Why I won't be riding on RAGBRAI 50

I rode on the first RAGBRAI, from Sioux City to Davenport, back in 1973, In the vernacular of that time, it was a "blast." Over 300 of us made that trip, with hundreds joining in along the way.

Everywhere people greeted us with enthusiasm. In Kingsley, the mayor asked residents to go "all out" in providing us free pop, coffee, and sandwiches. We were never hungry along the way, and, mostly, paid nothing.

It was incredibly hot (although perhaps cooler than the record-breaking temperatures we're now facing), and, being back in the days before sunscreen, I ended up with really severe burns on my right thigh. That didn't take away from the joy of making many new friends and experiencing the Iowa countryside up close.

Everyone knows about the bet between Register columnists Donald Kaul and John Karras who precipitated RAGBRAI. But that story was quickly overtaken by Clarence Pickard, an 83-year-old retired Iowa farmer from Indianola, who chose to join in — just to prove that older people "could do things, too."

We waited, every night, for Clarence to make it to our campsites. The longest ride was that 110 miles stretch from Des Moines to Williamsburg. He made it, quite late, after making a wrong turn that put him on Interstate 80 (where a kindly state trooper got him back on the right road).

It was only, in doing some research to write this, that I learned that Clarence and I had something else in common. He was a Peace Corps volunteer in India in 1966-68 and I was a Peace Corps volunteer in India in 1967-69. It would have been nice to talk to him about that.

When I realized this year was the 50th RAGBRAI, I thought I should — maybe, being 76, and to honor Clarence — give it a shot. I'm still biking, and feel I could handle that long of a ride. Then, I thought about the differences between Iowa in 1973 and 2023.

On that first ride, we went through vibrant small towns, past hundreds of family farms, seeing livestock in the fields. At every creek or stream, we stopped to cool our feet, wade, or swim. There were fencerows where wildlife abounded.

That Iowa is gone. I recently went to Dubuque to visit the National Mississippi River Museum and Aquarium. Highway 151 used to go through pleasing small towns and passed dozens of family farm dairy operations. Now, the road bypasses those towns and the dairy farms are gone — replaced by ethanol grain operations.

The thought of riding across Iowa and seeing the abandoned farmsteads, smelling the stench of the CAFOs, looking in vain for the fencerows and windbreaks, enduring miles of endless corn and beans, and being fearful of any contact with our surface waters, would be too much for me. So, count me out.

It's easy to blame the Republicans for all this, since they now have a total lock on power in Des Moines. But have you heard any Democratic voices talking about cleaning up Iowa's befouled waters, or limiting the expansion of CAFOs, or protecting landowners from Kim Reynold's moneyed friends who want to use eminent domain to despoil their farms with dangerous pipelines? No, you haven't. So a curse on both parties is well-deserved.

Iowa is now the most degraded state in our country — bathed in chemicals, inundated in livestock waste, and with the smallest amount of usable public space for its citizens. Is this hell? No, it's Iowa. The Iowa we've allowed our state to become.

Jim Walters lives in Iowa City.