Team Cornpone Put on a Particularly Well Attended, Fine April Fool's Ride!

Lord, were people dressed up for the April Fool's Bike Ride between Brandon and La Porte City north of Cedar Rapids! It's an annual event sponsored by Team Cornpone. You wear blaze orange for the Fool's Ride and camouflage in the fall for the SLOOF Ride, which is Fool's spelled backwards.

The Team Cornpone couple I noticed the most was dressed to kill. They used to keep their outfits simple in keeping with their cornpone image, but not this year. She had dyed her husband a felt/suede suit in blaze orange, pants and jacket, and someone wrote on the back. He wore a short, curly, orange wig and kept smoking a cigarette, which I kept trying to get him to take out of his mouth before I took photos. I was only half successful.

His wife was thin and a good dancer. She had on pencil jeans and fuzzy, blaze orange calf coverings, also two little pigtails sticking straight up out of the top of her head like a Dr. Seuss character.  

The few Team Bedwetters I met had to be anomalous, I thought at first. Their team name is so contrary, though comical, to the macho names of past RAGBRAI teams like Team Big and Team Stiff. On the other hand, some of the early RAGBRAI teams, the ones that were banned for bad behavior after repeated warnings, were Team Gumby, Team Cucumber, and the Cheddarheads. So maybe they were ahead of their time and the non-macho names are coming back, hopefully without the objectionable behavior.

I know that Team Gumby came back in disguise, though a Gumby denied to me, of course, that he was in disguise. I think the Cheddarheads might be gone for good. Years ago on RAGBRAI I had trouble with a drunken Cheddarhead at a farm at the top of a hill between the famously arduous headwind journey between Victor and Belle Plaine, or Belle Plaine and Victor. I had a wedding ring on and two little children with me at the time, but he was darned persistent.

Anyway, Jim and I had a good time on the Fool's Ride. He rode while I waited. I tipped the band for their excellence, as did many others, and tapped time to the music with my cane until I got too tired to stay. It wasn't that I wanted to leave. The band was that good. I hope you get a chance to hear them soon: Bryce Janey from Cedar Rapids. They're worth listening to, and inviting to your next party or bike ride.