Cliques and Camps - RAGBRAI 2013 Part VII

There are many ways you can take care of your lodging needs on RAGBRAI.

You could be one of the rare ones that reserve the few motel spots that exist at the overnight towns.  I consider that to be cheating, though, and not in the spirit of RAGBRAI.  You are of course protected from all sorts of weather events, but you also will hardly ever meet anybody new this way.

Another way is to find a group of friends or family and an RV and go on quite the adventure that way.  The good news with this is that you already have an established relationship with them.  The bad news is that either you need to find somebody who is willing to drive for the week, or you have to take turns skipping a day of riding just to get the RV to the next overnight town.

An option used by others and many of the hard-core party teams is to use old buses.  They will buy an old bus, rip out many of the seats, and attach a lot of structural elements to the outside.  There is often a massive set of bike racks on top and a ladder system in the back to get to the racks.  I've even seen kegerators in some buses with a couple taps on the outside.  The good news is that your team is self-contained and can customize things however crazily or normally you want it.  The bad news is that you still need to find houses in each town where you can park the bus and set up your tents.

Yet another way is to find host families in each town that are willing to take riders in for the night.  The good news is that these are more available than motel rooms.  The bad news is that demand way outstrips supply each year.

Really small groups, like couples, small families, or individuals will use the D.M. Register's baggage truck system.  I don't see a whole lot of positives with this method.  The register will take care of transporting your luggage from town to town.  However, you are limited to one soft-sided bag.  That one bag has to include your tent, sleeping bag, and gear for the week.  When you get in to town you have to identify your bag amongst the couple thousand that are there.  Hopefully you have something that is highly colorful and easy to find.  Good luck if you have basic black.  Once that is done you then might have to haul it a ways because many other people have taken the close spots.  Things also get a bit impersonal because there are so many other people doing the same thing that it becomes hard to establish any relationships.  About the only good thing about this service is that the registration fee for RAGBRAI automatically includes this service.

If I haven't forgotten any groups, this leaves the charter groups as the remaining option.  This is the only method I have used during 4 RAGBRAIs.  In fact, I have used the same charter group each time because I like them so much.  Charter groups can be as large as 1,000 for the largest one [Pork Belly Ventures, which I would never use because that group also suffers from being impersonal] to the smallest ones around 30 or 40 people in size.  The one I belong to is called Lost and Found Adventures.  There are around 100 people in our group each year.  A single family runs it.  They do an excellent job for us all week long.  There are a large number of people who come back year after year just because they enjoy the camaraderie of the group so much.  I really enjoy their company and have developed a rapport with a lot of them.

We hail from all across the country and our weeklong riders cover an age range of 9 to mid-70's.  We had some as young as about 6, but they only stayed a couple days.  Just like the rest of RAGBRAI, a majority of the riders are in their upper 40's, 50's, and lower 60's.

We are small enough that by the end of each week I will know a lot of the group's names.  I am terrible with people's names.  I hardly ever even bother asking people's last names during the week.  I needed a small refresher on a few of the regulars' names, but those come back to me quickly.

We are also big enough that a number of cliques just naturally develop.  Here are some descriptions just so you get a flavor of the different types of groups that occur.  I'm avoiding using people's names here since this is publicly available on the internet; I'll just invent some names and hope they aren't offensive.

Danish Descendants - Upper teens cousins and one parent from each family - this group includes me in certain activities.  Very funny group to be around.  At certain times throughout the week, I would ride with them when we saw each other out on the roads.

Speed Demons - friends from Omaha area + one young son on tandem, upper 30's? - this group also includes me in certain activities - certain members have comparable speed ability as me when they chose to display it.  Always interesting topics to talk about with this group.  At certain times throughout the week, I would ride with them when we saw each other out on the roads.

Gearheads - one father son team, but the rest are just friends I believe, upper 40's lower 50's mainly - constantly talking about mechanical upgrades to their bikes and other amateur garage shop tales, very similar to guys who talk cars all the time.  These are the people most likely to be a part-time wrench at their local bike shops.  This is the most isolated clique out of the bunch, they keep to themselves and mostly don't interact with other groups.

Older But Still Active - a friendly group of regulars that show up every year and are the spine of the charter group.  Our speed isn't compatible with each other during the day, but when you see them in pass through towns or in camp, they always have a friendly word to say.  Usually up for checking out the downtown square once camp is set up and if it is a short walk there.

Camp Crusaders - this is the group that is up at 4:20 every morning and on the road by 4:45.  They don't stop for long in the pass-through towns and like to get to the next camp as soon as possible.  Oftentimes this group will have camp set up, have sought out dinner for the night, and will have settled back into the common area for long bull sessions before I even arrive.  This group finds the campground to be the social center instead of the launching point that many others like me use it for.

There are a couple other cliques that exist, but I think you get the point.  Thankfully, I have a personality that allows me to usually fit in with a wide variety of groups.  Except for the Gearheads, I found myself interacting with all of the cliques to various extents throughout the week.  I spent the most time with Speed Demons and Danish Descendants and that likely has to do with our relatively similar ages and tendencies toward similar activities.

I think that is enough of my sociology observations for today.