What is RAGBRAI?

Here's the 2009 RAGBRAI route. Less than 4 days to go! I'm feeling better about it now that I've been talking to friends and colleagues about the ride. One native from Iowa told me that it's a great ride and a great way to get know more about Iowa (although he did warn me that Iowa is not flat, a common misperception).

It occurred to me that many of you may not know what RAGBRAI is. Heck, I didn't know what it was until my husband essentially dragged me into it. Here's the description from the official RAGBRAI site, http://ragbrai.com:

RAGBRAI®, The Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa, is an annual seven-day bicycle ride across the state. Heading into its 37th year, RAGBRAI is the longest, largest and oldest touring bicycle ride in the world. RAGBRAI is sponsored by The Des Moines Register.

National Geographic recently rated it as the #7 Best American Adventure. Here's what they had to say:

7. Iowa: Biking RAGBRAI

To the uninitiated, spending a week riding your bike across Iowa may hardly seem like an adventure. But RAGBRAI, the Des Moines Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa, is a big deal in every way that counts for road cyclists—and it doesn’t get any more red, white, and blue than this. Each year on the third Sunday in July, 10,000 riders start on the state’s western border (the route changes yearly) and proceed en masse, rolling east in seven stages in a traveling juggernaut that celebrates everything that’s good about the heartland. It’s a long queue of spinning spokes and endorphin-charged folks wheeling over farm-to-market roads that normally see maybe a tractor and a couple of cars a day. They ride into dot-on-the-map towns that welcome everyone with Fourth of July fanfare—bands oompah-ing, flags waving, and every school, church group, and Kiwanis Club in support. Throughout the week RAGBRAI riders supplement PowerBars and Gatorade with three-inch-thick pork chops, corn every which way, and the race’s true lifeblood: homemade pies. There are as many as eight refueling stops each day, and cyclists put them to good use. Forget velodrome-flat rides: Some RAGBRAI weeks total more than 25,000 feet of climbing. (We did say this was an adventure.) Riders might camp in sorghum fields and shower in swine barns, but Hawkeye hospitality is guaranteed.

The shock of having to ride 442 miles has now worn off and I feel a mix of excitement and nervousness. I'm glad to be doing this with my husband, but every now and then, I have this gnawing feeling of, what have I gotten myself into.