RAGBRAI!!!!!!
 |
One of the small towns we stopped in on
my first day of riding |
So a lot of you probably have never heard of
Ragbrai unless you live in Iowa or have participated in Ragbrai. Ragbrai is a week-long
bike ride across Iowa in the summer. The bike ride starts on the west side of
Iowa and ends at the East side of Iowa as the riders participate in dipping
there wheels in the Mississippi River. Each year there is 8 host towns with one
town at the start and one at the end of the route. The other 6 host towns are
overnight towns where the riders rest up before making the next day's ride.
There is though plenty of towns that the riders go through along the route. The
limit of passes for the event is 8,500 riders for the week and 1.500 riders for
each day. The number of riders though swells each day with people who are
unregistered who ride the route. Some days the number of riders can swell to
10,000.
Well during Christmas of 2012 my uncle asked me if he would like to join him
and some of his friends on the bike ride. I had never heard of this bike ride
and really didn't know what to expect, but I said "what the heck sure I’ll
do it". Well my uncle then told me we would be riding about 4 days. With
each day travel on bike being around 60 miles. When I heard that at first I
didn't really know if I could do it, but I didn't change my mind.
Well knowing I couldn't just hop on a bike and ride for 240 miles. So the
training began. I started training a little after I graduated from high school
this past summer. I started out riding 8 miles once a day. Gradually I started
riding more miles each day. My thinking of Iowa is its pretty flat with tons of
miles of corn fields. Where I lived there was some hills and BIG hills. So I
thought if I just rode 20 miles with a couple hills along the way it would be the
same as riding 60 miles flat. Well I learned my second day of riding Iowa is
not as flat as I had thought.
 |
| One of the many concerts at one of the overnight towns. |
We had a team of 4 bikers in our group. One person was the driver who drove
from city to city hauling our extra gear and the pull-up camper my uncle
had bought especially for the ride. The first day we stayed overnight in Perry
which was the overnight town that night. Still not really knowing what was
expected tomorrow when we would start our journey. The first mourning we woke
and headed out about around 8am. Well we were headed to Des Moines which is the
largest city in Iowa. This made this ride day be packed with the most riders. I
soon seen how big the event really was as we caught up with the pack of
bicyclers. It was an amazing site to see all the riders which was later
calculated that the numbers that day were close to 20,000 riders. I met riders
from all over the country from Florida to California to Hawaii to New York.
There was said to be riders from 26 different countries on the ride too. Well
the ride went swell and about every 5 to 10 miles there was a town we would
travel through that everyone would usually stop at. Every town we passed
through had food trucks, games, music, carnival rides, etc... Every town was filled
with thousands of people stopping to enjoy the party which was at every town.
There was at least every 2 miles there was some kind of person selling
something or having a place where everyone could stop if they wanted. I
remember one place they had a slip-in-slide. When we did reach the overnight
town it felt great as your legs were sore. The overnight towns all had a
concert, food trucks, games, and much more entertainment options. After having
fun downtown you would head back to your sleeping area to do it all over again
tomorrow. It was an enjoyable ride that I really hope I have a chance to do
again this year.
Ragbrai can be for the whole family as there is always something fun to
do for people of all ages. Riding 60 miles on a bike isn't as hard as you
think. You can pull over and stop anytime you want on Ragbrai. There is a lot
to see that makes Ragbrai so much fun and unique. Ragbrai is also really safe
as police officers are at every intersection directing you wish way to go and
stopping traffic. Everyone is so nice and willing to help anyone. There is a bicycle repair truck at every little town and even at the overnight towns too. This helps you be able to fix your bike if anything would go wrong. Ragbrai is definitely something unique that is awesome to see. I suggest anyone if you have the time to get a team and go on Ragbrai for one day or the whole week if you feel like a challenge.
Ragbrai Documentary
Well knowing I couldn't just hop on a bike and ride for 240 miles. So the
training began. I started training a little after I graduated from high school
this past summer. I started out riding 8 miles once a day. Gradually I started
riding more miles each day. My thinking of Iowa is its pretty flat with tons of
miles of corn fields. Where I lived there was some hills and BIG hills. So I
thought if I just rode 20 miles with a couple hills along the way it would be the
same as riding 60 miles flat. Well I learned my second day of riding Iowa is
not as flat as I had thought. 
Ragbrai can be for the whole family as there is always something fun to
do for people of all ages. Riding 60 miles on a bike isn't as hard as you
think. You can pull over and stop anytime you want on Ragbrai. There is a lot
to see that makes Ragbrai so much fun and unique. Ragbrai is also really safe
as police officers are at every intersection directing you wish way to go and
stopping traffic. Everyone is so nice and willing to help anyone. There is a bicycle repair truck at every little town and even at the overnight towns too. This helps you be able to fix your bike if anything would go wrong. Ragbrai is definitely something unique that is awesome to see. I suggest anyone if you have the time to get a team and go on Ragbrai for one day or the whole week if you feel like a challenge. 
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