| Everybody here has heard of RAGBRAI and many of us have ridden RAGBRAI, so I won't try to describe it. But I finally got around to participating this summer in what one rider called the "organized chaos" of the Des Moines Register's Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa. I came back with a head full of impressions of this event, a load of photos, and 492 miles under my belt for the week. |
- It was like being a member of a medieval army that forages its way across the landscape. RAGBRAI doesn't have an organized meal plan, and counts on the riders to buy from restaurants, church breakfasts and dinners, roadside snack stands, grocery stores and gas stations along the way. We left behind us a trail of emptied ATMs, exhausted store clerks, and depleted restaurants ("I'm sorry sir, we're all out of pasta" became a sad and steady refrain).
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- We also crashed the cell-phone systems in every town we passed through. The systems may be built to handle, say, 300 calls at one time, and were unprepared for an army of cyclists flipping open their cell phones to send pictures home.
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- Day 1: It's unseasonably cool for late July, about 62 degrees, overcast, drizzling, and people are standing in a long line to buy ice cream. Welcome to RAGBRAI.
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- It doesn't matter if you need to use a porta-potty. If you're walking by a set of them, and see a short line, get in line anyway. It was sort of like the gas lines of the 1970s -- you don't know when the next chance will be. Stores and restaurants that wanted to attract our business have learned to post signs along the road advertising "Real Bathrooms!" and "Indoor Bathrooms!".
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- By the end of Day 1 people tired of standing in lines for the porta-potties (called "Kybos" in Iowa) would discreetly stop by the roadside and burrow into the rows of corn for a bathroom stop. By Day 3 they settle for simply pulling over to the side of the road. I noticed that as we go east, more of the cornfields have barbed-wire fences around them. This may or may not be a coincidence.
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- There's some ill feeling between cyclists and Madison County, where a cyclist was hit by a driver and the authorities declined to prosecute. The county put up big signs at the county line saying the roads are not suitable for cycling, hence, they have no legal responsibility. In return, there was talk of RAGBRAI riders boycotting all vendors in Madison County. But with at least four stops in the county, it's hard to go through with eating or drinking something.
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- I did not see anybody in Madison County who looked like Meryl Streep. Nobody.
- I ate more quarter-pieces of apple, cherry and strawberry-rhubarb pie than I have eaten in decades. I still came back the same weight as when I started. Is Iowa a great state or what?
- Everything on RAGBRAI costs at least a dollar. Pint bottle of water? A dollar. Shuttle bus ride into town? A dollar. It's amazing how fast you can go through $400 in cash.
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- People in Florida said "You're going to Iowa? Isn't that flat?" People in Iowa said "You're from Florida - isn't that flat?" Neither one is true. This year's route was across the southern tier of Iowa, sometimes called the Iowa Alps. The hills were about like those in northern Gadsden County, rolling farm country and the occasional deep gullies. We started our first day on a two-mile climb out of the Missouri River valley from Council Bluffs. We ended on a flat run into Burlington that suddenly turned into roller-coaster hills overlooking the river.
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- Asphalt cracks, but Iowa has something more insidious: roads made of concrete slabs that shift and creep, sometimes leaving a crack along the center of the road. Several cyclists met sudden disaster when they allowed the front wheel to drift into one of these cracks. After crossing about 20 miles of rough pavement enroute to Mount Pleasant, we passed a sign that warned "Rough Road." We nominated that as the most useless sign of the week.
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- We were serenaded every night by the Burlington Northern-Santa Fe main line, with an occasional coda by Amtrak. I found that to be kind of soothing. Amtrak, by the way, missed what could have been a great marketing opportunity if they had arranged to accommodate a load of cyclists from Burlington to Council Bluffs for the start, or for the end of the ride. RAGBRAI routes are varied from year to year, so it will be years before they have a similar chance.
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- By the time we reached Burlington we had been on the road for a week. But I'd become so delighted with this rolling army of cyclists that I wouldn't have minded if we had kept going for several more days. It was a blast.
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