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2026 RAGBRAI Stats

28 Jul 2026 05:30 AM
Held during the last full week of July, RAGBRAI is a seven day bike ride from west to east across Iowa. This year's event finished up this past weekend with most days being rather pleasant for biking and overnight camping. The featured chart presents two weather metrics during each year's ride using the Des Moines airport data as a representative proxy for statewide conditions. Of course a more rigorous weather analysis could be done using more route specific airport station data, but the chart hopefully is a close approximation. The top panel shows the number of hours each year with a heat index of at least 85°F. The bottom panel analyzes wind speed and direction, producing an averaged vector component wind in the east/west direction. For the bottom chart, red values would indicate a net average head wind. So the top panel shows the reduced number of hours with 85+°F heat index vs a long term simple average and even the past three years. The bottom panel as well shows a reduced head winds vs the previous three years.

Voting:
Good: 16
Bad: 0
Abstain: 1

Tags:   ragbrai  

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Last week's RAGBRAI

29 Jul 2014 05:40 AM
The featured chart presents the average weather during the week of RAGBRAI as approximated by the weather reported at the Des Moines Airport. RAGBRAI is an annual bike trip from west to east across Iowa. There were a few warm days this year, but not as bad as it has recently been a few years ago as shown by the top panel with average heat index during the daylight hours displayed. The bottom panel shows the average east - west wind speed as an approximation to the amount of head or tail wind bikers would have experienced. Either this week or two weeks ago would have been much cooler than the previous week, but too late now to move the ride!

Voting:
Good: 14
Bad: 5
Abstain: 7

Tags:   ragbrai  

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Second Warmest RAGBRAI

03 Aug 2011 05:57 AM
The Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa (RAGBRAI) took place last week and was a quite warm for participants. This 7 day long trek across Iowa starts on the Missouri River and ends on the Mississippi River. Assuming that the weather reported by the Des Moines station is representative of the state, the featured chart presents the average heat index and westerly wind for the six day period each year that RABGRAI occurred on since it started in 1973. This year's average heat index was second to 1999. The bottom chart looks at a simple average of the westerly wind component during daylight hours. A wind from the east (negative values) would mean a head wind for bicyclists generally heading from the west to east. Easterly winds are typically associated with cooler weather, so you can pick your poison or a headwind or hot weather!

Voting:
Good: 19
Bad: 11

Tags:   ragbrai   2011