Originally Posted by
Pugs2xLove
This will be my 4th straight years of RAGBRAI'ng. Last year was overbooked, overcrowded and overloaded. I'm 100% self-supported (with the exception for getting transport to/back) home. It got so bad with the baggage truck that I ditched most of my luggage in Des Moines, hometown, and packed all I needed on my bike. That was nice since I could arrive at the overnight towns when I wanted and leave to avoid the head and crowd. Can't wait.
We were also there last year. I did RAGBRAI with my wife. She is not an avid cyclist but had RAGBRAI on her bucket list. Cycling is more my thing and I've done a few bikepacking trips. I didn't want her having to carry any gear in 2023, so we used Central Iowa Charters to transport our gear and we camped with the group. This year another cyclist friend and I are doing the whole ride unsupported. I'm curious though, do I need to be planning out each stop logistically to be sure we have somewhere to set up our tents and sleep? Or is the beauty of being self-supported that you can basically camp anywhere?
I live here in Iowa but my buddy is coming from California. I'll be pretty embarrassed if he gets here and my failure to plan results in us struggling to find places to overnight or worse, if we set up tents and get ourselves in trouble with the local authorities hahahaha.