RAGBRAI: Notes from an Embedded Bike Seat

In case you missed it, RAGBRAI — Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa — rolled through the state last week for the 36th time. The Des Moines Register’s blanketed coverage of the event gave Olympic gymnast Shawn Johnson a chance to catch her breath before hitting the mats in Beijing next month, where the local paparazzi is sure to follow the West Des Moines native.

Unofficial Melon Queen pedals her wares in Lisbon

As a journalist working for an independent news organization, I decided to embed myself in the gaggle of bike riders on the sixth day of the spandexian pilgrimage to the Mississippi River and report my findings.

The accordion route

When I first heard the sixth day’s route would run from North Liberty to Tipton, I was relieved, thinking I could handle 30 miles of biking with little to no training. However, the RAGBRAI route committee, borrowing a strategy from former Sen. Tom DeLay’s redistricting strategy in Texas, managed to stretch the ride into 64.1 miles. On paper the compacted route was reminiscent of my recent polygraph readings when I said I had never written myself in as a presidential candidate.

Topographically the route was flat-lined, which in no way is meant to suggest that eastern-central Iowa is dead but to point out that the western hills of Iowa had been ironed out. I figured this gave me a leg up on the rest of the riders, whose legs had been wearied by the hills out west – that and having already logged over 300 miles.

Gearing up for the great ride

Instead of adopting the traditional regimen of training for RAGBRAI — which includes biking, drinking beer, sitting on a 2-by-4 (repeat process until numb) — I decided to watch the Tour de France for 30 minutes and learn from the professionals, hoping to pick up some pointers without all the pain and subsequent numbness.

I did manage to log an additional 30 minutes of The Tour de France at the Penway Park Tavern in North Liberty the day before my one-day journey. I caught up with soon-to-be fellow riders and put my multitasking RAGBRAI training skills to work, minus the 2-by-4, of course.

Live entertainment provides temporary comfort

Live entertainment begins and ends with cover bands. Like the chicken dance at weddings, cover bands are a mainstay on RAGBRAI, providing riders with comfort music to help them forget their plethora of discomforts accumulated on the day’s ride. Such was the case at Penway, when the Bad Intentions, an Iowa City cover band, took the makeshift stage and helped erase the short-term memories of the bike-riding revelers.

VIDEO: Bad Intentions Crocodile Rockin’ N. Liberty

Typically cover bands dominate the lineups in towns along the route as well as in the overnight towns, but Tipton wanted to break this tradition by headlining with comedian Tim Cavanaugh. However, Tipton, whose theme was “Rolling Out the Red Carpet,” took no chances and sandwiched Cavanaugh between two cover bands.

Mixing politics with bikes (and recycling)

Biking enthusiasts and purists alike avoid mixing biking and politics, but the perpetual cycle of campaigning is unavoidable. Yes, even on RAGBRAI. One of the teams, Team Cheney ’08, donned pink biking jerseys to promote its candidate. Their shirts and team may have been satiric; however, I could never catch up with them to get a closer look.

In Lisbon, the self-proclaimed sauerkraut capitol of Iowa, politics and straw polls took a new twist, mixing presidential politics with recycling.

If eating and shopping is your bag, the RAGBRAI route is essentially one giant strip-mall, strung together with corn and soybean fields. The top of every hill is fair game for entrepreneurs, whether it be children selling lemonade at conventional stands or a mom-and-pop operation pedaling Gatorade and fruit off the back of a pickup truck.

Developing a marketing niche

Granted, this market has been tapped by regular vendors who have established themselves with RAGBRAI veterans. Farm Boys, Pastafari and Mr. Porkchop, just to name a few, have become RAGBRAI staples over the years. However, Mr. Porkchop did slide into retirement, hanging up his familiar “Porrrrrrrrrrrrk Chop” dinner call, and turned the business over to his grandson.

For most vendors, RAGBRAI is a one-shot deal, so a creative marketing strategy is a must. Take for example the signs promising big melons that pockmarked the highway leading into Lisbon. “Come See Our Huge Melons” signs, albeit sophomoric, did turn a number of heads in the gaggle and did pay dividends for both the advertiser and intended targets in Lisbon.

The other marketing strategy, reminiscent of the sign-war campaign during the Democratic primary in Iowa, adopts the notion that you can never have too many signs. At times I felt like I was driving west across Interstate 90 toward Wall Drug, where a sign advertising the tourist trap pops up every other blink: “Only 463 miles to Wall Drug.” For riders without odometers, the signs served as road markers, informing bikers how many more tenths of a mile they have left until the “Best Breakfast Burrito.”

Some budding marketers relied on historical landmarks, such as the highest crest in Linn County (see video below), to lure weary riders into their capitalistic web.

VIDEO: Atop the Highest Crest in Linn County

What happens on RAGBRAI stays in RAGBRAI

RAGBRAI has garnered a reputation partying, which may hold true for some of the bikers, but not for everyone. The thought of loading up on beer and riding bikes in the heat of the day should be left to the professionals. To beat the beer crowd, one merely needs to hit the road early, say 8 a.m., and spend little to no time in the last town before the overnight stop, which in my case was Mechanicsville.

Upon entering Mechanicsville, it was clear that the city officials placed a moratorium on all laws and city ordinances. The town itself had a Dodge City feel to it. Unlike other towns, where there was a designated beer garden partitioned off by an orange plastic fence, Mechanicsville was the beer garden. The Iowa state patrolmen clearly conceded control and let the festivities unfold unchecked, counting the minutes until it was time to shoo everyone to Tipton.

Completely lubed up, the last wave of bikers mounted their bikes and headed south to Tipton, leaving behind a sea of beer cans and bottles in their wake.

Meanwhile, the citizens of Tipton await and prepare to roll out the red carpet to the Wild Ones. But first, what would a day of RAGBRAI be without a beer, or in this case water slide?

VIDEO: Slip ‘n’ Slide