Ragbrai 2024
 

Hilliest route in the 51 years of the ride.
Yeah, well 1 day in the rockies is often more climbing than the entire week in Iowa.
Small towns.
shorter mileage days.
fewer riders? Lets hope so. the 50th was overloaded.

Glenwood -Red Oak -Atlantic -Winterset -Knoxville -Ottumwa -Mt. Pleasant -Burlington

Never been, but have a strong desire to do so once. My issue is our largest annual convention happens about 2 weeks later and unfortunately I can’t afford vacation 2 weeks prior. Probably have to wait until I retire, or perhaps change positions.

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.

Also riding self supported
 

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.

You won't be alone finding places to camp overnight. There will be signs posted if people don't want cyclists to camp out. Obviously stay out of private properties, businesses, cemeteries, etc...... You can always camp out at the main campground and deal with the crowds, noise, traffic, etc..... I normally use a local charter to get to the start town and back but recently heard that they're shutting down the bus this year due to lack of participation so I'll have to find my own way to the start town and back. Thinking about riding out to Glenwood from Des Moines, do the entire week across Iowa and then ride back from Burlington - full 100% self-support and I'll carry my own gear.

My brother says I should do one day just for the experience.

Wrap up. When they announced the "hilliest ride ever" and the southern Iowa route, that drove many away. I'd say the numbers were back to normal after the crazy high turnout for the 50th. There were still interesting sites. The tornado path through Greenfield. John Wayne Museum. Best pass through town, the National Lampoon movie fandom of the Vacation flicks in Griswold (hey, the family name in the movies) Uncle Eddy pumping sewage from the motorhome, the family truckster and aunties cat food desert. Why is this box meowing? A pair of good vintage museums in Griswold as well. No rain on the route. Dense fog the first morning so thick you couldn't see the bottom of the hills.

My prediction is for a northern Iowa route next year. They used to alternate north/middle/south with the previous organizer so maybe they will get back to that pattern.

For the 50th the Iowa Highway Patrol was clearly keeping cars off the route. Ramps were closed at 4 lane highways, something we've never seen before. With so many riders this was a good thing. For the 51st that was not the case, more cars and trucks on the route. Some of the roads were in areas between the rivers so there weren't decent options for the bikes or for the trucks headed for missouri. One in-town route meant to run by the local college took us on really bad pavement with a big hill. I wonder if anyone got hurt on that pointless detour.

Fairfield Iowa. Home of Maharishi U (transcendental meditation U) was different from most of Iowa. The official bike route through town was okay. But I went off the route and found some really trashy neighborhoods. Like a cross between deep south poverty and California hippies. Mountains of junk in yards around totally neglected houses. Oummmmmm.
"Sleep is the best meditation" Dali Lama
"I'll sleep when I'm dead" Warren Zevon
"Put me back on my bike" Tommy Simpson moments before he died while racing in le Tour on dope.