For one rider, RAGBRAI's 50th anniversary a ride with even deeper meaning

SIOUX CITY ― Richard Linn was up before dawn, sharing the anticipation of starting the first day of RAGBRAI's 50th anniversary edition with the thousands of others who had gathered on the banks of the Missouri River.

It would be the most historic ride since the first one began a few blocks from here in 1973. But for Linn, it held an even deeper significance.

While others in the deceptive coolness of a July Sunday morning were engaged in routines honed by decades of repetition ― packing up tents and sleeping bags to deliver to the luggage trucks, pumping tires by flashlight and completing the ritual of the pre-ride Missouri River tire dip ― he reflected on his personal history with the ride.

Now 71, He'd grown up in Gilmore City, about 40 miles east of Sunday's destination, Storm Lake, reading the columns of Des Moines Register journalist Don Kaul, who founded the ride with fellow columnist John Karras not knowing it would become an enduring Iowa institution.

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Linn's sense of adventure was piqued when he read about the ride, chronicled each day by Kaul and Karras as they pedaled across the state with a growing entourage of readers. But it wasn't until Linn moved to Missouri that he finally signed up for his first Register's Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa at age 51.

Now he was gearing up for his 17th, one that a year ago he couldn't be sure he'd be around for.

He was starting the 2022 ride from Sergeant Bluff to Lansing when he crashed his bike, resulting in five cracked ribs and a ruptured spleen. An ambulance whisked him to a hospital in Storm Lake. Later, a helicopter carried him to another hospital in Omaha, Nebraska, where he got the news that his condition was far more serious than injuries from a bike crash: He had stage 4 cancer.

"They gave me a 50-50 chance to live," he said.

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In that moment, Linn chose not to give up. Within a month of returning from the hospital, he was back on his bike. He started chemo shortly after and now is in remission.

He stood on the boat ramp Sunday next to the Sioux City Marina, checking the day's route on his phone, then dipped his bike's rear tire in the river before setting off for the Mississippi 500 miles away on what he called his ride for redemption.

Linn said he plans to make it the entire way.

"I have some unfinished business from last year," he said before mounting his bike and pedaling east to make his own version of history.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Rider beats injuries, cancer to make RAGBRAI's 50th anniversary ride