BB,

You have many of RAGBRAIs under your belt and maybe you could confirm or deny what I heard. I heard they use to have gravel sections on RAGBRAI but eliminated them one year when there was lots of rain and a large number of crashes resulted on the gravel section. True?

I figure another reason they do loops (always below the route counter clockwise) is to avoid additional left turns across oncoming traffic. But likely I think the vendors are a bigger factor.