Word: ragbrai
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Dates: during 1978-1978
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...event, sponsored by the Des Moines Register, is known as Ragbrai (pronounced rag-bray), for the Register's Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa. Last week, for the sixth and biggest Ragbrai run, some 5,500 bikers started from the Big Muddy at Sioux City and set out east across the lush, gently rolling heartland to dunk front wheels seven days later in the Father of Rivers at Clinton. En route, along 440 miles of tranquil back-country roads, the sportive pedalers pumped and panted, munched, sang and slurped through 42 towns and hamlets with such names as Unique...
...toilet paper on fence posts bordering the usefully protective 8-ft.-tall rows of corn. Night after night from the instant campgrounds across Iowa arose a bizarre melange of aromas: marijuana, freshly baked cookies, barbecues, sweat and suntan oil. Some folks thought the fragrance should be bottled. Essence de Ragbrai...
...would pump away a sweltering midsummer week in Iowa, when beaches and lakes and Laker beckon? Just about anyone, according to TIME'S Midwest Bureau Chief Benjamin Gate, who monitored the cornbelt caravan, part of it on a borrowed ten-speed Gitane bike. The Ragbrai army, he reports, comes from all over the U.S. and from every way of life and income bracket. On the road, its members fall into five loose categories...
...Amiable Amateurs, who ride bikes year round but see the Ragbrai as the big annual adventure and stamina test...
...Handlebar Hedonists, to whom Ragbrai is a week-long holiday on spokes, a beer-guzzling and mate-catching challenge. On both scores, they seemed to make out quite well...