The RAGBRAI overnight towns were announced for 2013 on
Saturday night!! Here's the list:
Sat. night: Council Bluffs
Sun, night: Harlan
Mon. night: Perry
Tue. night: Des Moines
Wed. night: Knoxville
Thu. night: Oskaloosa
Fri. night: Fairfield
Sat. night: Ft. Madison
I'll display my analysis of the route (half complaints, half other), but I'll first list a disclaimer. Only the end towns get announced in late January. The pass through towns during the day and the route between the towns isn't decided upon or announced until later.
Now my analysis:
1. The biggest disappointment is that Des Moines is the overnight stop for the Tuesday. It is my firm opinion that RAGBRAI should never stop in Des Moines or travel through it. The metro area is just too big. We wouldn't be anything too special for the one night we are there. 15,000+ people simply would not make as big an impact to the economy of the metro area as it does to a lot of the smaller overnight towns. In addition, when RAGBRAI goes to the bigger cities like Cedar Rapids last year, bicycle and vehicular traffic has to be carefully routed to avoid a lot of congestion. Cities try, but no matter how you do it, there will be a lot of angry citizens. I like it better in the smaller overnight towns that are more appreciative of our presence.
But don't take it to the extreme. Don't put us in a town with only 500 people. They are usually wonderful people, but those towns don't have enough churches to serve us those wonderful church dinners. As anybody who goes on RAGBRAI knows, those church dinners are extremely popular. Most people only do the "fair" type food for a day or two out of the whole week, and that's only when all of the churches are out of food. There's just something appealing to getting a good "normal" type of meal. They are also usually a good value for the money. You have to be quick to get the church meals. You have to be there within the first hour or so, or the crowds will have gobbled everything up. Most churches would rather go with lower profits and underestimate the crowd than overestimate and have to deal with the leftovers.
2. There will be a ton of bandits this year. Bandits are what we call the people who are not officially registered for the ride. Officially there are 8,500 weeklong riders and 1,500 day pass riders registered each year. On days when we don't usually pass through the bigger population areas, like on a Monday, it is estimated that there are 5,000 bandits. On a day like Sunday, Tuesday, or Wednesday this year, I'm guessing that there will be 10,000 to maybe 15,000 bandits. Sunday will attract a ton of people from Omaha. Most of them don't even have to take off work for it. Tuesday and Wednesday will get a lot of Des Moines people. Just have somebody drop you off in Perry and you'll ride home yourself. Then take off from home Wednesday morning and have somebody pick you up in Knoxville at the end of the day. It's just that simple.
3. There isn't nearly enough of a challenge this year. Early reports are that this will be the 2nd shortest, 15th flattest, and 7th easiest overall in the 41 years of RAGBRAI. (Don't ask me how they calculate the overall difficulty, I don't have a clue. The other two measures are easy to determine.) The people that you see are a wide cross section of Americans. There will be speed demons and also people who are barely going fast enough to stay upright. There are people who attack the toughest hills and love them, people who will do very well on the rollers but the toughest hills force them to do some cross-training (walking the bike up the hill), and also people who struggle on the rollers because they have never been taught the tricks on how to handle them. The riders come from all sorts of athletic backgrounds. I don't believe that RAGBRAI should be catering to only the weakest in the group. It's fine if you want to go for the shortest route, but try to make up for it with a challenging climbing profile. If you want something with little climbing, then please give us a longer route.
4. We aren't sure where most of the festivities are going to take place in Des Moines or what route we are going to come into the metro area from Perry yet. However, I could either make a detour on my way in or do some extra miles at the end to make a pit stop by my apartment. I'll likely have moved into my next apartment complex by then. I wouldn't have my car with me though, that would be stuck in Council Bluffs.
5. I hope there is an opportunity to ride around the perimeter of Lake Red Rock. This is nearby Knoxville, so it could be on either the Wednesday or Thursday. I think I've been to all the other major lakes in Iowa. I believe my family went to Okoboji when I was really little, but I should see that one again eventually. If the route does not come close to it or only skirts by it, I may have to take a detour. Considering the length of the ride this year, adding extra miles is not something I would have a problem with. Besides, it is sometimes good to have an hour or two to yourself while in the midst of a weeklong tour with 15,000 of your closest friends.
6. When I told my Dad about the route earlier this week, he was a bit excited about the last day, Fairfield to Fort Madison. The route that day will probably be in the neighborhood of 65 miles. Dad will occasionally ride the last day if it ends somewhere near Burlington. Unfortunately, he doesn’t get much exercise any more. He trains a little, but not nearly enough. I’m fearful that this time he’ll have a heart attack. Last year the end town was Clinton, so he didn't do it. 2011 started in Coralville and ended in the Quad Cities, which he surprisingly wanted to go on. That year was the only one since 2009 I didn’t do the whole week. I did the Friday leg myself then Dad joined me for Saturday. That ride was really rough on him. I rode next to him for as much as I could, but on some of the bigger hills I just couldn’t. There’s only so much you can change your pace on hills. This thought is fairly understood by most bikers. After you get to the top of a major hill and proceed a couple hundred yards to recover, you let the people in your group gather back together.
Sat. night: Council Bluffs
Sun, night: Harlan
Mon. night: Perry
Tue. night: Des Moines
Wed. night: Knoxville
Thu. night: Oskaloosa
Fri. night: Fairfield
Sat. night: Ft. Madison
I'll display my analysis of the route (half complaints, half other), but I'll first list a disclaimer. Only the end towns get announced in late January. The pass through towns during the day and the route between the towns isn't decided upon or announced until later.
Now my analysis:
1. The biggest disappointment is that Des Moines is the overnight stop for the Tuesday. It is my firm opinion that RAGBRAI should never stop in Des Moines or travel through it. The metro area is just too big. We wouldn't be anything too special for the one night we are there. 15,000+ people simply would not make as big an impact to the economy of the metro area as it does to a lot of the smaller overnight towns. In addition, when RAGBRAI goes to the bigger cities like Cedar Rapids last year, bicycle and vehicular traffic has to be carefully routed to avoid a lot of congestion. Cities try, but no matter how you do it, there will be a lot of angry citizens. I like it better in the smaller overnight towns that are more appreciative of our presence.
But don't take it to the extreme. Don't put us in a town with only 500 people. They are usually wonderful people, but those towns don't have enough churches to serve us those wonderful church dinners. As anybody who goes on RAGBRAI knows, those church dinners are extremely popular. Most people only do the "fair" type food for a day or two out of the whole week, and that's only when all of the churches are out of food. There's just something appealing to getting a good "normal" type of meal. They are also usually a good value for the money. You have to be quick to get the church meals. You have to be there within the first hour or so, or the crowds will have gobbled everything up. Most churches would rather go with lower profits and underestimate the crowd than overestimate and have to deal with the leftovers.
2. There will be a ton of bandits this year. Bandits are what we call the people who are not officially registered for the ride. Officially there are 8,500 weeklong riders and 1,500 day pass riders registered each year. On days when we don't usually pass through the bigger population areas, like on a Monday, it is estimated that there are 5,000 bandits. On a day like Sunday, Tuesday, or Wednesday this year, I'm guessing that there will be 10,000 to maybe 15,000 bandits. Sunday will attract a ton of people from Omaha. Most of them don't even have to take off work for it. Tuesday and Wednesday will get a lot of Des Moines people. Just have somebody drop you off in Perry and you'll ride home yourself. Then take off from home Wednesday morning and have somebody pick you up in Knoxville at the end of the day. It's just that simple.
3. There isn't nearly enough of a challenge this year. Early reports are that this will be the 2nd shortest, 15th flattest, and 7th easiest overall in the 41 years of RAGBRAI. (Don't ask me how they calculate the overall difficulty, I don't have a clue. The other two measures are easy to determine.) The people that you see are a wide cross section of Americans. There will be speed demons and also people who are barely going fast enough to stay upright. There are people who attack the toughest hills and love them, people who will do very well on the rollers but the toughest hills force them to do some cross-training (walking the bike up the hill), and also people who struggle on the rollers because they have never been taught the tricks on how to handle them. The riders come from all sorts of athletic backgrounds. I don't believe that RAGBRAI should be catering to only the weakest in the group. It's fine if you want to go for the shortest route, but try to make up for it with a challenging climbing profile. If you want something with little climbing, then please give us a longer route.
4. We aren't sure where most of the festivities are going to take place in Des Moines or what route we are going to come into the metro area from Perry yet. However, I could either make a detour on my way in or do some extra miles at the end to make a pit stop by my apartment. I'll likely have moved into my next apartment complex by then. I wouldn't have my car with me though, that would be stuck in Council Bluffs.
5. I hope there is an opportunity to ride around the perimeter of Lake Red Rock. This is nearby Knoxville, so it could be on either the Wednesday or Thursday. I think I've been to all the other major lakes in Iowa. I believe my family went to Okoboji when I was really little, but I should see that one again eventually. If the route does not come close to it or only skirts by it, I may have to take a detour. Considering the length of the ride this year, adding extra miles is not something I would have a problem with. Besides, it is sometimes good to have an hour or two to yourself while in the midst of a weeklong tour with 15,000 of your closest friends.
6. When I told my Dad about the route earlier this week, he was a bit excited about the last day, Fairfield to Fort Madison. The route that day will probably be in the neighborhood of 65 miles. Dad will occasionally ride the last day if it ends somewhere near Burlington. Unfortunately, he doesn’t get much exercise any more. He trains a little, but not nearly enough. I’m fearful that this time he’ll have a heart attack. Last year the end town was Clinton, so he didn't do it. 2011 started in Coralville and ended in the Quad Cities, which he surprisingly wanted to go on. That year was the only one since 2009 I didn’t do the whole week. I did the Friday leg myself then Dad joined me for Saturday. That ride was really rough on him. I rode next to him for as much as I could, but on some of the bigger hills I just couldn’t. There’s only so much you can change your pace on hills. This thought is fairly understood by most bikers. After you get to the top of a major hill and proceed a couple hundred yards to recover, you let the people in your group gather back together.
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