RAGBRAI's flag doctor

Al Hartman of Ogden, Utah, provided an essential public service this morning while biking east out of Baxter on RAGBRAI.

Townsfolk had handed out tiny United States flags to bicyclists, but many of them were whipping off in the headwind and littering the roadway. So Hartman took it upon himself to pull his recumbent bike over to the side of the road and scurry out onto the highway amid the traffic to pick up the flags — even on steep hills.

He had gathered half a dozen flags within a few miles when I caught him by the side of the road.

Hartman, an obstetrician-gynecologist, added that the 30th anniversary RAGBRAI flag hangs in a frame in his office in Utah. He’s a veteran of 10 rides off and on through the years who began because he wanted “to give my kids something hard to do.”

He fell in love with the ride enough to stop by the Register offices in Des Moines and buy the big 30th anniversary flag for $25.

But my interview with Hartman was something of a painful birth. Initially he didn’t want to talk just because he was picking up road debris.

“I behave differently here than I do other places,” he said. “If you think I’m a problem here, think how I am somewhere else.”

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