RAGBRAI begins Sunday but riders are already geared up

Many are heading west to get ready for the thirty-second annual bike ride across the state, though it officially begins on Sunday. The mini-community formed by the thousands of bicyclers will equal the size of a small town. Many locals join in for one-day ride-along trips, the leg from Boone to Des Moines in the 1988 ride was tallied at 23-thousand. It became too much of a mob, and organizers have limited the number to 85-hundred so they can keep some kind of order and prevent injuries. This year’s ride will begin in Onawa and proceed through Lake View, Fort Dodge, Iowa Falls, Marshalltown, Hiawatha, Maquoketa and Clinton. Some of the towns are repeats, but in its more than three-decade history, the ride’s managed to go through all 99 of Iowa’s counties.