If you’re looking for a few friends to bike tour with this summer, how about 10,000 fellow cyclists to keep you company?
Welcome to RAGBRAI, also known as The Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa – an annual 7-day ride from west to east across Iowa that’s been going strong for 38 years, every time following a different route across the state.
It’s the largest and oldest organised bike tour in the world and this year it’s set for July 25th to 31st.
What’s so great about it? Perhaps some confessions of a RAGBRAI addict say it best:
“RAGBRAI is a week-long party on two wheels. The fact that you ride your bicycle across an entire state is incidental, because the total experience is much more than that. The carnival atmosphere in every town, the delicious home-cooked food, street dancing to live bands, the colorful sea of tents in the campgrounds, the hilarious cycling team costumes, thousands of tan and beautiful fellow cyclists to meet, and your hosts the people of Iowa, all join forces to make this bicycle tour an experience you’ll remember for the rest of your life. No wonder RAGBRAI is addictive! Just ask some riders how many times they’ve done the tour. You’ll get answers of 10, 20 or even 30 years.” –Confessions of a RAGBRAI addict
Not only that, but at $140 for the week (including baggage transfer from town to town, a roving bicycle repair van, camping facilities and much, much more), it’s a bargain. Spaces are limited though so you have to go through a lottery system. Drop your name in the hat and cross your fingers!