Alex Allshouse

Interview Essay

When I was in 8th grade, my parents went on a week-long bike ride across the state of

Iowa, where we lived. Back then, I just thought they were idiots. Who would want to ride a bike, and do nothing else for a straight week? I didn’t mind, though. It was a week of having the house to myself. Another thing that amazed me was that they went back the next year. They have attended this ride, called RAGBRAI, every year since. But now that I’m older, I understand that there is a little more to it than just riding a bike. Curious as to how this ride could possibly be any fun, I sat down with my mother, Sheri, and asked her about it.

RAGBRAI stands for Restister’s Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa. It is a bike ride starting on the Missouri River, and goes through a different ride every year to the Mississippi

River. Officially, participants are supposed to pay a fee of $150 to register, but some people just show up. It is the oldest, largest, and longest organized bike tour in the world.

I met with her at my grandmother’s house here in Lamoni,IA. My whole mom’s side of the family goes on RAGBRAI, so they were all there as well. We met in her living room, a big, brightly-lit room, with a leather-upholstered couch up against a side wall, and two recliners facing a 70” flat-screen TV, which displayed a NASCAR race, though the audio was muted. My grandpa sat in one recliner with his favorite cat, with my grandma in the recliner next to him.

My mom and I sat on the couch. Seeing as my whole family attends this ride, all of them had plenty to say about it. It was a topic that my family enjoyed talking about, especially my dad. I would have interviewed him about it, but he was busy that weekend, and only my mom could make it to my grandparents’.

This first thing I asked her was why she would want to do something like RAGBRAI in the first place. She began to tell me about how her and my dad used run often, which I remember they did indeed used to run often when I was a younger. She went on to talk about my father’s hip problems. He had osteoporosis, which is a bone disease which causes bone to decay.

Eventually, he had to get it replaced, which meant he could no longer run every day without tearing up his artificial hip. So my parents sought out a new way to exercise.

“After Dad’s hip surgery, he couldn’t run,” she said, “so he came up to me one day and said lets go be bikers! And so we became bikers.”

She told me that they had always heard about RAGBRAI on the news, and in the paper, and it always looked like fun. So one summer they decided they would go, and began their preparations.

They started by waking up early, and going on a 15-20 mile ride before they would go to work. This was a huge distance for them at first, but they soon got to the point where 30-40 mile rides were manageable. They would also occasionally go on extra-long rides on weekends.

Before long it was time for RAGBRAI, and they were confident they could handle the 60 mile rides that were ahead of them for the week. She had much to say about her first impression of her first year going. She was very nervous, largely to the amount of people present. They also didn’t have a support vehicle, such as the RV they now have.

“I was petrified. I was so nervous. It was our first year, and we had no support at all. It was just Dad and I, and we carried all our supplies on mounts on our bike. Tents, a portable shower, clothes, everything. I was just afraid I would crash with all of the weight. Plus we were riding with a million other people on the road,” she told me.

She went on to talk about a massive lightning storm that occurred on their first night.

They had to hold down their tent to keep it from flying away in the wind, along with all of their supplies. They learned later that the police actually told everyone in tents to evacuate to a nearby school, but they couldn’t hear the warning. She was grateful to be alive, as one person in a tent nearby was killed by a falling tree-branch. I could see by her facial expressions that she was still a little shaken up about it. She said it was not a great way to start the ride.

The ride went much better after the storm. Each night they would stay in someone’s yard, whom my father had made arrangements with beforehand. Each person was very nice, and some even let them in to shower or eat dinner. From what my mother described, I don’t think they met anyone who wasn’t overly friendly.

“On one of the rides, I wiped out and scraped myself up pretty bad. I was badly hurt, I was just all bloody. So we stopped by this house that was nearby, and this very nice elderly couple invited us in and patched me up. The man brought out a shoebox full of medical supplies, cleaned me up and gave me some extra bandages,” she said. She said that this was just one example of the many acts of kindness they received on their RAGBRAI trip.

I asked what the usual routine was for my parents, and I was surprised of how much more of party this ride is than an actual bike ride. Every day, they would get up and ride about

10 miles or so to a small town. At every town they rode through, there would be things like performances by bands or the local high school cheerleaders, tents with vendors, and other spectacles. Then they would arrive at the overnight town, which was just a huge party. Bands would come to play, beer tents were everywhere, and vendors would open selling pie, donuts, and other treats. Now it makes sense why people do this ride.

“It’s really, really fun, and addicting. It’s hard, the weather can turn on you in seconds, the bus breaks down all the time, it’s hot, and can be just miserable. But you want to come back every year,” she told me. You meet new tons of new people, you can what you want since you’re burning so many calories, and you get to party every night for a straight week. Now that

I’ve learned a bit more about it, RAGBRAI actually sounds appealing.

With my interview concluded, my family continued to swap stories about all of their exploits through-out their many years attending RAGBRAI. Hopefully I can find time out of my summer to join them one day. They eventually turned their attention back to the NASCAR race, and I enjoyed the rest of the night with my family. WORKS CITED

“About RAGBRAI.” Ragbrai.com. The Des Moines Register Media, 2009. Web. 9/30/2012