RAGBRAI

RAGBRAI XL 2012 by Channone Arif on Flickr

Well, my partner's dream is coming true.  We are going to ride RAGBRAI. This is the ginormous supported party on bicycle wheels. 10,000 people converge on Iowa to ride about 470 miles from the Missouri River on the west side of the state to the Mississippi on the east. Added bonus, we formed a team with another couple and their grandson, who will be almost 2 years old.

I will blog the adventure, so people looking for a feasibility study on taking small children in trailers on RAGBRAI will have some well grounded research.  Now I know small children have done epic road trips with their parents, because I see references to those journeys online and in Adventure Cycling's magazine. It is quite difficult to find references to small children on RAGBRAI events, however.

So many questions revolve around this.  How often do playgrounds or fields to play in occur? I am hoping there will be one per hour in the small towns set up to receive us. Can we tire him out enough? Will he be able to sleep surrounded by 10,000 potentially noisy people in the campground? What kinds of entertainment will engage him for 5 hours a day in a trailer?

And a few solutions. We will have a SAG vehicle, in case he needs to escape. We will cycle (hahahahaha, sniff, sniff) his toys out of the SAG vehicle daily.  We have an older iPhone with audio books and hardcover book accompaniments.  The audio will be recorded by his parents.  His trailer has a full sun shade and netting to keep him from burning and from throwing his toys and books out :)  We are also rigging a hydration bladder above and behind his seat and he has mastered the bite valve (smart boy).

Stay tuned: This will be awesome.