RAGBRAI 2009

A week or so ago my brother-in-law emailed me - he is planning to do RAGBRAI next year, and wondered if I might be interested in going along for the ride, so to speak. RAGBRAI is sponsored annually by the Des Moines Register and stands for the Register's Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa.


Register Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa


Here's the deal-eo: for the small fee of $125 you can join 8,500 like-minded souls some place on the western border of Iowa and over 7 days and 6 nights, ride clean across the state, about 472 miles, and dip your front tire in the Mississippi River. That averages out to about 68 miles per day. Of course, for a small additional fee, on one of those days the organizers will map out a Century ride, just in case you are looking for something a little more challenging.

What do you get for your fee? From the website: "The cost includes wristbands, route marking signage, baggage transportation, camping accommodations, discounts, sag wagon services, emergency medical services, traffic control, souvenir patch, daily route maps, and entries into drawing for a free bike for riders and other prizes for support vehicle drivers."

In other words, after 6 hours on a hard bicycle seat, you get to spend the next 8 sleeping in a tent on the hard ground. But you do get a souvenir patch!

Bob plans to ride this on his tandem bike and figures he can get his 12 year old son Mike to go along with him. You might remember Bob and Mike from the entry I did on May 30 about their family pass time - Full Contact Swimming Pool Basketball.

I figure Bob came up with this idea while spinning on his exercise bike, recovering from knee replacement surgery - under the influence of some powerful narcotic pain killer.

Funny thing is, I'm intrigued by the idea and I have started researching it. Apparently I don't need a powerful narcotic to induce hallucinations. Actually, I've been thinking about doing a RAGBRAI ever since I first heard about it 15 years ago. Seems like the perfect way to spend a summer week if you're a Type-A personality with masochistic tendencies, which I am.

Of course, I am worried about one thing. As you know, when I ramped up my running mileage, I got a stress fracture, which means I got a crack in one of the bones in my foot. As I spend more and more time on a bike seat training for this event, will I get a - never mind.

Here are some pictures I found on the web of a recent RAGBRAI

I'm telling everyone here that I'm going to do this ride for the scenery:




Local Scenery

And I'm telling everyone here that I'm doing this ride for the local characters:



Local Characters

But what I'm really hoping to see on this ride is some local "color":



Local Color

See you out there.