I have reached Ames. This is a stopover point for the RAGBRAI bicycle ride that goes across Iowa from west to east. There are ~20,000 riders signed up for the week, 9,000 for individual days and countless more who ride along without signing up. Looking forward to an interesting ride tomorrow.

Today was otherwise a straightforward ride along mostly rural roads. It has been getting warmer and I could feel extra heat and humidity, so was happy to arrive not long after mid-day.

I found my way to the information pavilion and registered to ride tomorrow. For this, I end up with a luggage tag, wrist tag and bike tag with matching numbers. I’m not sure yet whether I’ll ride with panniers or drop bags off tomorrow morning.

I hemmed and hawed on whether to register or just ride without registration, since these are otherwise public roads. Two reasons I ended up registering were (a) other days I could stop at and Casey’s along the way, buy a drink and use the restroom – that gets harder tomorrow and so will end up using RAGBRAI services and (b) otherwise to support the ride. As a bonus I can consider riding unloaded…

I’ve done other large group rides like Ride the Rockies which had ~2500 so this is an order of magnitude larger ride. What I found interesting is in both cases there were three semi-trucks for baggage… RAGBRAI seems to have many more affiliate groups providing extra services e.g. haul luggage, set up a tent and have it all waiting for you…Ride the Rockies was starting to have some of those services but not as much. The other thing I noticed is RAGBRAI seemed much more spread out than concentrated around a single high school or the like. Otherwise both are large rides and a lot of riders. It will be fun to see tomorrow.

Today wasn’t particularly far but I was on the road early since it is cooler. Back to riding the rural roads.

Corn and soy beans. Story City was the largest stop before Ames.

Turkey barns. I got feedback the other barns from yesterday were for finishing hogs.

Main street, Story City. This seemed to be the dividing point between pleasant cool temperature and starting to feel warm. It was also a dividing point between quiet roads and a stretch of US 69 that was much busier. After a mile of US 69 I picked a less direct but quieter set of roads.

Ames! I reached the outskirts. I was surprised at how polite and cautious cars were about passing. On at least two occasions, I signaled for them to go ahead and pass. I expect RAGBRAI and cyclists have been in the news here.

See all those closures listed in Google Maps? Most of them say temporary just for today and tomorrow to get cyclists into and back out from Ames.

I knew I was getting close to the route…

In the background is the football stadium. They had the route for today finish by riding through the stadium and across a pedestrian bridge. At the end was an information tent and some food vendors.

Food truck. The RAGBRAI route for today is 86 miles, so my guess is most riders were still out. I expect a warm afternoon so hopefully not too many heat issues.

Rows of shower trucks.

Semi truck along with luggage that has been offloaded. Apparently you load luggage onto the truck between 5am and 8am and remember the time and truck. When offloaded, they spread it out and have some time markers. All this helps to hopefully find the bag. This was all at the main campground a little ways north of the welcome area. I cheated with a not too expensive hotel and noticed plenty of other cyclists here and elsewhere. Looking forward to riding with the large group tomorrow.