RAGRBAI stands for the Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa. It started in 1973 when two feature writers for the Des Moines Register decided to bike across Iowa, and invited readers to join them. The ride has grown ever since and is now in its forty-sixth year. The route always starts on the west side of Iowa, and ends on the Mississippi River on the east side of Iowa, and takes the last full week of July to do – but the course changes every year! You can register for the whole week, or for a single day, which is what I’ve done the last four years (2014 – Day 7, 2015 – Day 4 and 5, 2016 – Day 7, 2017 – Day 7). 

Yay, RAGBRAI, my big ride of the summer!

This was a special year – it was Steve’s* first time doing RAGBRAI, and my first year having tunes on my bike! I hinted to Steven I’d like a speaker to put on my bike for my birthday and he hooked me up!!! And, it was me and Dad’s fifth year participating in a row.

We rode Day 7 this year, which started in Iowa City, and ended in Davenport. The route was just over seventy miles.

image from here

We had great weather for July. No rain, a little overcast, very little wind, and temps starting in the low 60s and ending in the high 70s. Perfection!

This year was logistically tricky, with leaving cars at the finish for the riders, and Dad getting a ride to the start. We wouldn’t have been successful in that without our drivers, Steven and Mom. Thank you!

Steven, Gina*, Steve, Luca, and I stayed at a hotel near the start on Friday night, and Dad and Mom met us there Saturday morning. We loaded up and headed to the route, near downtown Iowa City.

We started riding at 8:30 am – that’s the nice thing about RAGBRAI – you start whenever you want and just need to finish by sundown! Although, we learned the hard way about finishing in time to visit the merchandise tent…

Our route had eight official pass-through towns/stops. I paid a lot less attention to where the stops were this year than previous years, and just planned to eat every forty-five minutes (that’s key for me on the bike) and to eat something more substantial in pass through towns.

I felt great from the start! RAGBRAI does an awesome job choosing smooth roads for us to ride on, and it’s peaceful out in the Iowa countryside with the open fields.

The ride was easy and mostly flat. We spent a lot of it together, chatting, or listening to music. When we got separated, it was easy to find each other at the next stop, or top of the hill.

Highlights:

Seeing a t-rex and sharing a burrito with Dad in West Liberty!

The amazing flag photo-op in Wilton! And the super clean porta potties (they cleaned them after every few uses!)

Eating a pickle at the New Era Church Stop.

Dipping in “Mississippi River Water” in Blue Grass.

The majority of the ride was on quiet country roads, then the last ten miles or so were on split four-lane highway. There were cones separating us from the lane next to us, and cops at every intersection, but it felt odd to be riding next to cars going so fast. It must have inspired us though – those were our fastest miles.

We finished the ride just before 4:00 pm, and got in line to dip our front tires in the Mississippi River but the line was insane! We skipped the dip, and opted for a river photo instead.

We made our way to the RAGBRAI merchandise tent, to find it closed and gone! Apparently they close at 2:00 on the last day?! Oops. I’ll have to order my pin online! It was dissapointing – we’re more pumped to buy things after we’ve completed the ride, ha! Better for our wallets, though.

We parked my car somewhat close to the finish (the day before), and Steven had dropped Steve and Gina’s car close by (that morning). He told us he left it at the courthouse, without knowing there were two courthouses on the same street! After some searching and more conversation with Steven, we found it at the other courthouse, and headed out of town to make the trek to Guttenberg (via a stop at Taco Bell), where we’d be staying for the next few days (in Guttenberg, not Taco Bell).

This was a fun, easy, uneventful year! We all felt good, and only had a few incidents – dropping things, almost falling stopped on an uphill, etc. I was glad Steve had such a good year, and everyone found the higher mileage doable! It’s a joy for me to share this with my dad and best friends, and I hope we’ll be back next year!

*For reference, Gina is my bestie that lives near Dallas. Steve is her husband, and Luca is their son. We call them our “otra familia” because they are like “another family” to us. Really – we spend time with each other’s families, even vacationing together. Gina and I met online in January of 2006 and met in person for the first time in August 2010 and have been seeing each other several times a year, since!