RAGBRAI

This year, my parents are actually involved in RAGBRAI. It stops, as in camps out, in my hometown. This is a first. Other years it has passed through, but this year it stops overnight. Since the town is three miles from the Minnesota border and it rarely camps out in a town this small, my guess is it will never occur again. This, of course, means my wife and I must ride.

I have a real ambivalence about RAGBRAI. I've always believed it was more of a party on wheels than about biking, but I've already shed much of my purist roots, and am willing to approach this with an open mind. Something about sharing the road with 10,000 other riders makes me somewhat apprehensive. I should probably mention that we are only riding one day. I've taken far too much time off to take an entire week. I'm also too misanthropic to enjoy spending a week in such close quarters with thousands of other riders. I had the misfortune of racing in the Firehouse 50 a few years ago- a mass start race with about a thousand racers. I've also ridden the Lakeville Ironman a few times, which draws maybe 3000 riders. At times, it was worse than riding in heavy traffic. I can't imagine the scale as it approaches 10,000 people.

Last time RAGBRAI passed through town, one of the big wigs from the Register sampled my mother's pecan pie, and wrote an article insisting it was the best pie of the entire ride. People from all over the country wrote to ask for her secret recipe. She was inexplicably left out as an official pie baker this year- probably due to small-town politics. Also, the town has only about 2000 residents. RAGBRAI apparently requires about 2500 volunteers- so everyone is involved. Already they have enlisted help from law enforcement from all over the area. Somehow, "Barney" and his lone sidekick won't be able to provide campground security for thousands of riders.

I'm seriously contemplating riding the 85 miles fixed. I don't even want to worry about my Look. Our day of riding is the day after a local crit, and a few days before the State Championship Criterium. I'll want to take it a bit easy anyway.