TOUR OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER VALLEY

JUNE 7-8 2008

Some commonly asked questions

If are a first time rider or thinking about riding TOMRV, you may have some questions that are not answered in the ride brochure and application. I will try to field the most commonly asked ones here.

How hard is TOMRV?

It is safe to say that TOMRV challenges every rider every year. Being a two day tour with good milage and challenging terrain, there is opportunity for riders at any level to find challenge. Additionally the tour is early in the summer, and seasonal riders are not at their summer peak.

If you enjoy accomplishing long distances on your bike, then TOMRV is an excellent way to try a longer tour. You will have the advantages of a well tuned route, other riders to ride with and good food and drink supplied on the route. You will want to get some good riding in before the tour. This is not a race, so find your pace and enjoy.

Registering

Most riders sign up for the ride fairly early. The main reason for applying early is to get a room at Clarke College, rather than the less convenient Loras College. We provide a free shuttle to and from Loras, a 1 mile drive to make up for the inconvenience.

If you decide to sign up later, go ahead and send in the application as long as it will arrive by May 24. After this, you can sign up at packet pickup. You can either bring in your application or fill out one of ours at packet pickup. (And bring a check!) We have never had a rider limit, so we won't turn you away.

You can register for TOMRV at http://www.active.com. There is a fee (variable, but usually between $6 and $7) that goes to active.com for the online registration service. To offset this we have discounted the registration fee by $5 when you register on active.com. So you may register online for about the same cost as mailing an application.

Changing your registration

You may decide to change the particulars of your registration. This is usually easy to do. Here are some common change requests, and how to get them done.

Change your dorm room request - To add a room to your registration, Email or call the registrar with your request. Mail a check for additional funds, to the registrar, including your name and exactly what you are adding or changing.

Change your start from Bettendorf to Preston, or vice versa - Save this for Friday registration. Take your luggage tag to the fix-it table and swap your luggage tag.

Add a jersey to your registration - You can wait for Friday registration, but your size may be sold out. Another way - Mail a check with the Jersey cost to the registrar, including your name and the size for your Jersey. If it is the last couple weeks before the tour, or if you wear an uncommon size, call or email the registrar to be sure your size is available.

Additional banquet tickets - You just purchase extra banquet tickets at the doors to the banquet.

Suites

For some riders, the real prize is getting a suite at Clarke. Unlike the other dormitory rooms, the suites are air conditioned, and provide several rooms adjoining with a common bath. This makes them desirable for large groups of friends, and on hot years the air conditioning is a real plus. The suites rent quickly, so quickly that we reserve them to mail-in registrations, and ask you to call the registrar to check availability if you are not signing up right after the registration opens.

Loras and the Shuttle

We field more riders than Clarke College can house, so we also rent the dormitories at neighboring Loras College. We run a shuttle between Clarke and Loras. This year the shuttle will leave Clarke right on the half hour all afternoon. Knowing this, you can time your trip to Loras without standing around at the shuttle stop a lot.

Although the colleges are a mile apart by road, they are actually just a couple blocks apart. We will have the walking route marked for you this year, so you can get between the Colleges more easily.

Camping

On the other end of accomodations is tent camping. You can tent camp a part or your entire stay at TOMRV. There is tent camping for no charge on the grounds at Scott Community College and at Preston on Friday before the ride. This is a low impact quiet affair. If you use this, be sure to respect the property and leave your site clean.

There is also camping on the grounds at Clark College, and there is a $12 charge for this. You are entitled to use the dormitory showers as a camper, and a towel is provided.

Many people camp right off Clarke Drive, but be warned that you may be awakened in the night by horn honking drivers. Clarke College is just a couple blocks from the high school. The security at Clarke generally keeps the offenders away, but Clarke Drive is a public street. I often camp, and I prefer to set up on the hill behind the tennis courts where it is always quiet.

Motels on Friday evening

There is a link to the motels in the area around Scott Community College on the TOMRV home page. Every year people ask which is the closest motel to the ride start. You can see from the map that it is a close call, but the closest motel by perhaps a minute driving time is the Holiday Inn on Middle road, listed on that home page link. You can stay at the Holiday Inn in LeClaire. This on the route at 8.3 miles, so you might arrange to leave your car at the motel over the weekend and have no driving to the start at all.

If you are starting from Preston, you can get a motel in nearby Maquoketa Iowa, or you can stay in Bettendorf and drive up to Preston on Saturday morning.

The banquet

When you ask a TOMRV rider about the ride, you will probably hear about the banquet. This is a truely wonderful dinner after a hard day on the road. There are dozens of delicious foods to choose from and all that you will want to eat. The banquet starts at 4 p.m. and runs until 8:30 p.m. So you can plan when to drop in. Your wristband admits you to the banquet. If you have non-riding friends, they can buy banquet tickets at the door.

This year, the banquet will include vegan fare as well as traditional. The serving dishes will be marked for you.

What clothing to bring

Spring in the Midwest is a variable time, sometimes warm, sometimes hot, and sometimes cold. Although warm to hot is most common, in 2006 we had temps in the 40s with strong headwind and rain on Saturday morning. It was foolhardy to ride without good protection for cold and rain.

When preparing for the tour, you want to bring clothing for a range of conditions. When you actually start the ride, you can select those you will need.

Eat on the ride

A tour the length of TOMRV has a fundamental difference between riding of lesser distance: your body cannot carry enough readily available energy to finish, and eating along the route is necessary to finish. I adhere to the principle of eating carbs every hour. This means eating both at the stops and on the road between stops.

See the chart below to get an idea how much energy you will use on TOMRV. Also note that while the human body carries many thousands of calories in fat tissue, the body can only use fat at a maximum rate of 160-300 calories per hour, and 200 calories per hour is typical. So depending on your size and cycling speed, you need to consistently eat carbohydrates to make up the difference. You can't get around it. If you don't eat enough easily digestable food on the ride, expect to bonk when your shortfall reaches 1,500 to 2,000 calories. That is the amount of glycogen stored in your body.

Using the chart below, I expect to use 704 calories per hour on TOMRV. Figuring fat burn at 200 calories per hour, I need 504 calories of carbohydrates each hour that I ride. If I eat less than 300 calories an hour, my glycogen will run out before Dubuque. My speed will then slow way down, due to lack of fuel.

Calories Burned During Exercise

Activity (1 hour)	130 lbs	155 lbs	190 lbs
Bicycling, 10-11.9mph, light effort	354	422	518
Bicycling, 12-13.9mph, moderate effort	472	563	690
Bicycling, 14-15.9mph, vigorous effort	590	704	863
Bicycling, 16-19mph, very fast, racing	708	844	1035

Reference: http://www.nutristrategy.com/activitylist.htm

Drink on the ride

Along with eating enough, you must drink enough. When the temperature goes up your body can lose one to two quarts an hour while riding. While being two quarts down is not dangerous, it materially reduces your ride speed. Dehydration also makes you susceptible to leg cramps.

You will want to drink well at stops, especially as the temperature gets high. You will also want to carry water with you to drink between the stops.

What if I am unable to finish?

TOMRV riders are a tough lot, and few are willing to quit even when the going is tough. If you have adequate clothing, food and water, you will finish unless a health or bike catastrophe occurs.

But every year a few riders have to bag it, generally due to real health concerns. We run a sweep at the back of the ride and pick up bicycles and riders who cannot complete the day. This is not a lot of riders, and this is a slow way to get to Dubuque.

Route safety

We all know that cycle touring is a hazardous sport. An advantage of TOMRV is that the route is carefully selected and checked for safety each year. We are committed to a safe tour. We check each year for road construction, drive the route each year, and post warning signs where we find a forseeable hazard.

That said, we cannot guarantee that you will not encounter hazards on the road. You must be alert and cautious when vehicles are around, and must ride within the road conditions. You are responsible for your safety on the tour.

Riding responsibly

This is my plea to you the rider to ride responsibly. There is a tendency for riders to engage in riding practices on a large group ride where cyclists impede traffic on the more heavily traveled roads. This results in angry motorists who may then engage in rude or aggressive driving, stop and confront riders, or call the county sheriff.

There is bound to be some inconvenience to the daily users of the roads, but some rider practices abuse the right to the road and make a real problem.

Riding multiple abreast - riders enjoy talking while riding, leading them to ride abreast. State laws ban this practice when it impedes traffic.
Echelon riding - a practice where in a side-wind riders pace to the left of the bicycle in front. This brings the trailing bicycles well out into the lane.
Double pace lines - where cyclists ride two abreast in a pace line.
Long pace lines where slower cyclists are continuously being passed. This also impedes traffic.

These riding practices come from a belief in the cyclists that because of the tour, they have extra privledges on the road. This is most emphatically not the case. We share the roads with all users as a common. State laws allow cyclists to share the roads with the requirement that they ride toward the right and don't unduly impede traffic. The sheriffs in each county regulate this use. If they decide we cannot operate a safe tour, then can stop the tour for good. I really hate getting calls from the sheriffs or the highway patrols.