RRVT News
Registration for the second annual “Tour the Raccoon” is now open. The sponsoring Des Moines Cycle Club sets a goal of having 250 riders using the full length of the Raccoon River Valley Trail on the weekend of June 12-13. There will be special activities in all trail communities, and the riders will spend the night in Jefferson, in the middle of the annual Bell Tower Festival. Also in Jefferson, there’ll be a special theatrical performance riders can attend. We’ve got the details here on how to sign up for the tour!
WAUKEE, Iowa, May 5, 2010 – Registration is now open to the public for the Des Moines Cycle Club’s second annual “Tour the Raccoon,” a fully-supported ride that is the largest event of the year on the Raccoon River Valley Trail.
The June 12-13 ride will use the 56-mile-long trail on both days — with the riders rolling from Waukee to Jefferson on Saturday, camping overnight, then riding the trail back to Waukee on Sunday. Just like last year, the riders will be arriving in Jefferson during the town’s big annual celebration, the Bell Tower Festival, with a full day and night of entertainment, food, music and other fun.
“We’re seeing a lot of interest and everything is running very smooth so far,” said Danny Kruzic, of West Des Moines, the president of the DMCC. “We think we’re going to have a good crowd.”
Online registration is $50 and is open until midnight of June 8 and can be done by credit card on the club’s Internet site, which you can access by clicking here. On the Saturday the ride begins, you can register for $60, in cash or by check, from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. at the ride’s tour’s starting point, which is Eason Elementary School in Waukee. Participants will be able to leave their motor vehicles at the school overnight. The fee covers ride arrangements, maps, a commemorative bandana, luggage hauling and, in Jefferson, free camping, showers and breakfast for all registered participants.
Danny Kruzic, president of the Des Moines Cycle Club, is shown here with his coffee and Bunkers Dunkers glazed donut at breakfast in Jefferson during the first “Tour the Raccoon” in June, 2009.
The DMCC is “the oldest bike club in the United States, ” Kruzic noted. “As near as we can tell, it started in the late 1950s.” It thrived well into the 1990s, then wobbled, reorganized and is now again one of the strongest bicycling organizations in the Midwest, with 350 registered members, most of them living in the Des Moines metro area.
Kruzic, who is now in a second year as club president, said that three years ago, the board of directors decided they wanted to establish a couple of annual bike tours as the club’s major events, in addition to its annual participation in RAGBRAI (the Des Moines Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa) and its sponsorship of the 95-member DMCC Race Team. They approached the Raccoon River Valley Trail Association, asking if the two organizations could partner in developing the “Tour the Raccoon” that would use the trail. And they also organized Saturday morning rides from Clive to the Des Moines Farmers Market downtown, and a “Pajama Ride” that happens in the Des Moines area in September.
Gary and Melissa Gullion and their son Grant, of Ottumwa, are shown here as they arrived in the town of Yale on “Tour the Raccoon” in 2009.
For “Tour the Raccoon,” the RRVT Association’s role is in encouraging and coordinating activities in all the trail communities on the tour weekend. Last year’s initial ride was a huge success, with more than 180 cyclists, and mostof them made stops in all the trail towns.
Carla Offenburger, of Cooper, president of the RRVT Association, said the tour is “the kind of event we’ve been hoping for years would get started on the trail. It not only puts a lot of riders on the full length of the trail two days in a row,” she noted. “Hopefully, they have a good enough time that they want to come back and ride the RRVT again, and again, bringing other friends with them.”
Here’s how the DMCC describes the “Tour the Raccoon” in the handbook the club distributes to all registrants:
“The ‘Tour the Raccoon’ is designed for the entire family to enjoy. Ideal for both the experienced rider wanting to add training miles and for those just getting into cycling. The entire ride is entirely on almost flat, paved multi-purpose trails. There will be plenty of opportunities to take a break and that’s where the real fun is. We’ve patterned this ride after another famous ride in Iowa. But the Tour the Raccoon is a little shorter, a lot flatter, only two days, and is totally on bike trails. If you can’t get away a full week to ride RAGBRAI or were concerned about riding that many miles or you don’t feel safe riding on the street, then this is the ideal way to give a bike tour a try.
“The Raccoon River Valley Trail offers riders a great view of what central Iowa is all about. Most of the ride goes past vast Iowa farm fields and through some of the most scenic river valleys Iowa has to offer… There are nine great Iowa small towns packed into our 60 daily miles — Clive, Waukee, Adel, Redfield, Linden, Panora, Yale, Herndon and Cooper are directly along the trail most with available water, food and many areas to rest. After your challenging and fun day on the bike, you’ll be greeted by the town of Jefferson, a progressive town of about 4,500 with all the amenities that you’ll need for a good night’s stay.
Mel Wallace and Bryan Huff were the first “Tour the Raccoon” riders to arrive in Jefferson in 2009, getting to town late in the morning but still in time to watch part of the Bell Tower Festival parade.
“For those who like to have a little more excitement, and even those who like a lot of excitement, Jefferson is also hosting their annual Bell Tower Festival the same weekend. The Jefferson Bell Tower Festival begins on Friday the 11th and ends on Sunday the 13th. The Bell Tower Festival features activities for the entire family with amusement rides, kids Olympics, vendor booths that line the square. And for those over 21, the evening includes live performances on the plaza stage and bands and disc jockeys at the ‘Bistro’ on both Friday and Saturday night.”
You can read more details about the festival by clicking here.
In Jefferson, the “Tour the Raccoon” campground will again be on the campus of Jefferson-Scranton High School on the south end of town, with plenty of shade available from mid-afternoon. McFarland Clinic, which provides medical services in Jefferson, will again sponsor a free breakfast Sunday morning for the tour participants.
Riders also have the opportunity to make reservations and attend a special theatrical performance on Saturday night in Jefferson of a former Broadway hit, “Brooklyn the Musical.” The cast includes a troupe of top local actors and some who are veterans of productions in Des Moines. They’ll act out the story of “five homeless street performers in Brooklyn who, for spare change, will share their modern-day fairy tale and their search for family, fame, fate and faith,” according to news releases about the show.
This staging of “Brooklyn” is being done by the year-old “History Boy Theatre Company,” headed by Robby Pedersen, a Jefferson native who is a veteran actor in musicals and other plays on stages in Des Moines, Ames and elsewhere. He also is a master furniture maker who has a business “RVP 1875,” turning out furniture like that made in the late 19th century, and using only the tools that 1875 craftsmen used. The play is being presented in a newly-constructed theater in the warehouse that is the back part of Pedersen’s furniture-making business and showroom, in downtown Jefferson. The Saturday evening performance starts at 7 p.m., and tickets are $10. Reservations can be made by calling (515) 386-2497.
Janette Henning, of Cooper, is shown here with a bunch of cyclists from “Tour the Raccoon” who were raving about the sour cream raisin bars that she’d made for the tour’s stop at the shelterhouse in Cooper.
Other sponsors of the bike tour are the Bike World shops in the Des Moines area and in Ames; DeeZee truck accessories, of Des Moines; Friends of Central Iowa Trails; B Graphix Design; ESP Exceptional Specialty Products, and the bicycling information Internet site BIKEIOWA.com.
The DMCC is having a wine & cheese gathering to help “launch” the “Tour the Raccoon” on Saturday, May 15, from 4 to 6 p.m. at the new Bike World store in West Des Moines.
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