The Unofficial Guide for Guessing the 50th RAGBRAI Route

In this bonus content episode, Adam and Michael guide you on selecting your choices at guessing the route for their contest. The contest can be found either by using this link https://forms.gle/JDq1HkgoXHikvJKAA or by clicking HERE

Transcript

Well, it's time for Road Adventures with Cycling Men of Leisure, the podcast for cyclists who understand that writing is not just about getting to the destination, but the experience along the way. Now here are the original Cycling Men of Leisure, Adam and Michael. Hey, good to be with you again. Good to be with you.

How you, how you been? Good, good. Just celebrated Thanksgiving with the family. Hope you didn't spend too much money on Black Friday. No, sir. I didn. Nor did my wife, well, maybe she did. I haven't got my credit card bill, but it's all good. This is American Express and your statement balance is , , la la la. Don't wanna know.

Okay. Fair enough, fair enough. Um, so celebrated with the family and I thought I would tell you that my parents were asking about the podcast and Cool. And, and, um, I told him about the contest about, you know, that we had put a contest out to try to kick off the podcast and, and are they gonna. My father, uh, he did ask a lot of questions, so I was wondering if like, after I left, he was gonna enter, although I have looked and he has, he has not entered, but he asked like, did I know how many start towns there were?

And I, I said, you mean like total over the years? And he said, yeah. And I said, I said, no, I, I know that information is out there, but I, I hadn't looked at that. And, and he said, oh, well, let's look it up. And so, uh, then we kind of got sidetracked. But, but you have actually looked it up, right? I, I have looked it up, but I, on that thing, I do think you should, uh, try to get your dad to enter.

That would be fun. I could probably get my mom to, or she's actually ridden rag Brice, so, uh, we'll, we. Now, see, I always tell my father, you know, it could be a wonderful father son bonding time. Somehow. He says, I rode a bike a lot as a child and I'm good with no longer riding a bicycle. And I always say, Hey, you know, we could do it.

We could be do it together. Although he won't golf with me either. So, um, But, uh, I'm, I'm sensing there's a common denominator here, . Yes. He's, he's, he's a buzzkill. Something pointing out. But anyway, you asked me how many, you were talking about how many starting towns? That's correct. 14. 14 starting towns.

Okay. 14. Over 49 years, there has been 14 different towns that have hosted the start of rag ride. That's actually interesting. I, I mean, I, I guess I would've thought it would've been a little bit more, I mean, 49 times it ran and only 14 times is, is when it started. But then again, I guess I have to think about, you know, like the metropolis area.

Can it hold that many people, uh, in one area, housing, fire, police, ems? They probably look at all that. It's interesting that you've opened the door on this because I've had a couple of people who would really, really, really like to enter our, our. Challenge our competition, but they didn't exactly know where to start.

There's a lot of towns in Iowa, so I thought it might be beneficial to provide them with some information and some statistics on the starting town and the ending town to help them be able to at least determine a starting point in an ending point if they would like to participate, but don't really know how to get things rolling.

Okay, sounds good. I'm in. Like I said, there was 14 of those three cities have served as the starting point for the ride on seven separate occasions, and those towns are Council Bluffs, Glenwood, and Sioux City. They must love torture

Well, we've started in Glenwood before, so. Um, I gave you the three that were the top. After that is owa, which is number six. Uh, we then have Sioux Center, not Sioux City, but Sioux Center, which is four Missouri Valley, which is four. Hay warden is three. Lamars and Sergeant Bluffs, which are two that I know you're familiar with.

Those have both hosted twice, and then you've got, Akron, rock Valley, orange City, and Sydney, which have all hosted it a single time. One and done. I, I sure hope there's a prison in Hay warden. There's, uh, I, I don't think there is. Oh, well it just sounded, sounded good, but I think that's Anamosa or what's that other town that we went to?

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. The word, uh, John White Gey was, yeah. Yeah. With the giant American Gothic. Yes.  . Yes. Actually, it was funny, I was watching, um, I don't know, one of those shows on Hulu or whatever, and it, and it said in, in his early days, John Wayne Gaye spent some time. I was like, I've been there. So . Well, on the outside, just to be clear, the outside, outside, that's for another podcast.

Uh, true. So, okay, you've got 14 to really choose. I mean, I, I think, and personally I'm hoping that you can at least agree with me cuz you have not been real agreeable on a lot of my choices. Uh, could agree that the starting town is probably going to be one of those 14 now. Hold on, hold up, hold up, hold on.

It's not that I'm not agreeing with you, it's just when I'm competing with somebody, I don't show my hand. So I actually may agree with you more than you think. I agree with you. I, I'm just not gonna give away my, my process of guessing. I am going to sip on the bourbon that you buy me, and I'm going to enjoy it.

So you're one of those cloak and dagger tech guys stay in the shadows till last minute and then pop out and try to surprise people. Absolutely. Yes sir. Yes, sir. You know, I was confident in my answer. That's why I, I put mine out there right away. I, so you know, you well, you do whatever you need to do. Like I said, I've.

Did all, everything I needed to do and I feel very confident that I am correct. Okay. And, uh, you can bet it's going to be a good, uh, good drink of bourbon that I get from you. So . Well, if, if I lose, I'll be proud to buy it. But, so on a serious note, interesting enough, there's 14, uh, 14 starting towns. Mm-hmm.

you named, you named them. How many there were? Seven is the max and one is the min. Uh, what about, uh, ending towns? There's been 12. Now, the thing with ending towns is for this ride to really be the cool ride that it is, you've gotta be able to dip your tire in the Mississippi. So that really limits you in the number of ending towns that there can be because you can't really have the ending town be four miles from the Mississippi River and you have the in town and then have to ride another four miles, dip your tire, and then ride back.

So you're pretty limited to towns that set right on the Mississippi. So there's been 12 of them and uh, I'll give you kind of a rundown of what those are. Okay. Davenport and Muscatine hosted it six times. Bellevue. Gutenberg, Burlington and Fort Madison have hosted it five times. Dubuque has hosted at four.

Lansing has hosted at. And also Keo, Keo Cook, I apologize, I do not know how to pronounce that name, but they've hosted it three times as well. And then you have, uh, Sababa and LeClair, which have both hosted it a single time, so. On the ending town, the highest number is six, and the lowest number is one.

Once again, people, we ain't doing that again. So , uh, okay. Alright. So 14, starting with a maximum of seven times, uh, and minimum of one and 12, ending with a maximum of six and a minimum of one. Mm-hmm.  and so, More likely you're not, even if you're guessing, you're not guessing from like gazillion towns.

You're pretty much guessing from probably that list. I mean, they're, they, they've obviously cons considered, you know, again, you know, the ins the outs into town, out of town, you know, uh, hotel, lodging, fire, police, safety, ems, and so all that. All that's. Um, so you're agreeing with me that it's probably gonna be one of those for the start and one of those for the stop?

Yes. Let's make it official. I agree with that. Okay. Thank you. Oh my gosh, he agreed with me. Woohoo. Now that's a start and the stop, but you got a whole bunch of towns in between. So I wanna provide a little bit more in depth information. Um, to let you know that Rag Bri has visited 80% of the incorporated towns in Iowa, 80%.

Okay, I did some research. There's about 947 incorporated towns and cities in the state, which that means Rag Bri has been to 758 different incorporated towns and cities. So there's only about 189 that they have never visited. So, uh, that's where it really is going to get tough of what towns are gonna be in between the start and the.

So I need a bunch of string, I need some push pins and a map of Iowa. Yes. And watch a couple episodes of your favorite crime show, where they do out the, the pins and the string and the pictures and, and all of that. And, uh, if that's your technique, go for it. Well, I mean, listen, you gotta, I'm gonna, I'm going to cross-platform each one and wherever I, wherever I have a center, I'll push another pin in there.

So he's gonna have a, starting at Omaha, Nebraska and ending in, I don't know, I. Dewitt, Wisconsin or something crazy like that. Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. We stayed in . We, we went to, what happens in Dewitt stays in dewitt. So, hey, I'm not talking . The other final pieces of information get down to our tiebreaker, which is.

The total miles that's gonna be in the route. And, and just to be clear, that is whatever the patch states, you know, so cuz we know that they offer an optional gravel route many times. Um, and then they offer the optional century, which last year was not optional. It was the mandatory century. Nope.

Mandatory century . Well, to help people with that. I have looked up the longest and the shortest routes. The sh the longest route was in 1985, and that was 540 miles total. Okay? The shortest route was in 1977 with 400 miles. So you're looking at between 405 40 as a decent, uh, place to start, and the average overall length of all of them, that's averaged 467.

So use that information as you will. Plus or minus 10, go to Fano. No, just kidding. , you realize I'm setting you up for success, so you're welcome. I would like my bourbon with a big rocks glass, please. , I'll find you the cheapest rock gut stuff I can find. But anyway, um, the only thing else that I think would be beneficial to people is.

When you got the start and you got the stop day, how, how far do you make each day? Well, the average day ride is 68 miles. That makes sense. Mm-hmm. , that makes sense. I, I, I never consider that, but that, that actually makes sense. I mean, when you think, I mean, I've done it four times. This'll be my fifth. Um, you're sixth, correct?

This will be my sixth, yeah. Um, And that actually makes sense. I mean, because I can think about like, you know, 68.5 miles or 73 point miles or 65, so I that, that, that is very logical. And also just for some fun, I'm gonna throw this out to you, the longest single day ride. How, how far do you think the longest single day official single day ride has been?

Uh, 105 was last year, uh, 107. The longest single day ride was 114 miles, and that was in 1980 between Webster and Waverly. Really? Yes. Now, the, what, what do you think the shortest days ride would be? Well, didn't we have it? Uh, uh, 30 something in 2021 from that school? Just, uh, Clinton? No. Shortest Day was also in 1980.

1980. Had the longest day. They also had the shortest day, 25 miles, . Wow. . Yeah. That's just like a, you know, woo. That's actually interesting. I would, I would've thought for sure. I mean, what, by the time you go to Casey's, I mean, I hope everybody goes to Casey's, but by the time you go to Casey's, get your, get your donut, have you even burned it off in 25 miles?

Not the kind of donuts I eat. I wonder where the, uh, meeting town was 12 miles in. Yeah, I, is there even a point to have a meeting town at 25 miles? I, yeah, I don't know. It's not unfortu. I think, I think the in town at that point in time was Gutenberg. I think, well, that's just gonna be our in town and meeting town.

That's cool though. I mean, you've, you've definitely give some interesting inform. So 114 was the longest. Now I gotta, I gotta say, uh, 2018, I thought you and I had ridden almost 114 miles. We, when we did the century and we came into town and we thought, all right, we're close. And we just kept going and going and going.

Now that wasn't rag right. Our charter had gone on the other side of town completely. The other side of town. On the other side town, which was very hilly. Uh, actually, I think that day we bid at about a hundred. It was close. I remember, I definitely, I felt it that day cuz then at the end it was also not only as almost every town in Iowa is coming in is going up and then the schools were built on top of the hills and so we just kept going up and up and up and up.

Now the morning was fun cuz it kinda let us out of town going downhill. You just coasted out of town. Yep. That was cool. Um, cool. So, Hopefully that provides some information for people who want to enter our contest but didn't know where to start. That at least gives them a starting point, uh, an ending point to choose from, and then some information as far as what to look for as far as distance between towns.

That's cool. I've definitely taken some notes. Good luck. . I'm gonna need it. I usually don't win at contests. , so. Well, you've had plenty of time, so, um. You know, we'll see. We'll see how it turns. Well, I'll be excited for, uh, everyone entering. We have had multiple people enter, so that's real exciting. Um, and some of you even commented on our Facebook page that they've entered, and so that's, that's awesome.

Um, oh, one, one question. Where exactly if I was interested, where do I enter this contest at? The best way to find it is in the show notes. Um, it'll be a link there that says, click here. Worst comes to worst. If you cannot find it in your show notes, depending on where you're listening to this podcast at, you can go to Uhy Man of Leisure at Facebook.

So facebook.com, slashy man of Leisure. There's, uh, three or four posts down. There's actually a, a link where you can click right to the Google form. So, um, It's really simple to, really simple to enter. Um, you just start with the starting town, each overnight town, the ending town, and then as the tiebreaker, um, you say what the total route mileage is gonna be.

And so, um, if hypothetically, if. If many people get, you know, guess it correctly, then we'll be able to have a way to differentiate, to be able to give it. And if something happens where two people, uh, guess it all, and two people guess the same mileage, the exact same number, I'm happy to provide. We're giving out two shirts and two hat hat.

That's right. I'm, that's totally fine. I'm happy to do that. Uh, hopefully with any luck, I think for, for me, and I know that you said this before as well, hopefully we get to meet the people that we actually give this, this swag away to. I'd love to meet them, take a picture with them, um, and I'm happy to give it to 'em.

Uh, I'm happy to, to just have men in our contest and, and listen, listen to us, uh, babble. Buggy telling, maybe, maybe we pulled them on as a guest, uh, for our guest appearance. Sure. You know, to ask them how exactly, you know, how they came up with that. If, if, you know, we have somebody like hits it right on the money.

Well, I've, I've got magical ways. No, just kidding. . So, yeah, I mean, I mean, of course the speculation is, is there are many people think they're gonna go back to the, the original route, but then the original route was only six days. Um, and so, um, You have to add in an extra night somewhere. That's right. So, but, uh, I'm, I'm, I'm curious, but, uh, I, I appreciate you coming on and hopefully, uh, those who are interested and will take this information and hopefully can help 'em.

All right, sounds great. Well, um, what do we always say? Today is a great day for a bike ride. Absolutely. Thank you for coming along with Adam and Michael on Road Adventures with Cycling Men of Leisure. If you have enjoyed this, please subscribe to the show on the podcast app of your choice.