50 years ago, he was among the few to finish the first RAGBRAI.

The world's dominant bicycle touring ride began in 1973 as a happy accident--as Stephen Gaul can attest.

The young bicyclist was hungry for freedom. Eager to chase adventure along the open road.

It was the summer of 1973 in northwest Iowa. By week, Stephen Gaul, 18, toiled for a moving company.

On weekends the young guy from the town of Spencer worked a second, sunny job at Manhattan Beach Resort, 22 miles north on the shores of West Okoboji Lake.

Gaul’s story offers yet more irrefutable proof of why the bicycle is the world’s perfect carbon-neutral transportation—simultaneously practical and magical.

Practical: For teenage Gaul, the bicycle was cheaper than filling his gas tank, with the world on the verge of an oil embargo. So he pedaled his Follis French touring bike back and forth to the lakes. Every weekend. A thrifty and invigorating commute.

“It turned out that was my training for the bike ride,” Gaul said.

Magical: The bike also became his means that summer of escaping drudgery and responsibility: He joined “The Great Six-Day Bike Trip,” the accidental prototype for RAGBRAI, the Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa.

“The Bike”: Stephen Gaul’s bike ridden on the first RAGBRAI in 1973.

If you’re unfamiliar, Des Moines Register journalists John Karras and Donald Kaul, on a whim, launched in 1973 what became the world’s shambling, wacky counterpart to the Tour de France.

Karras and Kaul loved to bicycle the Iowa backroads. The two friends saw an opportunity to get paid for their hobby. They invited readers along for a cross-state trek. To their surprise, they founded an institution.

Gaul read in the Register about plans for that first bike trip and ultimately joined a relatively small flock of 200 bicyclists who convened at the starting line in Sioux City. He turned out to be among only 120 or so bicyclists to finish the first RAGBRAI, Aug. 26-31, from west to east, from river to river: Sioux City, Storm Lake, Fort Dodge, Ames, Des Moines, Williamsburg, and Davenport.

RAGBRAI has since shifted to a seven-day ride always held the last full week of July. This year’s 50^th ride runs July 22-29—the 50th RAGBRAI coinciding with its 50th anniversary because the pandemic scrapped the 2020 event.

The golden-anniversary 2023 RAGBRAI route was announced Jan. 28 in downtown Des Moines, closely following the original: Sioux City, Storm Lake, Carroll, Ames, Des Moines, Tama-Toledo, Coralville, Davenport. (For more background, here’s my account of last year’s RAGBRAI.)

I caught up with Gaul this month at his home in Slater. The town was included on the inaugural RAGBRAI route and has since become a year-round biking capital. It’s situated along one of the nation’s best bike paths, the High Trestle Trail. I’m biased: I became friends with Gaul and his family during my 17 years living in Slater and have spent countless hours biking along the High Trestle’s 25 bucolic miles. (I think it’s a rule that if you write about bicycling through rural America you must use the word “bucolic” at least once.)

We sat down at Gaul’s dining room table and leafed through a yellowed photo album from the summer of ‘73, compiled by his grandmother who lived in Storm Lake—his first night’s stop on the Six-Day Bike Trip.

This is one of the route maps handed out to riders on the first RAGBRAI in 1973.

The album still holds crinkled copies of the route maps handed out to riders in an era lacking smartphones.

A photo shows Gaul posing with his bike in the front yard, bare-chested, flexing his right bicep. Shoulder-length hair spills out from beneath a red railroad cap dappled with white polka dots.

Stephen Gaul, 18, was more than ready for the inaugural RAGBRAI in 1973.

The only bike helmets on the first RAGBRAI, Gaul said, were the old-fashioned leather skull caps favored by Tour de France racers. He chose the railroad cap because he “wanted something bright so I could be seen by other people.”

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Hear Gaul tell his story on the “Just Go Bike” podcast.

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Gaul biked alongside one of the most iconic RAGBRAI alumni, Clarence Pickard, the 83-year-old retired farmer and educator who pedaled in a pith helmet and long pants (and long wool underwear). Pickard became the ride’s first folk hero. His example has carried through all 50 years: Part of the wonder of the ride is in witnessing all the setbacks and limitations that people overcome—sometimes the perceived limitation of age—to join the throng and struggle up the next hill.

When Pickard’s pants got caught in his bike chain, fellow riders helped him tuck in and tighten his cuffs—another enduring ethic: RAGBRAI Nation always stops to help fellow riders.

Gaul and his fellow finishers were officially credited in the Sept. 9, 1973, edition of the Register in an article with the bland headline, “List bikers who completed ride.” It’s a sign of a more innocent era that riders’ home addresses also were printed.

While stopping for a water break outside Fort Dodge, Gaul was interviewed by Karras and appeared in the wiry journalist’s column the next day: “Steve Gaul, 18, of Spencer also hopes to peddle into Davenport. He wants to get a job in the fall and ride his bike through Canada next summer.”

The job turned out fine: Gaul became a welder for a manufacturer of prefab farm buildings and saved enough money for more than two years of college.

The Canada trip, however, was a bust: He pedaled north, but his bike broke down about 50 miles from the nearest bike shop north of the Twin Cities, so he returned home.

In the last half century, RAGBRAI has grown to become an annual tourism staple. Given its golden anniversary, this year’s numbers are expected to balloon to 50,000 or more on peak days if the weather cooperates.

RAGBRAI represents both a fixed destination and an infectious ideal. It has become an acceptable way for adults to run away to the rural Spandex circus each summer. The rest of the year we strive (and too often fail) to live up to the spirit of “RAGBRAI Nation” in our everyday lives: goodwill to fellow travelers, no bike locks, no ego, no stress, etc.

At home in Slater, Iowa, Stephen Gaul poses with his 1973 RAGBRAI photo album.

After 1973, Gaul didn’t return to RAGBRAI until 1991 (when his original bike busted on a training ride) and once again in ’93. His reaction at the difference compared to when he slept in sparse campgrounds that first year?

“The main feeling was ‘crowded,’” he said.

On the eve of the first RAGBRAI in 1973, Karras wrote, “Kaul and I regret only that we can’t lead the ride through every city, village and hamlet in Iowa. But we have neither the time nor the legs nor the backsides for such an undertaking.”

The founders couldn’t do it all themselves, but tens of thousands of disciples continue chasing that mad goal on their behalf.

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Iowa Writers’ Collaborative Columnists 

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Macy Spensley, The Creative Midwesterner, Davenport/Des Moines

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