Ragbrai Week

     The main feature of the next year's ride in 1985, of course, was the astoundingly large horde of cyclists that rode out of Hawarden on the way to Clinton. Benson was quoted as saying that that was the first year any applicants for the ride had been turned away, but methinks he dissembled because he later said that everyone who applied got tags, and there had to be at least 10,000 cyclists on the road out of Hawarden.
     And with that number, we finally got the answer to a question that had been haunting us from the start: What happens if this ride gets too big?
     We'd imagined all sorts of things -- towns running out of food, water, toilet paper, patience -- but had never even considered the real answer, which was: There was hardly any room on the road to ride. It was wheel to wheel for the first three days. By Tuesday, I wanted to go home, but by the end of that day the cyclists, displaying more wisdom than all of the RAGBRAI managers put together, had spread out on the road and relaxed.


John Karras and Ann Karras, Ragbrai: Everyone Pronounces It Wrong