Meet The TagTeam4

[NOTE TO READERS - this journal is written in the third person as if a newspaper is interviewing the Taggart family members. The reality is that Scott Taggart (the father often quoted here) is the author.]

Meet TagTeam4, a family of 4 cyclist/athletes from Roseville, California, who signed up for and are training their way to a week-long summer bicycle ride across IOWA (along with 10,000 other cyclists). Beginning with this journal entry, we'll learn about the Taggarts and how they came to enter this 500-mile ride and how they train for it. We'll post daily journal entries and pictures once they start the ride on July 19 in Iowa. Find out what they'll do for an encore.

Mom and Dad are Julie, 46, and Scott, 52, both naives of the San Francisco Bay Area. Their two sons are Logan, 9, and Austin, 11. Everyone is the family is "reasonably" athletic according to Scott, but nothing extreme. "We have always hiked and ridden our bikes with our sons - they have come to know this as part of their normal activity times with mom and dad," according to Scott.

In this series, TagTeam4 encourage you to follow along with them not only in spirit but in reality. Meet them on a local training ride or hike. They invite you to come with them to RAGBRAI next year. "You can do it. If we can, you can too!" says Julie.

Scott has been actively cycling for the past 15 years. He regularly rides with local cycling groups and does an occasional "century" (a hundred-mile bike ride in one day). "I enjoy the longer rides for both the physical and mental aspects," he says. Last year he was talking cycling with someone at the health club when they mentioned a family-friendly bike ride across Iowa. Intrigued, he went home that night and found the web page for RAGBRAI, short for "The Register's Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa." RAGBRAI is a cycling event started on a lark 36 years ago by a couple of employees at one of Iowa's newspapers. It grew from a few dozen people to a mega event now requiring a lottery to limit the number of entries. Even Lance Armstrong has ridden it.

The more Scott found out about RAGBRAI, the more convinced he was that this would be a perfect Taggart family event. He had been eyeing a family hike across Europe but has shelved that because of the dwindling spending power of the US dollar. RAGBRAI offered some many attractive features - loads of exercise, family-friendly towns, people to greet the cyclists as they arrived, and something everyone in the family could enjoy. And, a "free" cross-country driving trip!

"I signed up for the lottery and made our pre-payment the first night I found the website. I was so excited, I marked the May 1 lottery drawing date on the calendar," beams Scott. He adds it was a challenge to wait for May 1. To his delight, the RAGBRAI organizers sent him an email April 30 announcing that TagTeam4 had made it into RAGBRAI 2008!

"The real work began soon after we got the news we were picked in the lottery," says Scott. The Taggarts immediately began a weekly cycling workout to prepare for the event. Upcoming in this series, we'll learn how the Taggarts train for this type of event, what they eat (and don't), and more about this "average" family of four.

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