Big Rick Stuart from Napa Valley To The World: Hey Rick Ya Know What? People Love To Party My First RAGBRAI A Bicycle Ride Across Iowa

I rode RAGBRAI for the first time the last week of July in 2017 with my friend Peter. We had no idea what was to come.

At some point in the first few days of RAGBRAI 2017 Peter came to this conclusion "People Love To Party." Yes they do!

This crazy event called RAGBRAI is kind of difficult to explain. And that explains why when Peter and I asked friends that had done it to tell us about it they said well it's a lot of fun, ride bicycles to train for it, and just go do it cuz I'm not going to get into some big long explanation about it.

Everyday had something crazy and unusual and heartwarming and fun and more when we rode our bicycles over 400 miles for 7 Days across Northern Iowa.

The event has been happening since 1973 and every year the route across Iowa changes so different towns are visited by the 15,000 or more bicycle riders that spend a week going west to east to end up at the Mississippi River.

that's me in Mallard, Iowa population 274

For these small towns it's a really really big deal and some of these are very very small towns. We are talking about towns of population 300 to 400 and maybe less. Main Street was three or four blocks long. They would have a big welcome banner and then three blocks later "thank you for visiting!"

The residents, the volunteer fire department, the local schools, the churches and everyone else involved in these small Iowa towns all had great parties for us!

Between the bigger overnight towns we rode our bicycles 65 or so miles every day. During your daily route every 8 miles or 10 miles there was a town that was having a huge party for us. There were always bands playing, sometimes country, sometimes rock, sometimes a steel drum band! There was always DJ music, always lots of food to eat from home baked goods to the Lutheran Church having their pie and ice cream. One sign about 5 miles from a town said "Church Lady Pies Ahead" about 100 feet later the next sign said "Well isn't that special?"

There were a lot of pie eating opportunities on RAGBRAI.

NPR had a cycling team.

In this case it was Team No Pie Refused

There was Gatorade, Powerade, coffee, water for a dollar, beer, and you could have a Bloody Mary for breakfast. You get the idea.

RAGBRAI has lots of choices

One thing I had to decide when I came to these small towns was what cause was I going to support?

For example one small town I came to had a table selling water bottles for $1 and the sign said "Help build a new Jungle Gym for the school playground."

There were multiple volunteer fire departments selling food, drinks, t-shirts, and pancake breakfasts and raising money for their cause to keep the fire station open and to upgrade things.

And on and on it went. Sometimes you could help send kids to Washington DC for school field trip and sometimes it was for a church to rehab things and to make things better.

I helped lots of volunteer fire departments, I help build playground sets, I helped a local High School trap club. Hey it's an Olympic sport who knows maybe I met a future gold medal winner!

It's true you can gain weight doing RAGBRAI.

Often it was just a family selling water and cookies and things they had baked and made in their front yard going to support the family - which is just fine.

In fact in more than a few times I saw signs that said free water free Gatorade free snacks free energy bars. I know what you are thinking nothing is really free but in this case it's true everything was free.

One house had a big shade tree in front with a hose for water to fill your bottles or you could take some nice cold water they had in a cooler. It was a popular spot to take a break. They also had some cheese sticks, carrots, bananas, and home-baked goodies and more to eat and to take with you and you could take as much as you wanted.

So I said what's going on here what's the catch?

The catch was it was free there was no catch. There was a donation box at the end of the table. It was very subtle and you had to ask about making a donation or look hard to see it. It wasn't very obvious. There was no sign with a big arrow.

I asked the Amish family behind the table what the money was to be used for. They very honestly said to visit our family over the holidays in Arizona. I thought what a great cause. That's awesome!

Adding up $2 for the two water bottles a couple dollars for the snacks and more came to about $5 so I gave him $10 in the box and I wished them good luck. I said I can't think of many better things to do than to take your family to visit family during the holidays. That's one of the greatest things we can ever do together. Have a great trip and thank you for providing the food and the nutrition for everyone.

I got a smile and a warm "thank you" in return.

Now for sure a lot of people were just grabbing water bottles and riding off with them and that's fine. There is no guilt or anything about it and if you wanted the banana then you just took it but if you wanted to pay a dollar for a banana you could do that as well. There really was no pressure or expectation. The family seemed happy to provide to the RAGBRAI riders. Any money made was a bonus. A true example of what the locals call "Iowa Nice."

I wish I could buy some Iowa Nice and have it back home in California.

The towns were combination of a State Fair, Food Fair, Rock Concert, DJ party, beer garden, pub crawl, bicycle ride, vintage tractor and farm equipment show, and more.

Old tractors

A Case 7010 Combine

Used around $125,000 new ones ran about $300,000

RAGBRAI riders were part of the show as well with many in costumes dressed up as Hello Kitty, Superman, Batman, Robin, Spiderman, Wonder Woman, men and women in ballerina tutu's, pink flamingo gear, butterflies, or any assortment of costumes. It reminded me of the Bay to Breakers characters.

Team Wrong

Batman and Robin walk into a bar...

Iowa butterflies

bicycle riders have been accused of wearing funny clothes

Every day was special. The RAGBRAI riders made it fun then add in visits to some totally unique places like the National Hobo Museum in Britt Iowa where I paid $5 and walked around and learned more about hobos than I ever thought. At the top of the list: hobos are not bums.

from Wikipedia

Unlike a "tramp", who works only when forced to, and a "bum", who does not work at all, a "hobo" is a traveling worker.

click for larger view

volunteers at the Britt, Iowa Hobo Museum

at the far right is a RAGBRAI rider that carried his fiddle with him every day

he set up at the museum and played some Hobo appropriate old timey songs

In Iona (population 291) I saw middle school kids playing AC/DC, Green Day, Nirvana, Twisted Sister, and more on the lawn in front of a house. They were great! We all loved The Spacemen!

Our friends were right. The stories go on and on. I didn't participate too much in the beer, vodka, and Bloody Mary parties but every night in town you could tell those that had.

Yes - People Love To Party

Those that had an extra fun time during the day probably paid for it the next morning at Sunrise when they set out to ride their bicycles yet another sixty or seventy miles.

So it is safe to say RAGBRAI is much much more than a bicycle ride. Your bicycle is your transportation to the daily events. Then it's not over when you get to the town where you will camp out and spend the night because those towns had even bigger parties and even more food options and even more live music. Some had fireworks and they all had a downtown that was set aside and totally welcoming for all these riders.

Cresco, Iowa everybody was happy to make it to the overnight towns

A typical RAGBRAI "Welcome" a huge flag and waving locals.

This kid was so excited to wave at us I thought he might fall off!

Because the course changes every year the towns change every year. The 7 days of RAGBRAI provided all of these towns big and small their biggest fundraising in maybe 10 or 15 years or maybe ever.

This is a chance for them to build out their town by having all these people come by and throwing a big party and selling water and cookies and Gatorades and breakfast burritos and everything else.