I can’t wait for Iowa’s Ride and to hang out with all the good people supporting it! RAGBRAI is awesome, but the addition of IR as an option seems to me to have the potential of making the Iowa Double Cross the best ride in the entire history of biking. I’m excited to have this to train for!

Continuing to contemplate biking from Clinton to Dubuque, it seems the best route is to just cross over to the Illinois side and hug the river on the smallest possible roads, up to Galena… and from there to just north of Menominee and west along the Illinois/Wisconsin state line??? Would love to hear from anyone who has done this.

John Richardson wrote:

After studying the map it looks like the shortest and most direct way to ride from Rock Rapids to La Mars is Hwy 75 but it doesn’t appear that it has a shoulder/bike lane for much of the way and a high traffic count, more than 3000 daily. I’m thinking it might be wiser to take less traveled roads like K52 etc. although it would make the ride to La Mars much longer. Anyone familiar with these roads have any thoughts on this.

John: what do you consult to find traffic counts?

John Little wrote:

Continuing to contemplate biking from Clinton to Dubuque, it seems the best route is to just cross over to the Illinois side and hug the river on the smallest possible roads, up to Galena… and from there to just north of Menominee and west along the Illinois/Wisconsin state line??? Would love to hear from anyone who has done this.

It sounds like part of the TOMRV route. Here is a link to the route TOMRV takes from Bettendorf to Dubuque. For you, the applicable route would be from Savanna, IL to Dubuque, you would just need to find a way to get to Savanna from Clinton. FYI, the Illinois route is pretty challenging.

https://ridewithgps.com/events/90934-tomrv-day-1

John Little, Iowa produces a bicycling specific map that shows the traffic counts on the roads and also all the bike trails in the state. You can get a free copy from the Iowa Department of Transportation.

John Little: On line or in your mail box for free.
https://iowadot.gov/iowabikes/transportation-map-for-bicyclists

RIDE RIGHT

Does anyone know of 2 week parking in Clinton or be willing to have someone park at their property?

I’m looking to do the same thing with Bubba. Let me know if you hear anything further as far as finding a 2 week option to park in Dubuque and if Bubba will be willing to transport bags from Clinton to Dubuque.

I haven’t read through all these pages to see if anyone else has mentioned that it looks like the Quad City club is offering charter bus and bike transport from Rock Rapids to LeMars. FYI
https://www.qcbc.org/content.aspx?page_id=22&club_id=505193&module_id=321831&actr=4

Yeah, I am seriously interested in going with Quad cities on the Iowa ride and taking advantage of that extra service to LeMars, myself and a friend are looking into it and if all possible or if we have the energy we may try to ride down to LeMars for
an extra 40-50 miles

Dubuque posted a two-week parking option, if interested.

Registered for both rides tonight. July is going to be awesome.