RAGBRAI remains stable despite other Gannett event cancellations, organizers say
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RAGBRAI 2021. Photo: Linh Ta/Axios
RAGBRAI leadership says the event is financially stable, despite a drop in registrations and its parent company recently cancelling another major cycling event.
Why it matters: There's nothing else quite like it. RAGBRAI, which kicks off next week, is the world's longest-running multi-day bike ride. It attracts thousands of cyclists to experience a week of the best of what Iowa has to offer.
Context: Since 2019, RAGBRAI has been operated by Ventures Endurance, an events arm of Gannett, the country's largest newspaper company, which owns USA Today and the Des Moines Register.
Driving the news: Earlier this year, Ventures Endurance announced that it would cancel Ride the Rockies — a multi-day event through Colorado — due to low attendance after nearly 40 years.
- Sabra Nagel, the ride's director, was also laid off, Colorado Public Radio reported.
- The company's obstacle course race series, Rugged Maniac, was also canceled without explanation this year, as was Providence Marathon in Rhode Island, which organizers blamed partly on a bridge closure.
By the numbers: RAGBRAI's attendance this year is down about 40% from last year's 50th-anniversary ride. In 2023, 30,000 people registered for the full week, but some days saw upwards of 50,000 riders.
- This year, around 18,000 people are registered, similar to 2022 totals.
Yes, but: Anne Lawrie, RAGBRAI's cycling director, tells Axios the event remains on solid footing. "We anticipated our numbers would go down," she says.
- In 2019, there were about 10,000 registered weeklong riders, as well as several thousand-day riders.
Threat level: The cancellation of the Colorado ride "should give RAGBRAI fans some concern," wrote Dieter Drake, who ran the Iowa event from 2019-2022, in the public Facebook group "Save RAGBRAI."
- "These were formerly profitable events that have apparently been mismanaged to obscurity. Believing that RAGBRAI is somehow immune from this trend is unwise," Drake commented in his April post.
- Drake declined to speak with Axios, but the group's "about" page reads: "Save America's Greatest Bike Ride from the corporate giants threatening to destroy it forever."
What they're saying: Lawrie says she doesn't expect RAGBRAI to meet the same fate as Ride the Rockies, even if this year's attendance is lower.
- "Frankly, it's a much healthier spot for us to be in and for the towns to be in."
Bill Plock, the 2022 Ride the Rockies director, told Axios that current RAGBRAI leadership has a difficult job of trying to maintain similar attendance to last year and it's unfair to compare the two.
- "Being owned by a large company with shareholder expectations is hard because they're going to compare it to last year, right?" Plock says.
The big picture: The Colorado ride used to average 2,000+ riders, but by the time Plock joined it had dropped to 1,200, he tells Axios.
- Cycling events across the country have struggled after COVID given rising operating costs as well as an aging cycling demographic, Plock says.
- There's also been a drop in cycling interest across the board since a 2020 peak. He pointed to a recent national sales slump for Shimano and bike shops.
The intrigue: RAGBRAI attendance could also be affected by this year's route, Plock points out. Last year's anniversary ride took the popular central Iowa route, including Des Moines.
- This year's ride travels through southern Iowa — a notoriously hilly landscape — and will be RAGBRAI's hilliest to date.
- "Historically the southern route has been the least-attended," Plock says.
Reality check: Ultimately it's hard to pin down RAGBRAI's actual attendance numbers beyond the company's own estimates.
- Sgt. Alex Dinkla, PIO for Iowa State Patrol, which helps control traffic for the ride, tells Axios, "It's a mystery."