Day 6 was a shorter day, if you can say that about a sixty-mile ride. We started early, but rode with crowds anyway. We passed through the overnight town, Sigourney, and by the main RAGBRAI camp on our way out of the Brancel camp. This was the only day that happened. The only “good” thing about it was the chance to visit Kybos in town with no lines, since the lines at camp had been particularly obnoxious.

We stopped in Keota for Chris Cakes (again) at the fire station, which were just as good as the previous day, but $2 more expensive. Apparently the host town or organization gets to set the price. We had hoped to stop in Kalona at the beer garden hosted by Kalona Brewing Company, but it was absolutely packed. We chose to pedal on to the next town.

Riverside, Iowa is the future birthplace of a certain James Tiberius Kirk. You can read the story here. Riverside was celebrating the arrival of RAGBRAI in a city park, complete with an Enterprise model:

I took some photos and we found the beer garden, where I chose the refreshing First Press from CIDERBOYS. Apparently this brand is widely available in the Midwest, but I have sadly never seen it in Colorado.

We were looking for the Iowa Corn RV in Riverside, but it was actually just outside of town. Ethan stopped (it had been too good the previous day), but the rest of us missed it.

We also stopped in Hills (it wasn’t that hilly) for pie and huge pieces of grilled chicken–and bluegrass–at the local community center. This propelled us into our campsite near Iowa City despite the minor headwind.

Brancel provided drinks, popcorn, and entertainment for our last night of camping. Swing Crew was a fun band.

We then hiked about a mile towards town to a Hy-Vee grocery store. There we had one of the nicest dinners of the week. They had deli food, pizza, Chinese food, and an extensive salad bar. The food was fresh and inexpensive, and they had a seating area with TVs, air conditioning, power outlets, WiFi, and a full bar (Brancel had met our bar needs, so we didn’t take advantage of this, but a full bar in grocery store?).

I was exhausted after the walk back–I guess that’s what six long days of cycling and dealing with lots of people will do to you.