Team Writing Riders: Mission accomplished

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By Tory Brecht | Saturday, July 26, 2008 2:21 PM CDT | () comments

We got into LeClaire at 1:30 p.m.

The last 5 miles is three really steep hills, for Iowa. It challenges you at the end.

It was really a cool feeling to come over the hill and see the river. There was a long line of bikers to get their tires in the river.

We got passed by a group of fast riders in blue and white bike jerseys. They were Team Venetto from northern Italy, from the Venice area. They came over through the Iowa Sister Cities program.

It was the first RAGBRAI for Luisa Trigila.

“I think it’s great. You people are so friendly. I’m really impressed,” she said.

She was very excited to see the Mississippi River and the Twilight excursion boat, which she said reminded her of Mark Twain.

She walked down next to the boat and filled her empty water bottle with Mississippi River water and poured it over her bike

I felt a little bit shortchanged from not having done the whole ride, but I felt like I accomplished a lot. The 53 miles was the longest ride I had ever done.

Look for more of Team Riding Writers adventures in Sunday’s Quad-City Times.