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Selecting a Charter...
We want to provide you our opinion and experience
with charters to help people decide what charter is right for them or if
they need one at all. (We are obviously biased but also love to
analyze everything.) There are a lot of great charters on RAGBRAI that
vary in size and services offered.
Hopefully if you are looking for a charter this can
get you started on what questions to ask when you call a charter.
Do I need a charter or should I use the RAGBRAI
luggage semi?
We have done both when we rode RAGBRAI and either
one works it just depends on the amount of services that you want. We
do believe for first time RAGBRAI riders it makes it easier for you if
you do use a charter. There are people there to answer your questions
and you are part of a smaller group which makes the ride less
overwhelming.
How are camping locations determined?
RAGBRAI establishes a date when the charters are
allowed to contact/visit the overnight towns. If a charter gets to a town and finds
a spot they contact the campground chair of that town and let them know
what they would like and then hope to get that spot. Each charter wins some and loses some
but no charter can get the best spot in every town. We visit each
overnight town at least twice prior to the ride.
How many people do you take on your charter?
Another question to ask a charter is how many
people do you take? When the ride visits smaller towns that have
between 2,000 and 10,000 people there are not as many options
available as you get bigger. We limit our charter to a size which lets us fit in a one city block park and over the years
this has allowed us to get the sites we desire. Of course, if we were
smaller there would be other spots we would fit into that we currently
do not. However, if we were to increase our size
that would limit the number of places we could fit into as a
group. So that is why we limit our campers.
Do charters locate near showers?
Yes, most charters try to locate near a shower
facility and in the six years we have been a charter we have been within
a few blocks of a shower every time. The charters I talk to all put a
big priority on being located near a shower. The towns also try to
disburse the showers throughout the city. The individual towns
determine shower locations so a charter can not dictate shower locations
or where a mobile shower unit sets up.
The average cost of a shower on
RAGBRAI is $5.
What services do charters provide?
Charters provide a variety of services so it is up
to you to determine which services are important for you. The charters
all provide transportation with your bikes to the starting town either
before or after the ride. The majority also transport your gear during
the week and have a designated campsite with canopies, chairs and
beverages. From there, the additional services vary. Ours are
discussed on our home page.
Am I going to have a hard time finding food?
Finding food on RAGBRAI is like finding a fly at a
summer picnic. It is more a question of where and what you want to eat
versus “will there be food?” Many people refer to this ride as eating
your way across Iowa.
However, for our campers last year we offered an
optional Pig Roast one night at our campsite. We purchased the food
from an establishment in the overnight town. This was well received and
we plan on doing something similar this year. The campers enjoyed not
having to leave camp for one evening to get food and there were several
other nights we were very close to food as well.
Is it hard to find entertainment during the
week?
We have surveyed our customers about entertainment
and they had little or no interest in a charter providing this because
entertainment is everywhere. Every town has an entertainment committee
that is bringing in a variety of bands. We don’t want to take away from
the towns’ efforts to show off how well they did at providing you
quality entertainment.
Through my years of biking I have done many
organized bike rides including cross state rides, MS rides, and other
long training rides that were supported. On several of these rides I
did struggle to find food and entertainment. However, RAGBRAI is not
like that. If we thought there was a need for food and entertainment we
would provide it without question.
Final Thoughts
We know that it can be difficult to choose a
charter when there is so much information out there. Hopefully, this
page will help people decide what they want from a charter and which one
is best for them. No matter what your decision, have a great ride!
Sincerely,
Bob and Debbie Brancel
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