June 19, 1977/October 3, 2010: A daily map for RAGBRAI V, photographed from microfilm. The 1977 and 2022 routes share some similarities, including an overnight stop in Ida Grove, a route south of US 18 from Whittemore to New Hampton, and an end in Lansing.
Back when I was working at the Des Moines Register, I wondered if there was a compilation of all the RAGBRAI towns, or even all the routes. The answer appeared to be no, so I did what I do best and started digging through archives. I knew/found out when town maps were published (June in early years, or each day during the ride, eventually moving to a full map on the third Sunday in March). I created an internal database and then a simple list of towns for each year, as shown in the Register’s maps. I uploaded the compilation of the latter 10 years ago Saturday and have updated it ever year since.
Well, it appears this work has not gone unnoticed. Needless to say, the Register’s database is fancier. I’d like to think my list’s presentation has its own strengths, though. I suppose this counts under “turnabout is fair play” — after all, the lists were compiled from the newspaper in the first place. There is a credit, which I appreciate greatly.
Back in the halcyon days of blogging, there was a code, exemplified in this book from 2008: “the true coin of the realm in the blogosphere is links. … As a general rule, the more bloggers who link to your blog or to your individual posts, the more influential you are as a blogger.” (The book was rendered obsolete almost immediately, as Facebook ate nearly the entire blogosphere during Obama’s first term and Google strangled RSS in 2013. Now Safari doesn’t even have built-in RSS.)
I’m glad my information is being found useful, but an e-mail and a link about it would be appreciated along with a credit.
UPDATE 7/28/22: A couple locations I wrote in a specific style are replicated that way in the database. Hmmm.