'Massive humanity' as RAGBRAI launches 50th anniversary ride

SIOUX CITY ― Just how big was the crowd on the 50th anniversary RAGBRAI as it set off Sunday morning?

Iowa State Patrol Sgt. Alex Dinkla, coordinating the route for the Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa, recited the official numbers: 20,000 registered weeklong riders and 9,000 with day passes.

But there are official numbers and then there is the real number, swelled by the thousands of people who tag along for a day or two without registering.

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“We don’t really have a way of counting individual bikers,” Dinkla said.

‘Like a traveling city’

Even before the riders hit the road Sunday, there was a sure indication that RAGBRAI was bigger than ever when vendors at the entertainment stage in Sioux City ran out of beer by 8:30 p.m. Saturday.

Bojan and Amarin Peterkovik were marveling at the size of the crowd. Newbies to RAGBRAI, the Minnesota couple said they couldn’t have imagined what they saw when they arrived at the campground.

“Yeah, it’s kind of surreal to think about how many people are descending on Sioux City for the beginning and how it’s going to be like a traveling city,” Amarin Peterkovik said, adding, “It’s a little bit overwhelming.”

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On Sunday morning at the tire dip site on the Missouri River, Tom Vytlacil from Arkansas said he’s not one for “massive humanity,” but for RAGBRAI 50 he was willing to make an exception.

“I have zero expectations of normalcy” he joked as he set off for the first day.

But Vytlacil, 58, said he’d heard about RAGBRAI for decades and couldn’t miss his chance to try his first one. Plus, he added, he’s not getting any younger and it was just the excuse he needed to get back in shape.

Jerry Morris was on his fourth RAGBRAI with his teammates from the Corn Sharks, clad in matching jerseys with shark fins attached to helmets decorated with stencils of a cornfield.

The 62-year old from Cincinnati said he could feel the RAGBRAI excitement ahead of the 50th anniversary, and he could tell there were more riders than he’s encountered in the past.

“It seems a bit more crowded, he said. “Just more people I think and more excitement.”

Even as the team acknowledged being a little nervous for the Day 4 Ames-to-Des Moines ride ― expected to set the record for the single largest RAGBRAI day ever ― they said they were glad to be a part of the 50th anniversary.

Roy Ford, a fellow Corn Shark, acknowledged it’s nerve-wracking to ride with so many other people, but said that on RAGBRAI, things tend to work themselves out.

“It’s funny,” Ford said “I mean, it kind of happens, it comes together.”

‘It’s a lot more crowded this year’

Kraig Pyer of Johnston, 57, on his eighth RAGBRAI, said he had no doubt that the crowd was larger than others he’s encountered.

“It’s a lot more crowded this year,” Pyer said as he paused in the first pass-through town, Kingsley.

He said his experience on past rides has been that riders are bunched up for the first 10 or 15 miles, and then begin to spread out. But on Sunday, he said, “It’s not thinning out. We’re 30 miles in.”

The line of riders was “six or eight wide instead of normally three or four wide,” he said.

He’d already seen one crash as the many first-time riders drawn to the 50th anniversary ride, marked in RAGBRAI custom by the word “virgin” scribbled on their legs, weaved in and out of the line.

“I see a lot of new rider tendencies this year,” Pyer said.

He said he was confident the ride would turn out well, but that he “might be a little more careful, give people a wider berth.”

Victor Fassano, 59, of Long Island, New York, likened the RAGBRAI traffic out on Sunday morning to “being in rush hour traffic in New York.”

“That’s what it felt like for the first seven to 10 miles,” he said in his thick New York accent.

Veteran riders were trying to do their part by instructing newbies in techniques for riding safely with massive groups. Anna Ross, 36, of North Liberty, was riding with first-timer Tyler Ross, 29, of Coralville, and showing him how to pass other, slower riders, without getting tangled up.

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