Riding RAGBRAI

The Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa (RAGBRAI) has been a state tradition since 1973. For the past four years, a Grinnell team has joined the now-15,000-strong bike ride for seven days of what is touted as “the oldest, largest, and longest recreational bicycle-touring event in the world.” Team Grinnell invites you to join the adventure July 21–27, 2013, as it celebrates five years of riding together.

About 40 Grinnell alumni, parents, faculty, staff, friends, and family members ride with Team Grinnell each year. En route, riders average 67 miles each day, and most bring their own bikes or ship them ahead. While you don’t have to be a professional cyclist, it helps to have at least 500 miles of cycling in prior to RAGBRAI, with at least half of those miles in the eight weeks prior to the ride. 

Riders meet in Grinnell and remember life as students with an overnight stay in the dorms and group dinners at local restaurants. Team Grinnell works closely with Bikes to You, a Grinnell cycle shop that provides a RAGBRAI charter service. In addition to the $150 direct RAGBRAI registration, the charter service offers gear transportation, designated campsites, and campsite equipment and rentals. The goal is to make the 475-mile ride as easy and pleasurable as possible. Sheryl Walter ’78 says, “RAGBRAI is a ride, not a race. It’s the stops along the way that make it such a special week.”