Iowa Spirits Spring Summer 2019 - 15

Left: The Register's Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa began in
1973, and crosses the state from the Missouri to the Mississippi each
July. This stretch is between Denison and Aspinwall.
Below: Less than half the 10,000 registered RAGBRAI riders are
from Iowa.

Highway Patrol and local law enforcement, had
to come up with viable solutions as the ride aged.
JIM GREEN took over for Benson in 1991 and
tried a stricter approach to time and alcohol management. His stance had the effect of urging
some partiers to party even harder.
Eventually the Iowa Alcoholic Beverages
Division got involved, and today things are a lot
calmer -and safer-than the hoary days of yore.
More than anything, RAGBRAI is about the
people of Iowa: strangers become friends with
locals they meet on the road, out-of-staters are
welcomed into communities and homes, strangers meet strangers in the streets of Iowa's friendly
small towns.
RAGBRAI is best described by people who
work in, ride on and have loved RAGBRAI for years
on end.
CHUCK OFFENBURGER, whose Register column "Iowa Boy" ran 1977 to 1998, was a co-host
of RAGBRAI and covered it from 1983 to 1998.
Since then, he's been a paying customer, riding
another 14 years for a total of 30. Chuck-O is
considered by many to be the ride's champion.
"RAGBRAI has grown to become one of Iowa's
leading tourism events, one that showcases Iowa
in a unique way," Offenburger says. "It's really the
only event that brings in thousands of visitors

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around 15,000.
RAGBRAI was the training ground for most
of the large, state-based tours in America; for
example, the Portland Oregonian newspaper
sent columnist Jonathan Nicholas on the ride in
1988 and Cycle Oregon was born in the Iowa
cornfields.
As with any summertime assembly of enthusiastic people, RAGBRAI quickly earned a reputation as a weeklong party. Many attempts were
made to curtail and discourage excessive drinking on RAGBRAI, many of them to no avail.
The RAGBRAI staff, along with the Iowa

SPRING | SUMMER 2019 15

Iowa Spirits Spring Summer 2019

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