Fri, July 25, 2025, Cedar Falls to Olwein, Iowa (42 miles, 938 ft. climb)
Day 6 was another great day on RAGBRAI! Unlike yesterday, we did have a bit of a headwind, but not enough to make a big difference. And it was the shortest day of the week!
I woke up (once again without an alarm) at 4:50, almost an hour later than usual. But since I was staying at a house, I didn’t have to take the time to pack up all my stuff and take down a tent. So I was on the road by 5:15, only 25 minutes after waking up. I used my headlight to go back through downtown Cedar Falls and caught a radiant sunrise while crossing the bridge over the Cedar River.
When I got to Pork Belly Ventures, all I had to do was put my little backpack of dirty clothes and charging electronics into my duffel bag and hand it to the guys on the semi truck. I came upon my favorite breakfast, HOQ wraps, on a farm at Mile 10. But the grass was soaking wet with dew and there was nowhere to sit, and I was hoping to get further anyway before taking a break.
So I pushed on to the first town, Dunkertown, where I had all-you-can-eat pancakes. Chris Cakes has been doing this for years on RAGBRAI. He designed a machine that drops batter four pancakes at a time as it rolls down the long griddle. There are 24 columns and 4 rows, so he can make 96 pancakes at a time! Even with a line, it goes fast. But when I got there the line hadn’t even started yet, so I got immediate service. (Although I couldn’t eat more than four.)
Further down the road I stopped at the last Beekman’s farm stop of the year. (The last day they are always set up in the final town, near the Mississippi River tire dip site.) One thing I learned this year is that you can buy half an order for $5. This seems like the perfect amount — the so-called “small” size at $9 sometimes felt like too much to eat in one sitting.
The next stop, Fairbank, was a beautiful little town on.a river. I took some drone videos of that place, and before I knew it, I was in the end town. Oelwein is most famous for being the home town of Matt Phippen, the Executive Director of RAGBRAI. Matt took over in my first year, 2022, and does an amazing job coordinating everything.
It was only 10:45 am when I finished the day’s ride, but the Pizza Ranch was already open, and I could not pass it up — all-you-can-eat pizza, chicken, corn, mashed potatoes and gravy, hard-boiled eggs, and SALAD BAR, all for $15! Not to mention a chair, a table, and air conditioning, things that are all rare to come by when eating street vendor food.
I texted my friends from Chippewa Falls about my great find, but nobody else took the bait. But I sat there for quite a while and got my money’s worth.
Even with that long stop, I was still setting up my tent well before 1pm, the earliest of the week. I always carry an accurate thermometer, and by the time mid-afternoon came around, the temperature inside my tent was over 120 degrees F!
I’ve been setting my tent all week near two of the guys we drove down with, Christopher Thielen and Tom Hotle. Since we had so much time today, we texted our other companion, John Panzer, and told him to bike over from the main campground to hang out with us for a while. I gave John the full tour of the Pork Belly Ventures “portable city” that today was set up on the grounds of Wings Park Elementary School.
We enjoyed our third included catered meal of the week, and then I took another shower just before the 8:00 pm closing, since I had sweated a lot since my first shower so many hours ago. Then I went to bed early. Tomorrow is the LAST DAY of RAGBRAI! :-(.
It also happens to be the hilliest day of the week, by far, as we venture into the driftless region of northeast Iowa and the Mississippi River Valley. It’s also surprisingly long for the last day, at 62 miles. Everyone needs to get there and dip their tires and then pack up to go home, so the last day is always kind of a hurry. But it looks like decently cool weather coming up.
—————————————————-
TRANSLATIONS/BACKGROUND: “RAGBRAI” = Register’s Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa, the world’s oldest, longest, and largest recreational bicycle ride. Started in 1973, it now averages about 20,000 riders per year from all 50 states and 20 countries who ride from the Missouri River on the west coast of Iowa to the Mississippi River on the east coast, usually 420-500 miles, over seven days.
—————————————————-
LINKS:
Old-fashioned BLOG if you have friends who don’t use Facebook:
“Old Scouter” Facebook page if you want to follow big adventures with more pictures and video clips (but not unrelated personal posts):
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100066334039590
“Old Scouter” YouTube page (when I get time to edit after the trip):