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RAGBRAI 2008





Seven Days in Iowa



Two wheels, 471 miles, 51 towns and more pie than a grown man should eat in a week.





Outside of the Great State of Iowa, casually mention "Rag" and "Bry" as one word and you'll often be met with the same kind of blank stare as you'd get by asking George Bush to conjugate a verb. RAGBRAI is well known to serious road bicyclists and to Iowans who've lived there for more than a couple corn harvests, but most others wouldn't have a clue. Even though I was neither a serious "roadie" nor an Iowan, I'd heard of this annual week-long bicycle ride across the state. As for riding it, I never gave it a passing thought. It's a road ride, totally unacceptable to this off-roader. Roads are boring. Pavement....yech. I'd been told it was a rolling 7-day party, but so what? No reason to travel to Iowa just for that, right?


Then I received a call from St. Louis buddy Larry Baerveldt, who asked me to join a RAGBRAI group he'd be riding with this year, The more I learned, the more I decided I needed to participate. Make no mistake, RAGBRAI is roughing it. You ride your bike all day. Forget about 5-star hotels, gourmet meals and towel service. If you're lucky, you'll get indoor plumbing and floor space inside a host family's house. It's July in Iowa. Heat, humidity and thunderstorms are as common as pig farms.


So what is RAGBRAI, and why do so many people participate year after year? What it is, that's fairly easy to answer. Why people do it is a bit more complex. We'll start with the easy part first.



The 2008 Route



From start to finish, the 2008 route was approximately 471 miles, or closer to 500 for those adding the Karras Loop on day two.





this thing called ragbrai



The first RAGBRAI was organized by the Des Moines Register newspaper and attracted 130 riders.



1.





Every year since 1973, the Des Moines Register's Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa has traversed the state from west to east, starting on or near the Missouri River and finishing at the Mississippi River. The ride always takes place during the last full week of July, beginning on Sunday and ending the following Saturday. Riders show up at the starting town on Saturday night and spend the next 7 days riding to a series of overnight towns. A typical RAGBRAI route will take riders through 50 or more communities along the way, most of which are small towns primarily focused on local agriculture. The route changes every year and has traveled through all of Iowa's 99 counties.



2.





Following the first event in 1973, the ride quickly gained cult status within the road bicycling community and participation grew rapidly. Today, the Des Moines Register still organizes the event and limits entries to 10,000 riders. To

put that in perspective, consider Tipton, the final overnight stay during the 2008 version of RAGBRAI. Its population, according to the 2000 U.S. Census, was 3,155. When RAGBRAI rolled into town, it brought its 10,000 registered bike riders and probably another 10,000 support people, food and merchandise vendors and "unofficial" riders and hangers-on who join in the fun without registering for the ride. Very few communities of this size will ever have another single-day event that brings so many people - and their wallets - to their town. Being selected as an overnight town is a coveted honor, but any town which finds itself on the RAGBRAI route map gladly rolls out the red carpet.



3.





Logistically, it's a minor miracle the event happens at all. Camping is the name of the game and each overnight town provides adequate space for thousands of tents.

Athletic fields can only handle a portion of the tent traffic, so riders arriving late often have to be a little creative in locating camping spots. It's not uncommon to see tents scattered all throughout town - in front of libraries, next to fire stations, and in back yards. The RABGRAI entry fee entitles riders to a gear hauling service, where riders place their stuff in a bag in the morning and leave it with one of several gear hauling trucks. The gear is then transported to the next overnight town. While many participants do this, a large number of riders sign up as teams and have their own support vehicles. Many of these vehicles are retired school buses which are converted into bike and gear haulers. Other support vehicles are motor homes of one sort or another. Regardless of how a rider gets his or her stuff to the next town, plenty of space is needed once everyone arrives - a land grab, if you will. The overnight towns must plan in advance for where they're going to put all the people.​



4.





When riders arrive in overnight towns in the afternoon, the first thing on their minds is usually a shower. Or maybe a beer, some pie, and then a shower. Riders on the "regular" RAGBRAI program (i.e. tent camping without their own support vehicle) will find some interesting shower options. Sometimes it's a high school locker room, a car wash with a few bays converted into mass showers, or as pictured here, mobile showers.





5.





After you've cleaned up and set up your tent, usually you're all sweaty again, and mostly hungry. The overnight towns rally to feed the riders. Churches, Boy Scouts, Pork Producers, fire departments, and independent vendors are set up like county fairs, usually centered around town squares. It's not exactly Morton's Steakhouse, or even TGI Friday's, but it's food and there's plenty of it.



6.





After eating, it's Miller Time. Enjoying the evening festivities can be a bit of a gamble, depending on your party mood. You still must wake up and ride the next day. Entertainment comes with every overnight town. Bands, beer gardens, and bars are the name of the game. This is where the locals join in the fun, often coming out in full force to mingle with the RAGBRAI'ers. The evening entertainment usually continues well into the night.



7.





The next morning, riders wake early, pack their belongings and begin the day's ride. By 9:00 a.m., most overnight towns are clear of tents and riders, and the cleanup begins. Even though it's only a one-day event for the towns, the economic impact is huge. I spent at least $50 in every town we slept in, so multiply by that by about 15,000 and you get an idea of what it means to the communities.



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