Actually Heston, one of the key differentiators is the attitude of the non-cycling community to cyclists (both on the ride and independent cyclists).

I’d noticed it on a bike ride across the States a couple of years before I did RAGBRAI.  Everybody I met across Iowa seemed openly welcoming to cyclists, in (muted) contrast to many of the states I’d already crossed or subsequently crossed.  Many were also enthusiastic about the event, so a couple of years later I went back (2001).  What was clear was the amount of effort the organizers put in to ensuring the ride only went through the smaller towns, in a few cases micro-managing the route to benefit specific local community organizations and charities.

Given that most of the towns see little or no passing or tourist trade, in relative terms the sums of money the ride puts into the local communities, combined with the targeting of those funds, means that the ride has a huge impact on those same local communities.  (Iowa is one of the poorest states in the US…..it has the highest proportion of its population in the armed forces of any of the US states, often a sign of economic depravation.)  For their part all the local communities involved can calculate the likely benefit, as RAGBRAI estimates likely daily spend for their participants on their website….hence it’s not such a jump for the communities to work out gross spend and how to prise it from my sweaty palm.

Iowa likes cyclists ‘cos they spend money, they are never rowdy except in a happy way and they bring their funds to community organizations that would otherwise not have such an opportunity.  And the route varies every year which spreads the benefit around the state.

It is a similar situation in Holland with the Drenthse Vier Daagse.  But the stature and relationship of the cyclists within that society is completely different….which generates another view of cyclists and a similar dispersed economic benefit (again, route sections change each year.)

Contrast that with the London to Brighton, which follows the same route and format each year.  Add to that the organizer has a principal aim to raise money for their specific charity, with limited support for a narrow set of community organizations and the contrast is vivid.

All three have been running for a lot of years.  So you would expect that the presence of these events would have had a significant and easily recognisable impact along the route and in the surrounding areas.

The research question is what has that effect been and how has it effected attitudes to cyclists and cycling….?  (answers on a postcard…no prizes other than a rather worn out RAGBRAI shirt!)

It’s logistically a viable short project given that it’s possible to participate in all three within the space of six weeks or so.

Any takers?

Cheers

John Meudell