Cross-country rider predates RAGBRAI

This post is by Des Moines Register reporter Mike Kilen, mkilen@dmreg.com.

Eddie Merz

Meet Eddie Merz, 67, of Spokane, Wash.

The world was his oyster. I was 17, a long time ago and long before RAGBRAI, and I rode a one-speed bicycle with no helmet and a 40-pound Army pack on my back from my home in Linn, Kan.

Why in the world? I just graduated and there were kids getting jobs at Del Monte in DeKalb, Ill. I figured, if I ride my bike there they can’t turn me down. I got the job.

Buses were invented then, no? It was a personal challenge. People offered me pick-up rides and I said no. The route was all two-lane highway – Shenandoah, then up to Highway 34 through Creston, and for some reason up to Indianola, then Knoxville, Oskaloosa and Muscatine. I don’t recall ever seeing another bicycle rider the whole way. It isn’t what people did in those days. Trucks were going back and forth. I even freaked out cows. They ran along with me from one end of the pasture to the other because they had never seen such an apparatus.

But you weren’t done. I took the bus home after the summer. But then I heard about RAGBRAI in the 1980s and went “whoa.” I always wanted to do it. So in 2001 I asked my daughter, just for the hell of it. I was sure she would say no because it was a week after her wedding. She said yes. It was a dream come true. The biggest difference was with bike technology. Then in 2005, I rode with my son, also named Eddie.

So this year’s is the 50th anniversary of that first Iowa ride? And I’m going with my son and my grandson, also named Eddie. Hence, the name of our team: Spittle (you know like an old drooler), Middle, Little.

Related Articles