I rode my bike across Iowa, and you should too.
Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa (RAGBRAI for short) began fifty years ago in 1973. It was exactly what it sounds like… two staff writers from The Des Moines Register, John Karras and Don Kaul decided to host a ‘casual’ bike ride across Iowa. They were surprised when three-hundred people showed up at the starting point in Sioux City — imagine the surprise now that upwards of 30,000 people have just ridden across the state on its fiftieth anniversary in 2023.
Well, I was one of those 30,000+ folks.
It seems to me that, in the wake of having accomplished this very challenging thing (the whole route was 500 or more miles, and I achieved 430 of those), the only thing that I can do is to write about my experience — the emotional triumph and fallout — with genuine hope that you will consider participating in RAGBRAI one year, or perhaps consider doing something of equal mental and physical strain.
Why? Because you can do hard things. And sometimes you need to remember that. Sometimes we all need to have the dust shaken from our bodies, which mind you, are carrying the weight of an anxious and tired world right now.
So, What’s the Deal With RAGBRAI?
There are a good number of people who will point out (correctly) that RAGBRAI is designed to be a casual, rolling party between cities. That idea sort of defeats what I’m proposing here: that you are embarking on a journey of both the mind and body, and that something within you may fundamentally shift as a consequence of getting through it. Sort of.
Yes, RAGBRAI is, in an ideal world, a fun adventure. It’s not a race. You’re not going to want to be ripping from town to town every day at twenty miles per hour (but if you are, kudos, you should probably start your promising career as a professional cyclist). If you’re not an avid cyclist that puts hundreds of miles in the saddle behind you every week, a fun biking stroll through Iowa is not exactly what you’re signing up for.
You will have fun. You will also get frustrated, hot, tired, chaffed, sad, angry, sweaty, hungry, thirsty, sore, and annoyed.
You will likely be camping in a hot tent with minimal shade to seek respite in at the end of every day. If it’s particularly hot (as it was this year), you’ll probably be waking up at around 4:30 am every day of the ride to pack up your tent, get dressed, get in line for a Kybo (that’s Iowa talk for porta potty), and down whatever you can scrounge up for breakfast/coffee before you get back on your bike and wonder if you ever actually rested before you threw on some bike shorts and sobbed quietly into a muffin and embarked on the day’s journey. All of this in the name of pounding out as many miles as you can before the sun rears his angry head.
To counterbalance that, you’ll also meet some incredible people along the way — both your fellow riders, and the townspeople that host you when you arrive. You’ll see goats that you can stop and take a picture with. You will chat with the mayor of a small Iowa town, the home of two stoplights, while you shovel a delicious slice of homemade *insert your flavor* pie into your gullet. You will have a grilled cheese sandwich at 63.4 miles into your ride which will make you question your purpose in having been sent to Earth. Like, was I meant to be a bike-packing Guy Fieri who spends his days rolling from town to town and reviewing the best melty-cheese sandwich?
Netflix, will you please greenlight? Thanks.
While in line for a well earned beer at the end of the day, you’ll chat up an enigmatic seventy-something year old woman named Daphne who has done RAGBRAI every year for over thirty years. You’ll bond over the fact that you both just climbed over 4,000 feet over the course of 90 miles. The next day, you will have sweat stinging your eyes, your legs will burn, and you’ll stop at a small stand on the side of the road so you can get some nutrition in. By some miracle, you will see Daphne there and you will smile and say hello as you buy a shot of pickle juice from a six year old girl who doesn’t know how to count money.
You might also crash your bike 70 miles into the third day of the ride.
If you’re a really lucky fella, you will have your wonderful girlfriend there with you, and she’ll patch you up on the side of the road. She’ll insist that you don’t get up and get back on your bike before she has the opportunity to disinfect your wounds. You’d have to be the luckiest guy on the planet, though.
Despite your luck, about a mile and a half later, you will get a flat tire — a consequence of the crash no doubt. Fueled by adrenaline, and laughing in the face of your pain, you will swap the tube out, and finish the last ten miles of the ride for the day.
Every morning, as the necrotic flesh on your arm and leg begin to dull with the veneer of a hardened scab, you will painfully stretch and crack away at the fresh skin that your body is trying to grow. When you finish for the day and rinse off in the portable showers, the sun (read: deadly sky laser bent on destroying everything you love) will cook away at the abused wounds, and flies will hone their kaleidoscopic eyes on it for a tasty snack. You’ll think you’re dying from heat exhaustion, and you’ll promise yourself that tomorrow you will give your body a chance to rest and heal by riding the sag wagon to the next town.
But instead you get on your bike and ride another 80 miles, and you feel a deep sense of pride and satisfaction when you finish. Especially because you sat on a walnut on the last stop of the ride when you were stopping to take a break and rest your tired legs. That walnut, a stopping force sent by Satan to attempt to derail you, will make direct contact with your favorite saddle sore. You will throw your water bottle on the ground, and you will swiftly retrieve it hoping that no one saw you throwing a fit over a devil walnut.
Day by day, you will ease into the routine of dressing yourself in a form fitting bike outfit and packing up all of your camping gear. You really will start to hum — it’s going to feel like you’ve been doing it your whole life — more machine than human at this point. The first 30 to 50 miles of each day will melt away, and you’ll wonder where your head has been the whole time.
Wanna know where your head won’t be? The presentation you’re giving next week at work. You won’t think about your car payment. There’s no tarnished relationship with your mother at RAGBRAI. There’s just you, your bike, a beer, and the grilled peanut butter and jelly that you finally decided to wait in line for. Side note: Do yourself a favor and wait in line for the damn sandwich. I promise you, it’s so worth it.
Hell, there’s hardly any phone service in most of the places you’ll visit. So it’ll be pretty easy to pretend you’re a kid again with no worries and no obligations for just a little while. And you should fully embrace that because there are going to be moments where you’ll feel like a toddler who had too much time in the sun — plus, you get to drink most of your water from a hose.
On the last night, the charter service that you paid for will set up dinner and entertainment in a sports arena located in Coralville, IA. You will be beating yourself up for sagging most of the day because of the heat. Inside, you’ll know that there are no winners and losers in RAGBRAI, but you’ll have a hard time shaking the feeling that you failed.
That feeling won’t last long because after you demolish a hamburger and fries, tornado sirens will go off, and a wicked storm will roll through the campsite. You and your girlfriend (who like a badass, did not sag that day despite the horrific heat index) will frantically tear your tent down as it tries to run away from you with the wind. You’ll drag your bags into the arena and lay down for some rest, wondering what kind of shape your bike is going to be in in the morning, and moreover, whether you’ll be able to complete the last 70-mile leg of the ride or not.
But there won’t be any need to wonder in the morning. You’ll feel strangely… strong. After you pack your bag, and get on the road, you’ll realize that the cleat on your right shoe is completely worn down, and won’t fasten to your pedal anymore. After everything, the prospect of riding 70 miles at half of your usual power will bring you to tears. You’ll receive reassuring hugs from your team, and then together, crank out your fastest day of the week.
And then, I suppose, you’ll be done. You can get in the car you parked in Davenport a week ago, and drive away from the whole thing. Simple as that. There will be a mixture of pride, sadness, and relief. Also, lots of literal pain in your ass.
Did it even really happen?
Yup, and it was a blast.
You should try it!
