Is anyone else planning on doing Ragbrai this year? It’ll be my first time and interested to hear if anyone has any suggestions/advice.
Congrats! I know it’s a popular ride and the supply cannot reach demand (similar to other popular rides… I lost the DK200 lottery this year).
I’ve never done RAGBRAI (on the bucket list, maybe someday), but I’ve heard it’s really fun, caters to an older crowd, and to “train your liver” almost as much as you train for saddle time on the bike. Apparently, there’s a lot of drinking and partying at the nightly stops, particularly for those who do the entire week (they have a fraction of riders that have single day-only passes)!
With 8000+ riders and a modest 60-80 miles per day, it should be a leisurely and manageable ride and shouldn’t be any issue to randomly join pacelines as your speed deems appropriate. It’s a bit more self-supported than some other rides, and SAG vehicles are permitted in limited numbers only, so best to plan ahead and overpack items you might need on the daily ~ 70-mile journey. It’s something I really want to do someday, but getting a week off of work for both the wife and I during the summer is difficult right now. Someday, though!
Just came back from RAGBRAI - hope you had as much fun as we did.
It is what you make of it - you can take your time and eat/drink your way across Iowa, or treat it like a training camp - we did a little of both.
For us, half the challenge was camping and dealing with everything that comes with living outside for the week; it takes its toll.
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I only did the first day. I have family that lives in Atlantic so I stayed with them. It was incredible how many people there were! I couldn’t imagine doing it and camping…