RAGBRAI Route Inspection Pre-Ride Set for June 1-7

By T.J. Juskiewicz, RAGBRAI Director

There really is only one good way to inspect the selected roads for a bike event… get out and ride it on a bike!  And that is exactly what will happen starting June 1st with a team of knowledgeable cyclists thoroughly examining every mile of the RAGBRAI route on bicycles. 

For the tenth consecutive year, Jim Green and Dan McKay will ride the entire RAGBRAI route 50 days in advance of the event.  Green, the retired RAGBRAI director, volunteered to help the event in any way possible as he was retiring from his post back in 2004.  He probably didn’t realize that might entail inspecting 418 miles across the state during the windy season.

Green and McKay, the State RIDE RIGHT Chairman, were appointed in 2005 to head up the Route Inspection Ride and spend an entire week inspecting the route and teaching the local RIDE RIGHT Committee what to do with the information learned during the inspection ride.  They also will be looking at traffic patterns since they will be riding the route on the same day of the week that RAGBRAI will ride on later this summer. 

Green and McKay are joined by another 25 experienced cyclists including RAGBRAI Director T.J. Juskiewicz, RAGBRAI Assistant Director Scott Garner and the Iowa Bicycle Coalition’s Executive Director Mark Wyatt.  The local RIDE RIGHT Committees will also join the ride in their areas of the state.

In addition to reporting on road conditions, the team will be posting a daily update for the RAGBRAI.com web site, pointing out some places of interest along the route that riders wouldn’t want to miss.  The team will also be inspecting some of the tasty treats that the town will be serving to RAGBRAIers in July.

RAGBRAI works diligently with the RIDE RIGHT committees to continually inspect the roads and report potential hazards to local officials and engineers who might be able to repair the roadways.  The local RIDE RIGHT committee also alerts home owners on the route about the event and educates townspeople about bicycle safety.  Many committees will host bike rodeos or safety events for the community’s youth prior to RAGBRAI’s arrival.

For the past several years, Green and McKay have been joined daily on their trek by the local committee members as well as local bike club members and bike shop owners that are willing to help. 

Be sure to tune in each day for the daily updates and photos from the route inspection ride on the RAGBRAI web site www.ragbrai.com . You can also follow the pre-ride adventure and learn interesting tidbits about the route by following on FACEBOOK  Facebook.com/RAGBRAI or on TWITTER by following @RAGBRAI_IOWA or @TJRAGBRAI.