The Story Of Guitar Ted: RAGBRAI 1996

A Guitar Ted Productions series.

Welcome to a brand new series on G-Ted Productions! This series will jump off from the time where the "Race Against Death Tour" ended and will take you up to the beginnings of Trans Iowa in late 2004. This is an eight year period where my life was transformed. You could say it was metamorphosed from the old to something quite new.

This won't have a lot of bicycle stuff in it at times, but it is all essential to the story of "Guitar Ted". This isn't about where the name came from. That's all here.  No, this is about the person. 

As with previous historical series on the blog, images will be a rarity. Cell phones, social media, and digital images were not available to take advantage of in those last days of analog living. 

This post will detail my experiences doing a complete RAGBRAI in 1996........ 
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Every year my boss at Advantage Cyclery would do RAGBRAI. I had heard of the event, of course, being from Iowa and all. I mean, how could you not know about the mighty 'BRAI. Back in the 90's, it was a ride with quite the reputation for wild antics, partying, and debauchery of various types. This wasn't without damage. My boss found his wife cheating on him during the ride one year which led to a divorce. Still, he wouldn't miss the ride for anything.

Weird.......

Anyway, Tom insisted in 1996 that I was going with his crew on RAGBRAI. I was mildly interested in this since I'd never been on a RAGBRAI and also that it was scheduled to pass through my home town of Charles City, Iowa that year. It would mean that the New Orleans touring idea would have to be scrapped, but in some ways, that was pretty much a given. Without the energy that Troy had given to the efforts the two previous years, and Ryan and Tim's lack of any excitement for the idea, I was left to be the one to drive the idea, and frankly, I just didn't have it in me at that point in my life to be a bicycle tour organizer. I had done the maps and rough sketched a route, but after Spring kicked in, and the requisite 12 hour days at the shop, I had zero time for actually riding bicycles, or doing tour preparations.

So, I said yes to RAGBRAI and Tom's motley crew. They had a core group of guys that were very close, had their own "language" and symbolism that only they really understood, and they, to their credit, were very friendly to "outsiders". Despite their attempts to assimilate me into their culture, I still felt like an outsider. I felt a lot closer to some kids half my age who were customers of the shop. It was a couple of them that I ended up bonding with during RAGBRAI.

These guys ran with a few others but mostly would end up coming into the shop to drool over the latest mountain bike stuff we had. The new Judy fork from Rock Shox was one such thing which one of them purchased and I set up on their bike for them. But mostly, they were there to hang out.

They were "Straight Edge" and oddly enough, they took a shine to me. 16-17 year olds usually don't like people their Dad's age, so I was honored to have their affection toward me. They often would chastise me for drinking since, you may know, that isn't the Straight Edge way. But other than that, we got along famously. We went to mountain bike races together, and started hanging out a bit outside of work. One of their crew was a bit closer to my age, and his name was Clay. He ended up worked at a competing shop called Europa, where I would eventually end up later.

Anyway, two of these guys had decided on coming out for the rest of the week on Day 3 of the '96 RAGBRAI. We spent much of our time together heckling riders, being fools, and generally causing mayhem. It was a ton of fun, and without them, I'd have had a miserable RAGBRAI hanging out with Tom's crew. Not that they were bad guys, but I just didn't bond with their way of doing things. In fact, after Day 2, I didn't even hang out with them until it was time to come home.

With Ryan and Tim fading from my social scene that Summer, these younginz were pretty much my mates outside of the shop. That was solidified during RAGBRAI, and afterward as 1996 wore on.That isn't to say Ryan and Tim were on the outs with me. Oh no, not by a long shot. In fact, there was one last touring hurrah, and it was short, but it was memorable.

Next: A Backbone Overnighter