RAGBRAI: The Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa. The Register is the newspaper the Des Moines Register. That’s who organizes the ride.
This is the 47th year that this ride is being held, but I only heard about it for the first time around 3 years ago. For the longest time I thought people were saying Rag Ride. I wondered what rags had to do with the ride. About 4 months ago I finally saw the acronym in writing. It’s pronounced rag-bri, ending with a long i sound.
My friend Lynn grew up in Iowa, and this ride is a bucket list item for her. She is graciously allowing me to tag along for the adventure. The full ride is one week long. It is always the last full week of July. Riders bike from the western border of the state to the eastern border. The route changes every year. This year it is 427 miles long. The shortest day will be Tuesday at 39 miles. The longest will be Wednesday at 79 miles. The furthest distance I’ve ever ridden in one day? About 30 or so. Am I a little worried? Heck, yeah! But I’m going to do my best to be prepared.
We don’t know for sure that we’ll actually be doing the ride. The ride is capped at 8500 riders, and every year more people than that register. A lottery is held once registration closes to randomly select the 8500. So there is a chance we will not be selected. I have moments when I think that might be a good thing. Ha! We won’t know for sure if we’re picked until May 1st. But we can’t wait until then to start training. You can imagine the old bum needs to be toughened up quite a bit to ride those distances every day for a week! I’ve printed the training schedule that was posted on the RAGBRAI website, and I started the training rides last week. So far so good!
There are eight communities chosen every year as the “overnight communities”. These are the towns where all the riders stop each night. Can you imagine a town hosting over 8500 bicycle riders? I say “over” 8500 riders, because there are also riders who join the ride just for a day or so instead of doing the full week. From what I understand, these communities really get into it and go all out to make the riders feel welcome. Most riders camp in tents overnight. Some camp in RV’s. Others stay in private homes where owners are kind enough to play host. We plan to camp in an RV. Lynn’s brother has an RV he is being kind enough to let us use, and her husband has agreed to be our driver.
SO…the plans are in place and we are preparing ourselves! Now we just need to hear whether or not we make the lottery pick. I’ll be posting updates on how things are progressing every so often.
The deadline for week-long rider registration is April 1, 2019. So if this ride sounds like something you would like to do, there’s still time to sign up!
This post linked to the GRAND Social and #MLSTL