story with your family rag ride history all right so my mother back in 1990 went on rag ride found out the whole time that she was really tired for some reason it was her second one at the end she found out she was pregnant with me so you've been on rag rice is the your beginning of life yes yeah I've been destined to be here that is awesome and this is one of her old jerseys look at the style from 2002 man we're reppin it reppin it and this is your team right here this is my team this is wow everybody yeah happy 100 mile day everybody is up in Adam early today 100 miles it's 7 a.m on the dot our earliest start by far and we're feeling good feeling good feeling good in Iowa the weather's supposed to be perfect the cornfields are going to be perfect the pie is going to be perfect everything these bikes behind you Amelia my no this is so cool the big big line big lino bikes that sunscreen on your lips aqua for actually okay what's that for um I use it for dry cracked lips but um some people use it to uh prevent chafing as well okay multi multitasking happy 100 mile day here comes a pace line look at him go come on hang on to the back you got this pedal pedal go go go go look at that smile yeah we're cruising on the BMXers and they're cruising at a good speed look at them go what's up BMXers there's my guys good morning how you feel it so this is a BMX pace line huh I can't believe they do this on BMXers that cracks me up oh and that just goes to show there's a lot of different ways to do rag bra different bikes different body types different athletic abilities and it all works out go whatever speed you need all right cool aid for a dollar thank you so much my friend you're so welcome did you guys make this yourselves um our grandma did but we're the ones who were working the hardest out that's right you like seeing all these bikers come through town oh this is fun yeah I'm sitting up this every year now all right good look at that look at those cool aids what's your name my name's Evan thank you Evan so much no we saw in Colorado we sat in a low Elkin tribute at all a moose you saw antelope elkin moose in Colorado yeah very cool yeah and dad about Peter's pants because of the moose all right who gets the money you look like you get the money oh you get the money you're gonna have three dollars we only want one you get a two dollar tip what yeah you get a two dollar tip thank you for this thank you appreciate it appreciate it so how do you get your business what do you do I came my mom came up with this and I thought it was a very plant good plan and it looks like we have another customer come get lemonade that really good lemonade here I have not had Kool-Aid probably since I was a kid and that stuff is good snickerdoodle cookies mm-hmm iowan delights breakfast of champions what a snickerdoodle tastes like cinnamon sugar goodness who made all the cookies you made all the cookies yeah wow they're awesome thank you so much with help from grandma well thank you so much come get the best snickerdoodles this side of the Mississippi or Missouri come on get your snickerdoodles give this kid some money he needs to go to college someday so we've got a Brompton here where are you coming from I live in the Boston area nice and you're carrying all your own stuff correct them and do correct the moon done you look pretty cool too you got some style I lost my cool goggles though oh no so we're cruising we've already ridden about 30 miles in two hours very easy day as far as the mileage goes mileage is a lot 100 miles is a lot of miles but it's pretty flat and not only flat but even a little bit downhill so we're all good good morning good morning good morning good morning you're cruising up that hill like it's nothing look at that that's impressive you do the whole thing on a hand bike huh yep that's so cool so I found found a new friend here from Iowa City but he's originally from Mexico and you know what happens in Mexico what's up Grant hey not much how you doing brother great how about you I'm doing great how many times have you done rag right now I've done it 11 this number 12 right on working on 12 working on 12 not working real hard but I'm working I love it I love all your fun things on your handlebars thank you yeah I got plenty of stuff keeps accumulating what inspires you to keep coming back oh it's the people having that there's just nothing like it there's only one guy in rag where I've seen do this and it's Denny what's up buddy looking good brother all right we've been seeing signs for slip and slide slip and slide and we found it at a golf course hillside golf okay we've got ourselves a backyard slip and slide looks a little dangerous you don't want to go too fast and veer off into the rocks nice one buddy and all slip and slides on rag bry must be slipped and slided by me that's a rule it's a new rule they told me to get wet first oh really always lube up always lube up always lube up first okay okay and then on this one don't go too fast because um there's gravel at the end oh yeah oh yeah here I'll help you here I'll help you give me your hand give me your hand I'll just pull you oh he's going up here we go here we go give me your hand hold on here I go oh yeah all the way to the end all the way all the way you may not have uh gotten very wet but it certainly created a lot of laughs I've never been on a slip and slide where I can't actually slide down it thank god there's not a big crowd to uh watch me die see that oh yeah buddy so I've been told that this must be applied generously and it's also really handy to just clean my body so this is kind of like a shower this is the worst slip and slide in the world Amelia we have an obstacle coming we do I'm good at you're really good at obstacles I hear high five man thank you for an awesome event don't worry fun little obstacle here we did it everybody good job yeah karaoke money money is my song by Billy idols old kutes giving advice it's probably bad advice but it's free what do I do with my life how do I live my life find the job you love okay when that 401k starts building don't borrow out of it to buy a car or something that you don't really need oh so this is actually good advice I thought you were supposed to get bad advice yeah okay what should we eat for lunch ooh I had a maid right just a little while ago about two guards down on on your left what's a maid right ground up hamburger loose meat oh okay we've been seeing signs for a long time about the national hobo museum I have no clue what this is all about but I bet it's going to be interesting so what is a hobo so the conventional definition of a hobo is a person who travels to work there is still debate though in the hobo community whether or not a hobo must ride freight trains or just be anyone who independently travels to work by independent I'm referring to someone who travels independently of any company or corporation and basically does their own thing although people think that hobo history began during the great depression hobo history actually began after the civil war the first hobos were civil war veterans who they came back from serving in the civil war struggled to reintegrate in society so they created their own social support network and decided to use freight trains to travel around and look for any work they could find and then in the great depression when a lot of people lost their jobs or unemployed a lot of them took to the rails to look for work they could find as well but what we're looking at here is artifacts from past hobo conventions in fact when this museum was first created it was a hobo convention museum and then it became later a museum with artifacts of things at hobos war some of the artifacts here to specific hobos so I came to the convention for the first time in 2004 and I just fell in love with it and then I decided that I wasn't going to become a hobo but I was also going to pursue a career as a traveling autism advocate I am autistic and I got hired ever since out of high school my lin high school to go to various parts of America including towns smaller than brits to to give presentations on autism awareness I get my hobo name the piper because I play the recorder and I'm actually going to play a song that is very well known in the hobo community the hobo lullaby thank you brits iowa this is about the halfway ish stop we have about 45 ish miles left to go are you ready Amelia I'm ready are you ready for more classic rock I'm ready for my I'm always ready for classic rock give me some journey and van hielen I haven't heard any of that this trip let's get ready to rumble today is the day of buying as much lemonade as possible from cute little kids how you doing doing good how long have you been out here today um for hours yeah a lot of good business yes we've been we got all these are all from today all these signatures yep and who made the lemonade you can lie and say you did it you did there you go right I would love a lemonade thank you for would you like a mix of sweet tea and lemonade I'll just go straight up lemonade all right signed it dozer tv was here you guys are going to be on youtube yeah and yours lemonade stand is like the most beautiful lemonade stand I've seen thank you it's a good one his little brother and his dad made it oh really I'm their under neighbor not they're okay and uh how many times has rag ride gone through here oh once on well twice on this road that we've since we've been since we've lived here really were you alive uh what's been a long time ago right that's cool it was in 2017 that the last trip where I went by this road nice well I wish you both the best of luck we make a lot of money and what are you raising money for we're planning on for charity at the um for orphanage for people who are in orphanages okay great right on thank you all right Amelia mileage check in 75 miles this farmhouse looks like fun so we're going to hang out you know it's very tempting just to stop at every single farmhouse but you won't get very far if you stop at every single farmhouse just every other farmhouse this one's got good vibes I can feel it so we're team roadshow uh we've been biking rag ride so my 21st rag ride I've been juggling the whole time and uh so we do shows in the overnight towns um and like big fire things unicycles and then we carry these around with us because they're a lot of fun and we stop at places like free beer and juggle because why not well the two best things in the world are biking and juggling so that just kind of is it's kind of like in spite like being inspired to breathe oxygen that's awesome you guys are rad thank you I love it thanks for putting a smile on our faces oh for sure thanks for being here we did it everybody we made it to mason city hello where did you get that lucky so our new friends camping thank you we did it we found a good camp spot right here and look right there the aquatic center Iowa town pools are some of the best pools I've ever seen they go all out very impressive who says 43 year olds can have fun on waterslides yeah that was a close call