Iowa, It's Only January But Get Ready for RAGBRAI

Six or seven years ago, I met a guy named Tim on RAGBRAI.

We met first in a beer garden and then in a cowboy’s backyard. It was in two different towns, on two consecutive late nights. Or was it early mornings?  On the second night, I discovered Tim lives only a few blocks away in Iowa City. Several years later I discovered his kids go to the same elementary school as mine.

I rarely see Tim in Iowa City, but without fail I bump into him every single year on RAGBRAI. Funny story: two years ago, somehow Tim found my wife’s abandoned wallet. He grabbed it, knowing he’d run into us. Later, he found us in a town several miles off-route, well after the RAGBRAI day for many had ended, and returned it before we even realized it was missing.

RAGBRAI, the preferable acronym to the Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa, is full of “only on RAGBRAI” stories.

• Rolling up to two guys from Boise State determined to back-flip off a bridge into the murky river below. Five minutes later, no less than 10 people had joined in for synchronized jumps. I can neither confirm nor deny whether I partook.
• The naked pond party with the trapeze bar in Cartersville that police busted up, I pedaled up just as the party was ending.  
• Laying in my tent with my family as 80-mile-per-hour wind cracked, one-by-one, the tent poles and water started dripping in as the roof caved. A man died that overnight in Sheldon in 2005 when a tree branch fell on him.

Why, at the end of January, am I reminiscing about RAGBRAI?

Saturday is a big night on the RAGBRAI calendar.

That’s when we learn the eight overnight towns that will anchor RAGBRAI 2012. For those that don’t know, each year a predetermined route crosses Iowa, always from the Missouri River east to the Mississippi River. It runs over seven days the last full week of July. The route always comes in around 450 miles, but it covers a different section of Iowa each year and hits a new collection of towns.

As of right now, riders don’t know the next route. Still, many like me, are very well committed to going.

RAGBRAI has become a big deal.

It’s such a big deal, the announcement has become a big deal. In recent years, the RAGBRAI team, which is made up of staff and an office within the Des Moines Register building, has been holding a party, full on with a band.

This year the event runs 8-11 p.m. on Saturday at Veterans Auditorium in Des Moines. It features a live and silent auction, “guess the route” raffles, RAGBRAI and the Iowa Bicycle Coalition’s Iowa Bicycle Summit & Expo earlier in the day and the musical offerings of Boogie and the Yo-Yo’z.

In the months leading up to the ride, towns bid to be selected as overnight stops. RAGBRAI and its 10,000-plus riders a day, plus thousands more of hangers-on, can mean big bucks. At the party, at least last year, anticipation built as an emcee pulled the names of the towns out of large envelopes one at a time, and then cardholders stood in order on the stage.

I will be there on behalf of Patch.

Follow me on Twitter (@bmorelli14) for real-time updates and pictures as the towns are announced. I will write an article and post pictures, as well. My plan is to ride RAGBRAI again this year, and cover it for Patch. This will be my 11^th time riding RAGBRAI, and my sixth time riding and covering the full week as a journalist. It's always a lot of work, but always a lot of fun.

This year is a particularly special RAGBRAI. Iowa’s midsummer classic turns 40.

Des Moines Register journalists Donald Kaul and John Karras started the ride back in 1972 on a whim and likely with little idea of what it would become. Since then, RAGBRAI has taken on a life of its own, becoming the largest, longest and oldest non-competitive group bike ride in the world. 

You might say, who cares about the announcement?

As soon as the towns are announced, people will start calling hotels and motels along the route to scoop up rooms. Others will dig through their address books for friends in those towns.

But, even more than logistics, for me and many others Saturday night marks the beginning of the countdown. It plants images to let the mind start dreaming of July.

RAGBRAI is a sacred time for some.

It’s time to reconnect with old friends who all set aside the RAGBRAI week. It’s a time to eat too much and drink even more. It’s a time to discover the beautiful Iowa countryside. It’s a time to be sore, sweaty and tired, but to accomplish a feat that is challenging yet doable for all ages, and feel good about it for weeks. It’s a time to expect the unexpected.

Maybe it's because I am writer or because I'm an adventurer. Maybe because I enjoy the simplicity of a week on a bike or I am just crazy. Whatever the reason, you can count me among its many devotees.