Live coverage: RAGBRAI's 50th anniversary inspection ride

DAY 3

6 a.m. Tuesday

Most RAGBRAI routes spend a substantial amount of time in Iowa's smaller towns as they wend their way across the countryside. That's not a bad thing ― experiencing their warmth and hospitality is part of what makes the Register's Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa unique. But it's also fun sometimes to sample the variety of Iowa's biggest cities. This year's 50th anniversary route is an urban cornucopia, visiting five of Iowa's nine regions populous enough to be classified as metro areas. It starts in Sioux City, ends in Davenport and makes overnight stops in Des Moines, Coralville in metro Iowa City and today's destination, Ames. The home of 30,000-student Iowa State University can be a bit sleepy in the summer, but it has plenty of year-round attractions, including a wide variety of eateries offering everything from barbecue to Brazilian cuisine. It's also likely we’ll get to make a lap round the inside of Jack Trice Stadium, home field of Cyclones football. The stadium ride will be one of the highlights of RAGBRAI Day 3.

Along the way, we’ll also visit Jefferson, home to the Mahanay Memorial Carillon Tower ― which, by the way, will be celebrated with an annual festival this Friday and Saturday. The nearly 170-foot tower has an observation deck, and its bells sound out in a daily concert at 12:15 p.m.

Today's route

Carroll to Ames

Miles: 83

Climb: 1,479 feet

Meeting town: Rippey

Pass-through towns: Glidden, Jefferson and Luther

What to know: Today's elevation gain is moderate compared to the last two days’. But there's at least one heavy-duty pull when the route crosses the Des Moines River between Rippey and Luther. Iowa's largest inland river flows through a deep valley amid the prairie. Some of us will be traveling at top speed on the way down to the bridge, while the more cautious among us will be burning our brakes. All of us, though, will be exploring the lowest reaches of our groupsets as we chug up the 6% grade on the other side.

DAY 2

4:30 p.m. Monday

For a second consecutive day, the RAGBRAI route inspection team ended its day in the SAG wagons. On Sunday, the reason for taking to the support-and-gear vans was a lightning storm that halted the ride short of overnight destination Storm Lake. On Monday, it was the prospect of riding with heavy, high-speed car and truck traffic on a 5-mile stretch of U.S. 71 from pass-through town Mount Carmel to the overnight town of Carroll.

If the road is part of the final route, the Iowa State Patrol will ensure it's safe for cyclists. But there was no such assurance on Monday, and no need to take a risk after an otherwise scenic ride through hills studded with giant wind turbines.

4 p.m. Monday

Day 2 pass-though town Breda will tap RAGBRAI riders to help its raise money for improvements to its decades-old Little League and high school baseball stadium.

Leon Tiefenthaler with Breda's RAGBRAI organizing committee, who turned out to greet the route inspection team as it visited the town on Monday, said the facility dates back to at least the 1950s. The town is looking to raise $300,000 to replace lights at the ballpark before it celebrates its 150th anniversary in 2027, Tiefenthaler said. The park also needs replacements for some rotted wooden beams and a rusted steel roof, he said.

Breda residents don't expect to raise the full amount from RAGBRAI, but with every organization pitching in, they hope to get the fundraising off to a good start.

And the Register's Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa has inspired fundraising miracles on occasion. In 2021, the tiny northwest Iowa crossroads of Lytton staged goat yoga sessions ― yoga with baby goats ― charming riders enough (along with a pie sale) to raise $15,000 toward a new firehouse. That so impressed Ankeny's famously philanthropic Lauridsen family, which has an animal protein plant in Lytton, that they paid off the remaining $50,000 debt on the project.

Tiefenthaler said that Breda, population about 500, is trying to engage the young people that still live there. He was among the organizers the last time RAGBRAI came through Breda in 1994, and said hosting the ride is a good way to get new people interested in the community before the sesquicentennial bash.

"You see so many communities that are little and pretty soon they’re pretty well gone by the wayside," Tiefenthaler said. "The RAGBRAI is a good way to get people involved.

12 p.m. Monday

Sunday's ride was a long, hard pull. Monday's terrain, though far from flat, is ess rugged, yet even more scenic. From Storm Lake to Breda, it offers long-range views of the rolling hills and prairies. Midway is the meeting town of Lake View, an unexpected resort amid the cornfields on a beautiful natural lake with a state park. Riders may be tempted to return sometime to pedal the 33-mile Sauk Rail linking Lake View and Carroll.

― Philip Joens

8:30 a.m. Monday

We face a choice as we start Day 2 of the 50th anniversary RAGBRAI route inspection ride.

Those with gravel bikes may peel off after 2 miles to take the optional, 57-mile gravel day route. Running parallel to the paved route, it's sightly shorter, even if it's a bit bumpy. Those of us on road bikes may wish we could have had that option. The 18-mile route to the pass-through town of Early takes us on a stretch of busy U.S. 71. If that's part of the regular route, it presumably will have traffic control from the Iowa State Patrol. But for today, it means riding for an extended period inches from cars and trucks whizzing by at 65 mph (or more).

― Philip Joens

6 a.m. Monday

The original 1973 route of the Great Six-Day Bicycle Ride proceeded on Day 2 almost due east from Storm Lake to Fort Dodge. But with seven days to cover instead of six, today's route inspection ride heads sharply south-southeast, across some of the most scenic rolling hills in northwest Iowa to the pleasant and prosperous overnight town of Carroll. Along the way we’ll navigate the eastern shore of Storm Lake, among the largest of the glacial remnant water bodies in Iowa, then pause near the southernmost in the United States, Black Hawk Lake in the charming meeting town of Lake View. From there, we’ll ride among the towers of one of Iowa's many wind farms as we aim for the pass-through towns of Breda and unincorporated Mt. Carmel, a tiny crossroads whose outsized Catholic church with a spire topping a high point rivals the wind generators. It's not far from there to Carroll.

Today's route

Storm Lake to Carroll

Miles: 62

Climb: 1,818 feet

Meeting town: Lake View

Pass-through towns: Early, Breda and Mt. Carmel

What to know: Carroll has a prominent place in Iowa athletic annals. It's often the site of state high school baseball tournaments. It's also home, not far from the RAGBRAI campground, of a basketball court in Veterans Memorial Park that sports the distinctive purple and gold of the Los Angeles Lakers. What's the story? In January 1960, the Lakers, then a Minneapolis team, were flying home from an away game when their airplane lost its generator, leaving it without lights, radio and navigation. Far off course and running out of fuel, the pilots ditched in a snow-covered cornfield in Carroll. All aboard survived, and the town's residents, who had heard the clearly troubled plane circling, turned out to feed and shelter the grateful players. In a 2010 50th anniversary tribute, the now-LA team paid $25,000 to build the court.

5 p.m. Sunday

Even the experts know they have to sag sometimes.

Eight miles outside the overnight destination of Storm Lake, after 62 miles of steep hills and headwinds, the about 40 members of the RAGBRAI route inspection crew hit an obstacle they declined to challenge: a threatening lightning storm. We loaded our bikes on the support-and-gear vans (SAG wagons) for a safe ride into town.

It's a reminder that those who join July's ride without buying at least a day pass will be on their own if the weather turns threatening.

The Day 1 route (and Day 2 on Monday) are likely to be the most rural of the ride. Sunday's ride started from Sioux City, population about 85,00. But the route quickly turned into farmland as far as they eye could see, with more than 20 miles between towns.

― Philip Joens

2:15 p.m. Sunday

Iowa isn't all corn and soybeans.

Quimby has a long tradition of celebrating summer with watermelon. The town's annual Watermelon Days festival hands out 2,000 pounds annually of the refreshing treat on the fourth weekend of June.

Riders on the 50th anniversary edition of the Register's Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa will get an extra share: 3,000 pounds will be ready for slicing when they roll through July 23. RAGBRAI inspection route riders on Sunday got an advance sample during a stop a the town's fire department.

― Philip Joens

1:30 p.m. Sunday

Day 1 meetup town Washta is planning a chilly welcome for RAGBRAI's 50th anniversary ride.

The Cherokee County town of barely more than 200 has a peculiar claim to fame: It registered a temperature of 47 degrees below zero on Jan. 12, 1912, the lowest on record in Iowa. So when the riders on the Register's Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa roll in, town RAGBRAI committee chair Jen Connor said Sunday, Washta will be ready with a dunk tank full of icy water.

It might seem a bit off-putting, but if July 23's weather is anything like it is for today's route inspection ride ― 89 degrees and intensely sunny ― the prospective dunkees will likely be hoping for on-target throws from the dunkers.

It's the first time in eight years that Washta, which was on the original 1973 route, will be hosting RAGBRAI. The ride then cut off registration at 12,000 to 15,000, but this year it has already registered 28,000, so Connor is urging everyone to prepare for a crowd at least twice the size of 2015's.

"We're trying to plan big because we know this is going to be huge," Connor said. "All the vendors know to prepare double what you're used to doing."

She's concerned, though, that they may no be picturing just how crowded it could get.

"I don't think they're putting into perspective doubling that number," she said.

― Philip Joens

11 a.m. Sunday

Just how big will the 50th anniversary RAGBRAI be?

Organizers of the Register's Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa offered some perspective as we made our way along the Day 1 route on Sunday.

Last year's RAGBRAI drew about 18,000 registered riders ― respectable attendance boosted by easier travel from out of state as the COVID-19 pandemic waned.

This year, there are 28,000, a 55% increase. And that's not counting the unregistered riders who boosted last year's Day 1 ridership to 30,000, the third-largest in RAGBRAI history.

A similar spike on Day 1 this year would push the total ridership north of a record-shattering 45,000. And that's before the Day 4 ride from Ames to Des Moines that's expected to be the largest in the ride's history.

The giant, rolling party ― with the line of riders stretching from horizon to horizon ― is one of the things that makes RAGBRAI special. But it feels like a privilege to be riding the route today with just the 40-member inspection crew.

― Philip Joens

10:15 a.m. Sunday

Ride director Matt Phippen wasn't exaggerating when he said the route for the 50th anniversary edition of RAGBRAI will be hilly.

It's always a hard pull climbing out of the Missouri River valley on Day 1 of the ride. But as we began the route inspection ride today, we encountered 13 of the day's 22 hills during the 29-mile segment that brought us to the pass-through town of Kingsley ― less than half the total 70-mile distance to overnight town Storm Lake. And with a bit of an easterly headwind, it got our hearts pumping.

It wasn't that Phippen was trying to torture us. The Day 1 route is the only one of this year's ride to duplicate the first day of the original ride in 1973, mapped by the two Register journalists, John Karras and Donald Kaul, who founded the event.

But there was something else that raised our pulse rates: the scenic beauty of the Loess Hills that march eastward from the river. Raised in Sioux City, I may be biased, but as a veteran of many Register's Annual Great Bicycle Rides Across Iowa, I've seen how the vistas of green pastures and corn and soybean fields cut into the hills affect the riders from around the world visiting Iowa for the first time.

And for those of us who've lived most of our lives here, it's a dramatic reminder of why Karras and Kaul wanted to make this ride in the first place.

9 a.m. Sunday

It's hard to imagine nowadays, but there once was a time when everybody didn't have a phone with a built-in camera in their pocket.

That was the case in 1973, when a pair of Register journalists launched what would become the Register's Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa.

Photos of the start of that initial ride aren't easy to come across, but there are a few, thanks to Kent Williams’ mother Shirley. Williams, now 65, was a 15-year-old from Eagle Grove when he participated in the initial day of what was then the Great Six Day Bicycle Ride with his father Roger, a school guidance counselor.

Williams said it was father's idea.

"He said, ‘Let's go on this bike ride’ because we had ridden bicycles together from Eagle Grove to Minneapolis to visit his brother and go to a Twins baseball game and we had ridden bicycles to eastern Iowa," he said.

He remembers it was a beautiful, blue-sky day, if a bit hot (the temperature would hit 99 degrees) as he and his father joined the roughly 200 riders who showed up to accompany Register journalists John Karras and Donald Kaul.

"I was so excited. It was an early moment of greatness to be able to be sitting on a bicycle next to Karras and Kaul," said Williams, who was a Des Moines Register paperboy at the time. "They were larger-than-life heroes when you could read their stuff in the paper."

Williams’ mother, now 88, photographed the founding duo and Williams and his dad as they took off from the Rodeway Inn where Karras and Kaul had spent the previous night. Sioux City RAGBRAI organizers used Williams’ photos to pinpoint the location.

"People did come and stand around and look to see what was going on," Shirley Williams recalled, but no one seemed to realize they were witnessing history. "I think they just thought ‘There's a bunch of crazy people going on a bike ride.’"

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Kent Williams rode the Second Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa in 1974 with his father and a friend. But he never rode RAGBRAI again after that. He had a long career in Army, could never get a week off work and settled in Oklahoma. But his father, with his mother as support driver, rode RAGBRAI through 1981. He died in 1992.

"It's become something that I miss," Williams said. "To me, the people that ride on it are legends."

On June 3, despite having a total knee replacement not long before, Williams decided to ride the first day of RAGBRAI this year. He’ll reminisce and think about his Dad as he makes the nostalgic journey.

"It’d be cool to say I’m one of the few people who rode the first and 50th RAGBRAI," Williams said.

― Philip Joens

8 a.m. Sunday

The 50th anniversary RAGBRAI inspection ride is underway. We're starting from Sioux City, where the city plans to mark the starting point of the initial ride with a bike sculpture inspired by the Dr. Seuss classic "The Cat in the Hat."

As historic sites go, the former Rodeway Inn at Second and Nebraska streets in Sioux City where Register journalists John Karras and Donald Kaul had spent the night before starting what was then the Great Six-Day Bicycle Ride on Aug. 26, 1973, is a bit on the sad side. The hotel is now dilapidated and under renovation.

But it was outside the old motel at Second and Nebraska streets that more than 200 riders joined them ― Register readers responding to an impromptu invite to participate in a ride Karras and Kaul had envisioned as one they would go on alone. It planted the seed that grew into the Register's Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa, now the world's largest annual weeklong bicycle tour.

Since the motel doesn't look like much these days and it's private property, the city will install the sculpture across the street on the lawn of the Sioux City Art Center.

John Byrnes, Sioux City Parks and Recreation superintendent, said Sioux City wants the sculpture to be as fun and welcoming as RAGBRAI. Crafted by a local welding shop, it's a 25-foot-long "amorphous" tandem bike, like something out of a Seuss drawing, that people can pose on for photos, Byrnes said.

"It's not this individualistic ride, what makes it fun is other people," Byrnes said. "It's going to be this absurd sculpture that you won't be able to stay away from."

When RAGBRAI is over the sculpture will be moved to a permanent place on a bike trail. Byrnes said it will serve as a continual reminder of RAGBRAI.

― Philip Joens

6 a.m. Sunday

Welcome to our live coverage of the RAGBRAI 50th anniversary inspection ride.

When Des Moines Register journalists John Karras and Donald Kaul set out on their Great Six-Day Bicycle Ride in 1973, they and the roughly 200 riders who joined them dealt with obstacles like closed bridges, blocked roads and rutted pavement as they came to them.

But as the ride evolved into what is now the Register's Annual Bicycle Ride Across Iowa, with thousands of people biking a seven-day route, professionalism took hold. Now, the ride has a dedicated, year-round staff that makes an inspection ride each June, weeks before the actual July RAGBRAI. It's when they and invited guests can scrutinize the roads on which they’ll travel and make changes to the route or seek improvements where needed.

As RAGBRAI prepares for its 50th anniversary edition July 23-29, that ride begins today. Register, Ames Tribune and Iowa City Press-Citizen reporters and photographers will come along to document the route and provide a glimpse of what to expect on the historic ride.

Today's route

Sioux City to Storm Lake, just as on the first ride, in places following the original route.

Miles: 77

Climb: 3,504 feet

Meeting town: Washta

Pass-through towns: Kingsley and Quimby

What to know: In 1973, this leg full of steep hills on a 99-degree day winnowed the entourage, but launched the legend of Clarence Pickard, a retired 83-year-old Indianola farmer who persevered for the entire ride on a second-hand women's bicycle he bought the day before it began. And the town of Kingsley, one of this-year's pass through, drew special praise in Karras’ coverage of the ride, becoming the first in a long line of towns to display vaunted Iowa hospitality by providing the riders with food and drinks courtesy of its business community.

More to come: Keep checking back throughout the day, and this week's ride, for news of our adventure.