Driftless Area: 6 - RAGBRAI in Waukon

Register's Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa

I had never heard of this until I moved here. Somehow Iowa takes cycling very seriously. So seriously, in fact, that the local patriarchs of this town of 3,000 overrode the fact that most of the folks that live here view it as an enormous pain in the ass. Mostly because of traffic, but I'm from Pittsburgh so no skin off my back.

Early morning preparations

Tents, portojohns, and volunteers. Let's get this clear, the organizers we're not prepared for this thing. The week leading up to it, they were going door to door begging people with large houses to please let cyclists camp on their lawn. A woman I work with is hosting 50 doctors from Florida in her yard out on the farm. Lucky for her they said they aren't partiers.

This bus was a nice touch for those not familiar with the Driftless Area, and the interior had some stuff for my future post on the geology of my town. (Including fodder for my asteroid crater feature!)

Brilliant. Competitive games for drunks fused with recycling! Why anticipation of that much drinking, you say?

From unerected to (I guess) complete, right here in the middle of the only stoplight intersection in Allamakee County, Hairball is playing. Who?

Hairball is an 80's hair metal tribute band that tours the Midwest and the prairie parts of Canada. I heard the city spent something absurd like $15k to have them play. So this isn't just a party for bikers, it's for all of the hairballs (?) that follow them from show to show, and this show is free. The town's invited, too, not like they have a choice.

D'marie, the best curio shop I've seen in a while, and certainly the best in a 1.5-hour driving radius. The owner is the resident black sheep of the community, as I understand it, and she embraces it gloriously.

Assquatch!

Things are starting to hop a little, with the first swath of bikers arriving.

Garoto's, best food truck present, hands down. I wish they weren't moving to Florida, but they said they would be back next year.

Here is one of the traffic nightmare crossings that really aren't that bad if you've lived in a city. It was a mild inconvenience parking further away and getting sweaty walking the 7 or so blocks to work.

Downtown is a little busier now, with your standard cycle-fest tents!

It might be hard to make out in the photo, but leaving work and heading back to Decorah (the prior pass-though town for RAGBRAI), there was a steady stream of trucks, RV's, and gear trucks on the long, flat highway 9. They composed team-support converted buses, like Black Pearl and Loveshack, and folks that will not miss a free Hairball show.

I had to work, I have a toddler, and my wife has to work tonight, so a lot of the festivities for this year's stop in Waukon elude me. I hope the scale of preparations and the beginnings of the trickle of bikers can be appreciated from what I was able to snap today.

Thanks for coming along!

References

RAGBRAI
Hairball
D'marie, Waukon, IA
Garoto's Samba Rock BBQ - Street food, Brazilian style

Check out the previous entries for the Driftless Area below

Check the later links, some of them might still be fresh and piping hot!

1. Decorah-La Crosse
2. Decorah-Waukon
3. Decorah-Cresco
4. Lansing-Upper Mississippi
5. Winneshiek County Fair
Iowa Sucks for Vampires (short fiction)

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