91-year-old Minnesota Man Gears Up for 420 Mile Ride Across Iowa UPDATED
91-year-old Minnesota Man Gears Up for 420 Mile Ride Across Iowa
GRAND RAPIDS, Minn. ― Bob Wagner wastes little fourth dimension when asked what could entice a 91-yr-sometime to pedal his 35-pound Trek 2700 road bike 420 miles beyond Iowa in the dead of summertime.
"Utilize it or lose it," Wagner said last Thursday afternoon from his chaotic, cozy apartment. "I remember that's very important, both intellectually and physically."
And so the former high school educator, ambassador and coach busies himself biking, jogging, volunteering and, in the winter, cross-country skiing. He looks it, too. Wagner is trim, nimble.
"He has five kids, and I'm sure he's in the best shape of all of us," his daughter, Beth (Wagner) Simmer, said by phone last week.
Wagner will need all the concrete fitness he can muster equally he embarks on the 44th RAGBRAI, an annual bike ride across the Hawkeye Land that was hatched past a pair of Des Moines Annals reporters in 1973. This yr's trek begins Sunday in Glenwood and concludes July 30 in Muscatine. The 420-mile route beyond southern Iowa's rolling hills is the third-shortest in upshot history.
This will be Wagner's 5th RAGBRAI. His concluding big tuneup was a seven-hour, 76-mile ride July nine. He felt strong, fix.
"The only challenge could exist if it gets really hot," Wagner, originally from Treynor, Iowa, said.
He and his late married woman of 63 years, MaryAnne, who died in 2012, retired to Grand Rapids in the mid-2000s. Wagner, typically, kept working. He served every bit a substitute instructor there until a few years ago.
More than 10,000 will participate next week in the "oldest, largest and longest bike touring event in the world," according to the RAGBRAI website. Wagner will ride alongside his son-in-law, Frank Dahn. Both will rely on the support of the North Iowa Touring Club, which sets up campsite nightly in host towns and offers assistance throughout.
The longest leg is 75.2 miles, on Mon.
"I'chiliad a little worried about that i," Wagner said.
But he's put in the seat time, gradually increasing his mileage. This jump, l miles, to Pengilly and dorsum, would leave Wagner "pooped." Not anymore.
"He's an amazing guy; he just keeps going," the 70-year-old Dahn of Lake Mills, Iowa, said, admitting that Wagner is probably better prepared than he is. Told nearly his male parent-in-police's contempo 76-miler, Dahn's response said information technology all.
"Oh, man," he groaned.
Wagner strikes you equally the kind of guy who, when he says he'southward going to do something, he's going to do it.
"He's stubborn," Simmer said.
A Navy man, he served in the Pacific Theater from 1942-45, but received a sole-survivorship discharge later on his two brothers, Richard and Egbert, were killed during World War II. Wagner got out in July 1945, a calendar month before the U.South. dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He returned to civilian life to begin a career in instruction that lasted until 1985.
Simply Wagner wasn't ready to while away his aureate years quite yet. He instead sold annuities in the financial services industry until 2011, when he retired "a 2d time."
Thursday, under a gray sky that spat a few sprinkles and helped to produce unseasonably cool temps in the Northland, Wagner took his wheel for a spin that doubled as a brief photo shoot. He pedaled effortlessly, with little excess movement. Occasionally, he stood alpine, driving downwards into the pedals, his lime-green windbreaker clinging to his chest. Wagner was wearing tan loafers that could have passed every bit slippers.
Back inside his apartment, he was asked if those were his riding shoes. Looking dubious, he retreated to his chamber and retrieved his regulars. Another pair of loafers, only a darker brown and more weathered. Any works.
"He can wear whatsoever he wants to wear," Dahn, prepping for what he believes volition exist his 9th cross-state bike trip, joked.
Wagner's terminal RAGBRAI was a decade ago. That has been the normal menses of time between participating for him. So why do information technology again? Why at present?
"Well, I wanted to do it 1 more time," he says, smiling. "In 10 years, I'll be 101, and I don't call back and then."
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91-year-old Minnesota Man Gears Up for 420 Mile Ride Across Iowa UPDATED
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