Iowa Mission #3 accomplished with desired effects.

Saturday night I was absorbed by a very special film that my cousin talked about. I stayed up very late watching America America. I checked the clock after being mesmorized by this film and the needles indicated 1am in the morning. I soon realized that I had to get up at 4am to meet the Slender Fungus at undisclosed location on the wonderful state of Iowa. 
I closed my eyes and in an instant the alarm started to beep. I jumped out of bed with fear of falling asleep again. I made coffee, ate toast, threw my stuff in the car, bike in the back of the Bu-bu and I was on my way. It took a long-long time for he sun to come out. I arrived around 7:30 am for th scheduled 8:00 a.m Start. I got ready and the rest of the crew started to show up:
Cookie (on his Mariachi Steel singlespeed)
Bonk King (Titus Ti Mountain bike)
T.J.  ( All City Spacehorse)
Gumby (Gary Fisher Presidio)
Rob   (Custom Salsa Vaya)
Self  (Salsa Selma singlespeed)

We made off after some blessings and we started to cruise down a two laner that would put us on gravel. We enjoyed each others company and got caught up with all the happenings.  I had mapped out a ride and made a couple of mistakes but soon enough got back on track. 
At the middle point we all assembled and Bonk King started the 20 mile trek back to the truck.  Gumby and T.J. peeled off after a little while also. They had a 50 miler in mind and had accomplished that. 
Cookie, Rob and self headed north and this is where the large hills were. The Singlespeed started to wear on us and the hills got tougher. We did some hiking up some steep hills, Walked up a mud road where we found a surprised cyclist. 
Rob later called it a day at a town we came into. Cookie and I continued with our plan to do 85 miles on the singlespeeds. This section is where I started to Bonk and Bonk and Bonk and Cramp and wanting to barf and Bonk. 
I died and came back, died and came back. My partner started to run out of gas. We walked the hills and laughed of how trashed we were feeling. Nothing brought us back to life. No stinking gels, no water, no elite. 
I called out all systems down, complete failure. So we scraped up our egos and finally made the last hill. Everything was hurting me at this point. My hands were cramping trying to hold the handlebars. I dreamt of my Black Mountain Cycles with its shiny triple, my Salsa Scandium with a compact. I cursed my heavy 29er tires I picked out of garbage. 
We made it back to the car, changed and hit a Subway for food. We cruised home and still felt the cramps crawling in our legs. 
The ride was fantastic. That was our target and we achieved it. We destroyed ourselves and learned a lot. We were lucky to have such a group. Kudos to Rob for driving from Springfield, IL to ride with us. Bonk King, you rock. T.J. and Gumby: I was really happy to see the Rango roll up with you guys. I deeply thank my beautiful wife for sending me out there. 

best, 
Ari 

Our little bike gang.

left to right. Cookie, Gumby,T.J.,Self, Rob

Cookie Singlespeeding to Heaven.

The Map said: Bituminous Road. At any rate it sucked the blood out of us.

Just in case you are into pretty sights.

Slender Fungus Cycling Association 
 These are our numbers off our cheap cyclo-computers:
85 miles for distance
11.7 mph for average
7 hours 16 minutes for ride time. 
46 mph my Max (singlespeed 29er)
No heartrate, no stinking zones, Watts unknown.
We just Bonked Hard!