RAGBRAI 2019 Winners

Iowa’s annual bike ride across the state is not intended to be a race. There are no winners, no first losers, or third place finishers. It is just a rolling event that proceeds from town to town through Iowa. However, there are still winners to RAGBRAI 2019 in my eyes. There are select communities that rose to the challenge and put their best foot forward, rolling out the red carpet for bikers and the ensemble of support staff, vendors, and throngs of people who want to party each night. These communities make out as winners for the week-long event.

Most of the communities along the way did a great job in handling the mass of activity thrust upon them as the steamroller that was RAGBRAI 2019 came through. However, pointing out one “meeting town” and one “overnight town” that appeared to excel above the rest seems apropos.

Meeting Town – Donnellson

Let’s start with the meeting town. As bikers traverse the route each day, there is one community along the way that is designated as a “meeting town”. Typically this community is roughly half-way through the day’s route. It serves as a point where support drivers can meet up with riders to provide supplies and tools for repairs. The support drivers can also partake in the activities available at the meeting town, often downing some lunch with the riders of his/her team.

Redneck Pool in Donnellson

Usually, the meeting town isn’t big enough to be an overnight town. But these communities still need to be big enough to handle the masses of bikers craving a mid-day meal. They also have to support a sizeable chunk of the support vehicle traffic as well. There can’t be just a few food trucks, roadside stands, and rows of porta-potties.

This year’s winner was Donnellson, Iowa. Yes, the last meeting town of the week took away gold for this category. This town of 912 in extreme Southeast Iowa opened their doors to the worn riders on their last leg of the seven day journey. But once in the town, many of the riders turned into energetic kids at the sight of their massive “redneck pool”. This pool was simply a large temporary pit dug in the county fairgrounds and covered with massive tarps. They also mounded up dirt off to the side as a slide wide enough that you could drive a truck down it.

Most other communities that held the activities downtown, on their square, or the main street in the community. Donnellson took an alternate route when they held the event at the Lee County Fairgrounds. It was actually a good venue and makes more sense, the more you think about it.

Overnight Town – Atlantic

Often, the overnight towns are larger communities. It’s usually a county seat with ample road infrastructure, parks, and open space to accommodate the massive influx of visitors. These cities are often more critiqued due to the demands put upon them for the time that they host the event. It is essentially a two-day event for these communities. The more intensive riders arrive in the morning of the first day. While the stragglers many times stumble out of town the next afternoon.

This year Atlantic took home the gold for overnight towns as their setup was simply ideal. In many of the communities you’d visit the vendors in the middle of the streets. Hence, you’d be waiting in line for a bite to eat, while the summer sun beat down on you after a sweaty day of biking. Then retreating to whatever shade you could dig up on the square. However, in Atlantic vendors lined the tree-lined Chestnut Street downtown, creating a cozy atmosphere without being overly cramped. But better yet, you were often shaded as you waited for that mouth-watering smoked turkey leg.

Atlantic was unlike other overnight towns where the stores that lined the square were across the street. Such a format caused storefronts at times to feel seemingly distant from the action. The stores along Chestnut Street were right in the middle of it all. Riders waiting in line for food and drink were often looking past the food trucks and into the windows of Atlantic’s downtown businesses.

At night these same tree-lined streets were lit up with Christmas lights intertwined in the branches of the trees. They were obviously the town’s Christmas lights, just reutilized for the event. It did create a unique aura for the event’s visitors as they strolled along the street to that night’s entertainment, Hairball.

Each night the cell towers in the overnight towns are hammered with traffic from the phones of this rolling mob of biking enthusiasts. Phones often show that they are on the cellular networks. But data is often painstakingly slow. Many times, you’re looking around for some WiFi node that a homeowner hadn’t locked down with a password. However, the business owners in Atlantic and Atlantic-based NishnaNet opened up WiFi networks to meet the needs of the data-hungry visitors to the community.

Standing Out Above the Rest

Yes, Stuart did an eggsceptional job in preparing and marketing their part in the week-long event. But the communities of Atlantic and Donnellson rolled out the red carpet at a level above and beyond the others along the RAGBRAI 2019 route. This is not a slight to the rest of the communities that were involved along the way. They all performed admirably during the annual bike ride across Iowa. I for one, am looking forward to what next year’s communities have in store for the riders.