Sooooo doing RAGBRAI this year!
Ooo, I may have found my first official cycling event with my road bike!
Awesome pick-up line! (???)
Do you guys know what RAGBRAI is?
Ha, if you do, don’t worry – I am not thinking of cycling the whole thing!
RAGBRAI is an acronym for the Register’s Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa. It’s a non competitive biking event that started in 1973 when two writers for the Des Moines Register decided to bike across Iowa, invited readers to join them, and wrote about it during the event. It’s grown each year, and now it’s a week long event, that includes a start point (at the Missouri River) and an end point (at the Mississippi River) and six overnight stops in between. It maxes out at 8,500 week riders and 1,500 day riders (but so many ride without registering). The total route varies between 400-500 miles each year, with varying distances between stops, and a different route each year.
And, oh man, it is not all about exercise and health for everyone – this article (pdf here) from last year still cracks me up, about cyclists gaining weight due to all the yummy foods at the stops! If there is a RAGBRAI stop in your town, tons of money is coming in, and the communities set up for the cyclists! Check out this quote from that article:
Every 10 miles or so, cyclists pass through a small Iowa town, where churches, restaurants and ad hoc vendors line the streets to tempt bikers with homemade pie, buttered corn on the cob and pork chops. Those three delicacies comprise the “Holy Grail of Ragbrai,” says T.J. Juskiewicz, the event’s director.
Ha ha, sounds awesome, right?! Um, well, maybe some dry corn for me!
RAGBRAI is a paaaaaaaaaaaaaaar-tay. Yep, worth all those extra As. I have heard some crazy stories about the overnight stops.
But! I am thinking of just doing one day of the ride (no overnight stops).
My mom texted me this weekend to tell me the end point is in Guttenberg this year, where her mother lives! That is the spot of my first RAGBRAI experience, back in 2005! I remember thinking how neat it was to watch all the cyclists come in, and I especially enjoyed their funny team names!
I am soooooo in this year. I am just working on convincing my sister’s fiancé, Will, to ride it with me (and maybe some other family members, too?), then I am registering us! I hope we get in. It’s lottery based for the week long event, but I think day passes are first come first serve.
Ha ha, just kidding. Will just got his trainer as an early birthday gift on Monday! We need those trainers for winter riding.
We are looking at the last leg, from Independence to Guttenberg. Only 68 miles. HA! Some will be hilly… we can do eeeet!
Have you done RAGBRAI? Would you do a week long cycling event?! Maybe just a day?
Themocracy
I’ve driven across Iowa twice, so that’s practically the same thing.
Sounds cool, especially if you can end close to your Grandma’s house!
This sounds awesome! !! I’m vacation time poor, but if I had enough, I wiuld love it so much
The hubby and I wanted to sign up in November for the lottery, but I didn’t know my job situation so we opted out with the hope of doing the entire thing next summer!!! I would LOVE to do it!!!
Hope y’all get in!!
I first heard about it 11 years ago when my husband and I started dating. he’s from Iowa, so when we went to visit his parents and they found out I was a runner they kept asking if I did this ragbrai thing… I was like what are they talking about?! It looks amazing, but I think it would kill me!
One of the guys I went to HS with did this race recently and posted daily recaps on FB – it looked SO FUN.
68 miles is A LOT! And this looks like so much fun! Jay and I would totally do it with you if we lived closer. Awesome!
I rode 65 miles on my mountain bike two summers ago and made it through that (painfully) so I am thinking the road bike will be SO MUCH better! 🙂
I’ve definitely hear of RAGBRAI 🙂 When I first started looking at road bikes someone immediately mentioned that I should do it someday. That would be so fun if you would get in!! 🙂
We’re both registered for day 7! 🙂
That will be so much fun!! I’ve heard so many great things about RAGBRAI!
I WANT TO COME!! Don’t mind me, just inviting myself.
LOL! Don’t you want me to preview it, first? I just saw the day we are doing has over 3K elevation. WOO HOO! HILL TRAINING!
Whatever. It’s the same as riding in Lake County, I’m sure 😉
True true true! There are LOTS of good hills to train on in LC!!!
haha you might be in for a surprise then!
That sounds like a really awesome ride! I’ve never been to Iowa though.
The longest ride I’ve done was 2 days, which totaled 115 miles total. It’s actually a Friday evening, all day Saturday, Sunday morning ride. I was wiped out after 100 miles on Saturday. This was the Amish Land and Lakes ride in Northern Indiana. It’s an awesome ride and most of it is pretty flat. It was the first time I had ridden 100 miles in one ride on my bike.
That sounds like a lot of fun, but yeah, totally exhausting. I can’t imagine doing all 7 days of this! 🙂
Thanks! I love the colors of our bikes, too 🙂
Oh ya, forgot to add that I love your yellow bike and Will’s Trek. I have a boring white bike with black lettering.
My lady parts cringed just thinking about being on a bike for that long.
Ha ha ha! You don’t have diaper-esque bike shorts?
A girlfriend of mine did the full week last year and said it was the time of her life. We talked about getting a group together for this year, but she will be 8 months pregnant when it rolls around so hopefully next year I’ll be there. It looks like a hoot, but I’m not much of a biker so now I’ve got time to build up my bike tolerance.
You’ll have a blast.
Aww, Britt! I love hearing that you are thinking about it, and the whole dang week! I hope you two get to do it! I do think we’ll have fun, the one day we do! 🙂
Funny–when I was growing up my Dad always did the GOBA (Great Ohio Bicycle Adventure). I thought the name sounded so goofy. 🙂 (but he always had a blast*!)
(*to the best of my knowledge, my Dad did not PAAAARTY)
GOBA! Ha! Love the silly acronyms. Is that one still around?
This sounds like a freaking blast. Hills? Gasp!
Oh man. Yeah, I am not sure there is a way to get in to Guttenberg that is not hilly. If there is, I haven’t found it in my car. And if it’s a bad hill in your car… check it out, day 7 – we have the most climb. Ha! http://ragbrai.com/routemaps/2014-route-maps/
Okay, that is a VERY sexy Trek! I have a trek and it is more “cute”.
One of these days, I’d really love to do a multi-day ride. But I would like support, please!
Enjoy your training, especially once you transition outside.
Sigh. His Trek. So dreamy.
Yeah, this one has support, from what I understand! And I just looked at the elevation climb – day 7 (our day) has the most – 3073′! That is a lot for us midwesterners. Can’t wait to train for those hills 😉
That sounds like an awesome ride! Especially since you can choose which sections you want to do! And the vendors to tempt you… Lol
I actually knew what RAGBRAI was before this post!!! Some of my cousins and an uncle on my dad’s side – who grew up in the Quad Cities or eastern Iowa – have done RAGBRAI. No idea if any of them did the whole thing or just part of it, but I’ve heard them throw around the name.
Aww, cool! Did they love it?!
how much fun! I saw you do a few days of it!
What a neat ride!! I don’t know if I could do any length of cycling, let alone a week! I heard there is a neat race called Le Tour de Shore from Chicago to the Dunes where I grew up…or did you tell me about this race?!
I didn’t tell you about that race, but someone was telling us! Was it Erin? That sounds really neat!
How fun!!!! I remember when RAGBRAI came through both my dad’s hometown and my hometown when I was little. I remember the huge parties at night with fun bands and watching everyone ride out in the morning with the fun costumes and helmets. Definitely a fun Iowa thing to do. So jealous that you’re doing it–I’ve wanted to give it a try for years but I’m not much of a cyclist. 🙂
Aww, what town is that? 🙂 I can’t wait to see all the costumes and crazy! Do you think you will do a leg of it sometime? You could train if you wanted to become more of a cyclist!
My hometown is Marion, and they went through in like 92 or 93…somewhere in there. My dad’s from Shenandoah, way down in southwest Iowa, and we drove down for the big celebration. It was a lot of time. RAGBRAI is something I’d love to do someday (like many Iowans, I think :)), but I’d probably need to buy a bike first… 😉
Matt and I have talked about doing Ragbrai some year. I would love to do the whole week. I know a couple people who have done it but they did a lot of partying and I know my body would not be able to handle that.
I remember Ragbrai coming through my hometown once a few years ago. I had to help at a stand and we sold breakfast items. There were so many bikers!
Looks like day 7 will be a doozy! I wouldn’t expect anything else from northeastern Iowa.
Matt and I did a metric century this fall that had 5.5k ft of climbing. Ouch. It’s a good thing it was windy so I couldn’t hear him cursing my name as we rode up all the hills.
Hey, at least you were able to ride all those hills and didn’t have to walk anything… um… right?
I hope you guys get to do it some year! Minus all the partying. I don’t think I could take the party, either!
I am so jealous, Ragbrai is on my bucket list! It looks like a blast.
Awesome! I have some family members that have done parts of RAGBRAI and they loved it. It sounds like fun!