Day 25: Brooklyn, IA - Mitchellville, IA

Time: 5:47:43

Distance: 112.07km

Average Speed: 19.3km/h

The hills have started again. For the first time in over a week we spent the majority of the day going up and down hills. The weather has improved and the sun never stopped shining all day. The roadkill has been replaced by yellow butterflies. We passed through Grinnell, a college town to eat. Next to the place we were eating the one bike shop we saw all day was closed due to RAGBRAI (Register's Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa). I think the shop owner was probably taking part. RAGBRAI is is a non-competitive bicycle ride across Iowa that has about 10000-15000 people taking part. Lance Armstrong took part in stages of the 2006, 2007 and 2008 event. We had a feeling we might get puntures after we saw the closed bike shop. We only had 1 tube left and the day you go to a closed shop to buy tubes is the day you always get a puncture. In the end both Ryan's front and back tires punctured today. We used our 1 remaining tube and I managed to patch up another. We're out of spare tubes now and it's unlikely a bike shop will be open on a Sunday. We have 2 patches left so hopefully we should be ok tomorrow. Tonight we're camping in the Thomas Mitchell Park just outside Des Moines.