DRAFT Magazine

I figured it was a good time to pack up the bike and grab the first shuttle outta Dodge because THE ENTIRE CITY OF MILWAUKEE IS UNDER WATER.

The Great Milwaukee Flood of 2010 chose a really bad time to hit one day before I departed to Iowa for the legendary Register’s Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa, aka RAGBRAI.

I spent 15 hours yesterday gutting our completed soaked first floor, including all of our carpeting and dining room floor. Check out freaking insane video of a city street turned into a Class III rapids in front of popular liquor store Otto’s.

The good news is after all that, a beer has never tasted sweeter.

Fortunately, we had friends and family come to our rescue, and we’re safe and sound. My wife, 12-week old daughter and I will be staying with my in laws for the forseeable future, and now there’s nothing to do but hope the fans and dehumidifiers work their magic while we wait for the place to dry out completely.

There will be plenty of work ahead, but for now RAGBRAI will be a welcome diversion for awhile. If it ever stops raining.

For the uninitiated, RAGBRAI is a massive week long party on wheels that rolls through Iowa each year. Beer, burgers, homemade pie, fresh corn on the cob and conveyor belts of pancakes power some 15,000 of cyclists from the Missouri River to the Mississippi River. It is a traveling circus that just happens to be surrounded by corn fields and pig pens.

I rode four days of it a few years ago and was blown away not just by the size and scope of the event, but by the amount of beer consumed. Today will be no exception.

This morning our Shuttle Guy bus gets into Sioux City for Day 1 and the expo, and to kick things off Tim Hynds from the Sioux City Journal was kind enough to write a beer guide for all the visiting cyclists. That’s how you get RAGBRAI started right.

On the ride, several teams get custom jerseys and give themselves a beer-theme team name. It’s my goal to be on the lookout for them all week and blog about it daily here.

Jeff of Team Beer Me

It didn’t take me long to find one during our 10-hour bus ride from Chicago to Sioux City. My seatmate,Jeff, will be experiencing RAGBRAI for the first time via Team Beer Me. They made Fat Tire their unofficial sponsor and logo.

(Random side note: Jeff is from Fighting Irish football hero Rudy Ruettiger’s hometown of Joliet, Ill., and his dad wrote Rudy — you know, that Rudy — a recommendation letter to get into Notre Dame. These are the kinds of stories you hear on RAGBRAI.)

I’ll post here daily, but if you want to get updates from me throughout the day, follow @thebeerrunner on twitter.

See you in Iowa.