RAGBRAI 2023

One L of a Ride

Now just to clear things up at the start, no matter what you’ve heard about the Iowa country side, it is NOT flat! But it is beautiful.

I’m not sure when RAGBRAI (Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa) made my bucket list but once on the list, this years’s ride made the most sense. It was the 50th anniversary (thus the L), the travel schedule was open, so I committed to doing three days with my friend Sam.

The planning started in January. Since I’m not a tent camper, hotels and Airbnb were our two options. I made an educated guess on the path and we reserved a couple of AIRBNBs. Our plan was to drive to the start and end points of each day then return to an nice bed and AC. Once the route was announced, we found that neither location was very good so we found a better AIRBNB location in North Liberty – north of Iowa City – and we were set. It wasn’t perfect, we’d have a two hour drive the first day but then only a one hour drive the next day.

We left for Iowa on Wednesday and stopped for coffee at Eli’s in Morton, IL. I’ve been to Eli’s a number of times and it’s always a good choice. The Morton shop is in an old house a few blocks away from downtown and only five minutes off the interstate. Highly recommended.

We rolled into North Liberty Iowa just in time for supper with family. We had Casey’s pizza. Yes I know. Pizza from a gas station. But it is really good pizza and at a good price. The app I used to order the food was a bit clunky but I got through it.

After supper, I prepared for the next day’s ride.

Our Day 1 (Des Moines to Tama)

We rolled out of North Liberty around 5:30 AM and headed towards Des Moines. We had made the decision the night before to not try to get all the way into Des Moines due to traffic so we chose Mitchellville, just east of Des Moines. We drove off the interstate and straight into town right to the closed street.

We finally cleared the crowded park and were on our way. Now, I’ve had some experience with cycling groups. I’ve done some bike races and quite a few triathlon bike stages. In those cases it’s mostly single file unless your a passing another rider. And no drafting. This ride was NOT that! There were multiple lines across the two-lane road. Not a wheel-to-wheel tight pelton but still it took some getting used to. Most everyone was ‘behaving’, not hopping lanes or making any abrupt moves.

In just a short time, I got comfortable with pedaling in traffic. There were specific commands, mostly verbal that made the ride a little safer. “Biker on” or “biker off” let you know that someone was getting into or leaving the flow. “Slowing” or “stopping” was useful heading into a town or a special location. “Car back” and “car up” warned of approaching vehicles, and the most helpful was “on your left” or “on your right” to let you know you were being passed.

Forty five minutes later we rolled into Colfax and the downtown was hopping. Keep in mind this is 8:00 AM. We took a bathroom break, refilled our water and Gatorade and were on our way.

At this point I think I’ll mention the hills. Iowa hills are not mountains, I know that. But it sure seemed like they were. The good thing about hills are that you get to go down the hill really fast with 20 of your newest best friends all around you. The not-so-good thing about the hills is that if you get to go slow up the hill with your 20 friends. This stage ride showed a climb total of 4200 ft. To me that’s kind of a lot. But I was able to stay in the large chain ring (bike speak for the top front gear) for the day.

Oh, and another thing Iowa is know for is it’s gravel roads. If you live or drive on one of those roads, your car gets a grayish hue from the dust. Well bikes get that dusting as well. It turned out that there was a last minute route change due to bridge repair and the route now included three miles of gravel road.

Gravel or dirt is not problem for bikes with big tires, especially those big sand tires that are all the rage now on electric bikes. But most of the bikes have smaller road tires. Mine are less than an inch wide and are easily punctured by sharp rocks. So when we hit that stretch, I was on high alert. Two-hundred feet into the gravel there were someone stopped already with a flat. I stayed out of the loose areas, went a little slower and even kept one shoe out of the clip (bike speak for not allowing the shoe to clamp onto the pedal). I was lucky. Once back on pavement everything was back to speed.

We traveled through towns named Newton, Kellogg, Grinnell, and Montour. Every town welcomed the riders with food, drink and a “where are you from” greeting.

And finally for the day, we finished up at Tama, Iowa averaging just under 12 mph and traveling a little over 65 miles (a little shorter than projected since we started east of Des Moines). You won’t win many races at that speed but that’s ok. We actually caught a break with the weather on the ride. It turned overcast mid-morning and the temperatures stayed in the mid 80’s the rest of the day. Still pretty warm.

We cleaned up and enjoyed huge steaks at dinner, then headed to bed. I left a 5:00 AM wake up request.

To be continued…