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KANSAS BOB: RAGBRAI IS ABOUT PEOPLE....LOTS OF PEOPLE
Kansas Bob
July 18, 2008
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Before each ride, I find myself rooting around in my cycling drawer, looking for the perfect jersey for the day ahead. I usually reach for my old blue and white RAGBRAI one (this is only partially due to the fact that I’ve outgrown all of my other ones). Inevitably someone on the ride asks: “What is RAGBRAI? Have you ridden it? What does it mean?”
RAGBRAI is, to the uninitiated, the Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa. It was founded by two of the Des Moines Registers’ writers, John Karras and Don Kaul, in 1973. Who would have thought that RAGBRAI would keep going and growing all these years. This is year number 36. It is now recognized as the oldest, longest, and largest bicycle tour anywhere.
I’d heard of the event from a lot of my friends, who have been riding it from the beginning, but had always worried that I couldn’t ride 450-550 miles over a seven-day period. There have been many times that I couldn’t ride that far in a month! It seemed like a giant hurdle that would take more dedication to training than I had ever mustered.
In the mid 90s, at the urging of my buddy, Dan Caplan of Kansas City, I realized I wasn’t getting any younger and I better find out what this funny sounding ride was all about. Our group for that particular ride included RAGBRAI veterans: Bicycle racers Nan Gatewood and Judy Hudson, Kay Oyler, and Danny with his wife Puongtip. All of them mentored me on the fine points of RAGBRAI tradition, but Nan was the one that rode with me every inch of the way to make sure that I survived.
The first order of business each day was looking for the best food to get us started, and Iowans know how to feed a hungry hoard of cyclists! Each town would have a monstrous pancake-making machine, set in assembly line fashion, cranking out literarily thousands of pancakes each and every day. Nan always knew where to find these feeding troughs along the route. Her RAGBRAI specialty, it seemed, was food and where to find it. (We actually downed an entire apple pie together at one farmhouse, and then ate home-made ice cream 10 miles down the road).
We’d chow down, then head out into the early morning haze, usually just at dawn, following some of the most picturesque two lane roads that I have ever been on. There were always thousands of riders starting early to get a few miles in before the July sun would beat down on us. All of us on this magic road full of bicyclists stretching as far as you could see in front and behind. Traveling with us were the RAGBRAI law enforcement officials, looking out for our safety along the route.
The churches have a special extra early service for the riders and locals. I attended Mass at a local church and during the Priests welcoming of all the guests (we were pretty obvious in our bike shorts, jerseys and bike shoes), he spoke to us about how happy the people of their particular town, and all the towns along the route, were to have us visit them. Then he said something that stuck with me on that journey, and all of my various travels since. He said, “We know that you’re here because you want to ride your bicycle through our state, but take the time to look into the eyes and faces of all of the people along the route, and give them a smile, or a wave. Share the happiness of our people with your visit”. It’s something that went through my mind as we passed hundreds of thousands of Iowans cheering for us, waving flags, playing in their school bands, and welcoming us every where. People urged us on from every front lawn, intersection, and porch. Folks that I would stop and talk to, told me that sometimes they would see riders going by very early in the morning, and it wouldn’t let up until long after dark (though for safety’s sake the ride is limited to riding dawn to dark).
That first day I was amazed at the beauty of Iowa. It was so green! Even though Kansas is in close proximity, I’d never traveled there before. The farms were well kept, fences in good repair, barns were large sturdy buildings of the past century, and even the sides of the roads were generally mowed and looking sharp. Now Kansas is the Wheat State, so I’ve seen my share of farm roads, but this was different. Rather than wheat, corn is everywhere, and this corn was fantastic! It was the tallest, thickest, greenest corn that I had ever seen – and it stretched across the entire state. I must have eaten a bushel of corn-on-the-cob all by myself.
Everyone who has ridden RAGBRAI has superb memories. These are just a few of mine and I urge you to put Iowa on your cycling wish list. You won’t be sorry!
The ride is the last full week of July, this year slated for July 20 – 26, 2008, and begins on a Sunday.
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