Friday morning - Something happened

We got on the road quite early again to avoid the inevitable hot sweaty Iowa afternoons that we have grown to love and had quite a good ride going through more welsh countryside type stuff and over some more rolling hills until we stopped for breakfast. Here again Jack walked right into the language barrier getting orange juice when he asked for water, this happened twice, bloody racist americans!

We got chatting with the locals in the cafe and they told us all about the RAGBRAI (look it up) that took place the week before. Sounds pretty cool and would have been good to have got involved buts its happened, its over, so stop telling us about it. Seriously every single person tells the same story, its as if they issued some sort of massive press release and the race didn't even happen......a conspiracy maybe? Anyway this same bloke went on to tell us the usual rubbish that the rest of Iowa would be pretty flat but thankfully later in the conversation decided to retract his original statement and tell it that it was in fact hills for the next 20 miles or so and then 'should' even out a bit. Only him and the guy from the Artic Circle have so far been spot on with the terrain advice, cheers.

We decided to try and reach Fairfield before our next food stop so that we could get the majority of the miles done by lunchtime and then either chill out there for the day or arrive at the campsite pretty early and do what we do best, sleep. The ride to Fairfield went pretty well with Jack only zoning out and nearly killing himself once and a few trucks coming only within a few feet of us instead of there usual Iowa-n few inches. Something else to note about these scenic highways is the amount of roadkill goes through the roof. Just this morning I've seen three dead deers, loads of dead birds, a handful of snakes, the odd racoon and quite a lot of unidentifiable smelly things.

We arrived in Fairfield just before 1pm and were all pretty tired and worn out by the sun. We cycled around a bit until we found a bike shop where we all planned to get a quick tune up and sort out all the weird noises that had appeared over the past few days. After a quick assessment the lady in the shop gave Ben the bad news that he had gone and completely ruined his drive train and the whole lot would need replacing. Brilliant. Also he may also need part of his crank shaft replacing to get rid of the clunking noise from his pedals. An expensive afternoon for him then. Jack and Tom on the other hand managed to get away with slight adjustments here and there.

We left the bikes with them and went to a chinese noodle buffet thing which was nice. Met some people there who told us that Fairfield was a weird place because lots of people meditate here.....? After Jack had a quick sleep in the restaurant we headed off to the public library to get on the internet and do some stuff. Back to the bike shop in a bit to find out the final damage and then still another 20 odd miles to ride before we have any chance of sleep. And I thought today was going to be a lazy one.