My Iowa Adventure

My sleeping quarters - Phat Trailer by Pork Belly Ventures

First, I can’t believe it took 27 years to get around to riding RAGBRAI.  When I heard about the ride in 1992, it immediately made my bucket list.  Even back then, there were 10,000 cyclists taking part.  But, it took Frank Jarman’s persistence and the opportunity to make the trip with fellow cyclists, Billy Bowman and Jim Robbins, to turn it into a reality.

One question keeps bugging me and not even Google can provide a satisfying answer.  How, or why, did RAGBRAI grow into the largest cycling event in the entire world?  And, of all places, in rural Iowa?  After riding it this year though, I can easily see how people talk their friends into joining them the following year.  I’ll certainly be talking it up, so fellow cyclists beware!

One of the best aspects of the whole event is the chance to meet new people and make new friends. Doug and Jean Kirkpatrick are at the top of the new friend category for me. Doug is a retired OB-GYN from Colorado and Jean, his younger sister, is a realtor in Maine. We became close (literally) in the sleeping quarters Doug had booked through an outfitter called Pork Belly Ventures. Basically, it was a truck trailer converted into several bedrooms with 3 bunk beds and a futon in each. Having never met before, except over the phone, we became instant buddies by comparing notes on travel destinations, Parkinson's Disease (Doug's daughter-in-law is a PWP) and, of course, cycling.

Richard Beattie

July 28, 2019

Greenwood, Mississippi

Bunkmates: Doug and sister, Jean, Kirkpatrick