Brancel Charters RAGBRAI 2009 Review

This is a review of my RAGBRAI 2009 tour with Brancel Charters: http://www.brancelcharters.com/

Brancel provided bus transportation for me and my bike from the end of the ride to the beginning of the ride, and transported my gear during the ride itself.

Overall, my experience was excellent, I'd recommend Brancel.

Pre-ride Communications
Very good.

I sent them their form and check before the RAGBRAI lottery. Brancel sent me an email in June asking for wristband numbers. I sent the number, and got a confirmation email back.

Later in June, they sent out a document with their tour information, and sent out an online questionnaire to ask how many people wanted morning coffee service and mid-week laundry service. The tour document explained where to go, optional indoor sleeping options, and described the daily ride routine (departure times, etc).

Brancel took care to update their website regularly to indicate which services were available/sold out.

Bus ride

Very good.

I found Brancel, checked in, they provided luggage tags and put my bike on a moving truck. My bike suffered no scratches or damage during the trip. The tour is big enough to fill several busses, took a while to get them all loaded and on the road. RAGBRAI safety video shown on the bus on the way.

During the Ride

Very good.

We generally had fine camping spots. RAGBRAI might mean "waiting in line to pee", and there was some of that, but in a couple of cases, they found camping areas away from the unwashed masses, but toilets and showers were always within a block or two. They provided an awning, chairs, and drinks (for purchase) after each day's ride. They had luggage color-coded with luggage tags that made finding luggage after each day's ride a bit easier. On days when rain threatened, they did a good job trying to keep luggage dry with plastic tarps (doesn't help you find your luggage of course). They also provided a portable generator with plugins to recharge phones -- this proved to be very popular, was sometimes hard to get an outlet.

New this year was a mid-week laundry service. They tried using little plastic laundry bags to keep people's stuff separated, but the bags proved too flimsy, and we ended up having to do a little sorting. No big deal.

After the ride

Brancel sent out a satisfaction survey, and for the next year, they sent out an email announcement for their services using constant contact.

Summary

Clearly, not only does the Brancel team know what they are doing, they strive to improve their services every year by asking their customers what they need and trying to deliver.

More than one set of gloves on a multi-day ride

I was glad that I brought along two sets of cycling gloves on RAGBRAI. I have a favorite set of gloves that are comfortable, but a bit stretchy, and after a few days riding everyday, a couple spots on my hands were slightly irritated, probably rubbing against inside seams. I switched to my second set of gloves, which are tighter and have less padding, and that helped a bit.

RAGBRAI 2009: Pekin School Band

Training for RAGBRAI: The view after the ride

I rode a total of about 900 miles on my road bike, along with commuting to work and some riding with my family. This amount of riding was about right. By pacing myself, I was able to finish each day pretty strong, and I even did the century loop (105 miles) on day 5. I felt so good on the last day, I didn't feel like I was on some sort of forced march from hell.

Some other guys in my group were suffering a bit, so a few tips on pacing for RAGBRAI:

1. Of course, training rides sometimes involved pushing myself (especially if the distance or duration of the ride was relatively short, like 20 miles). During RAGBRAI itself, I took it easy -- didn't charge up hills or worry about keeping a pace. The goal was to conserve energy to make the ride the next day easier. In my mind, I wasn't really thinking about RAGBRAI as exercise (it was anyway, of course).
2. I use a heart rate monitor, and I found it to be useful on the ride as well. My anaerobic heart rate zone might be 170 or more, but my goal during the ride was to keep my heart rate low.
3. On hills, I used a combination of standing or sitting in low gear. Generally speaking, if I didn't think I would be able to stand and get to the top, I'd use low gear instead. I wanted to avoid having to "bail out" of standing midway up the hill.
4. I didn't have much luck finding anyone to draft from. Seems like only the peleton-types in the fast lane were concerned with drafting. Didn't experience any horrific headwinds though, thankfully.
   

RAGBRAI 2009: Swedish Dancing in Stanton, IA

Tips for RAGBRAI vendors

Thinking of setting up a roadside stand for RAGBRAI? After doing RAGBRAI 2009, here are a few thoughts from a rider's perspective on selling stuff for RAGBRAI:

1. Stands located on the right hand side of the road are best. Stands that are on the left-hand side of the road are less appealing because the left side of the road is the "fast lane", so the cyclist has to cross in front of other bikers to exit on the left.
2. Stands located at the bottom of a hill are less attractive because cyclists will be flying down the hill, and it's dangerous to brake hard, as you risk getting rear-ended.
3. Personally, I don't think it's fun or profitable to sell bottled water for $1. I think most cyclists would prefer an opportunity to refill their own water bottles than have to deal with an extra empty water bottle. Free water in a water cooler (see picture to the right) would be more attractive -- get people to stop for free tap water, and sell them bananas, power bars, gatorade, etc.
4. Cyclists prefer blacktop or concrete to gravel. You won't get many people to stop if you have deep gravel or large rocky gravel in your driveway.
5. RAGBRAI means "waiting in line", waiting for food, waiting for bathrooms, etc. A vendor stand is more attractive if there are portapotties available, and even more attractive if I can see the length of the line on the portapotties from the road. So if you're going to get portapotties, make them visible.
6. When you ride, you have a breeze, so stopping usually means getting hotter and sweatier. A vendor stand in the shade is more appealing.
7. It might rain on your RAGBRAI day. Vendors I wished for (but didn't see) for rainy days include: a vendor selling use of dry towels, a vendor doing a "bike wash", a vendor selling inexpensive, dry socks.
8. Especially for breakfast (around 5:30-7:00 AM), seems like there would be an opportunity for "delivery vendors" who deliver food to campsites in the morning in overnight towns. You might even be able to work out some sort of arrangement with bike charter services so that they will mention to their riders that a vendor will be coming at such and such time with breakfast, cost will be X. Most riders eat a light breakfast, so something small and inexpensive (like breakfast burritos) would be appropriate.
9. A word about advertising. Several vendors pitched their stand as a non-profit fundraiser, and put up roadside signs (help send our band to hawaii, our cheerleaders to state, etc). Nothing wrong with a fundraiser, of course, but I think it's more effective (you'll attract more customers) if you list your products/services, and have a sign at the point of sale that informs customers that all proceeds will fund the band's hawaii fund, etc. As mentioned above, use inexpensive "loss leaders" like free water or coffee to get people to stop and buy other stuff.
10. If you can, you'll want to make accomodations for bicycle parking. Many road bikes do not have kick stands. One common technique is to string a rope between two anchors (like trees) at handlebar height, and cyclists hook their handlebars or brake levers over the ropes. Be sure the rope is tight, and doesn't stretch a lot when supporting the weight of bicycles.
    

Packing tips for RAGBRAI

The RAGBRAI site (www.ragbrai.com) has a packing list somewhere, thought I'd add a couple of items that I found useful on RAGBRAI 2009:

1. bicycle rag & chain lube: you'll probably have to ride in the rain. It's nice to be able to clean your chain afterwards.
2. click stand (http://www.click-stand.com): basically a stick to hold your bike up. Works better on soft ground or uneven ground than a standard kickstand. Helpful when trying to pump up your tires, for example, or to park your bike near your tent.