YouTube influencer Ryan Van Duzer introduces fans from around the globe to RAGBRAI
Cycling influencer Ryan Van Duzer has biked through tobacco farms in Cuba, visited mountain gorillas in Rwanda and hiked to Machu Picchu in Peru. But the Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa holds a special place in his heart ― and because of his YouTube videos about it, in many others'.
Van Duzer, 44, has more than 178,000 subscribers to his YouTube channel, "Get Out There" on DuzerTV, where he spread the gospel of RAGBRAI. Dozens of his fans from across the U.S. and other parts of the world will be on RAGBRAI this week, drawn to the 50th anniversary ride after seeing RAGBRAI for the first time on his self-produced videos. Van Duzer's four videos from RAGBRAI 2022 alone got 338,000 views.
Cycling is a tool to get to know culture and people, Van Duzer said. He only knows Iowa because he bikes, he said.
“I'm a person that really feeds off of the energy of people and RAGBRAI just makes me feel like a better human,” Van Duzer said. “I get energized after I come home from RAGBRAI. I feel better about the world.”
The Boulder, Colorado, resident, will be riding his sixth RAGBRAI this week.
His typical adventures are demanding, off-road challenges in remote and exotic locales. RAGBRAI, by contrast, celebrates the biking community in the middle of America.
“Maybe that's why I like RAGBRAI,” Van Duzer said. “It's comfortable. There's food every 5 kilometers, water, treats and people. If your bike breaks, you know somebody will fix it within 10 minutes.”
Van Duzer got a broadcast journalism degree from the University of Colorado and in 2005 started a public access TV show in Boulder, "Out There," about adventure travel, filming with a Sony Handycam to “get people off their couches and get out there.” He later worked as a freelance journalist for the Travel Channel.
By 2016, Van Duzer said, he was sick of the TV grind and decided to create his YouTube channel, working for himself. He drew viewers who could travel vicariously through him ― and sometimes are inspired to make real journeys.
Among them is Heather Skoda, 51, from the improbably named Cool, California, in the Sierra Nevada foothills northeast of Sacramento, who began watching Van Duzer’s videos in 2018. After years grinding competition as a triathlete, she found the idea of RAGBRAI refreshing because it was noncompetitive.
“I remember me and my husband watching it, going, ‘That looks crazy. Who wants to go to Iowa and ride a bicycle across the state?'" Skoda said. "But he just made it look so fun.”
Now on her first trip to Iowa, Skoda will ride RAGBRAI with a group of 20 other women. She has ridden Tour de France routes but has never ridden 500 miles in a week, as she will on RAGBRAI.
“The way he portrays it, it’s like this fun traveling adventure carnival,” Skoda said of Van Duzer. “He’s always about learning about the community, and immersing himself in the community. RAGBRAI seems to be that times a million. It seems like everybody in the whole state comes out to support this event.”
As Van Duzer rode to the riverfront in Sioux City on Saturday for the ceremonial dipping of his rear tire, dozens of fans asked to take pictures with him, talked to him and shouted “DUZER!” Some, like one fan from Florida, trembled at the shock of seeing him in real life.
Sandy Plante, 83, of Orlando rides on the back of a recumbent tandem with her daughter Michelle Smith, 54, of Clermont, Florida. They first learned about RAGBRAI when Smith and Plante’s older daughter Mel Steele, also with them Saturday, saw Van Duzer’s videos of RAGBRAI. Plante loved the images of slip-and-slides and goats.
After Van Duzer dipped his tire in the Missouri River, Steele asked him to talk to her mom, who she called, "The world's oldest (RAGBRAI) virgin" ― RAGBRAI slang for her first-time-rider status.
She said she binge-watches Van Duzer’s videos. “He just motivates me,” said the Colorado Springs, Colorado, resident.
She said she doubted her Mom could ride RAGBRAI, but Plante prepared well, working her way up to 60-minute rides on exercise bikes at a gym. After arriving in Sioux City and setting up their tent in the main campground on the riverfront, the trio said the atmosphere matched the depiction in Van Duzer’s videos.
“We love the vibes of it. It’s fun,” Steele said.
Van Duzer's fans come from around the globe
National audiences were first exposed to RAGBRAI in 1975 when legendary sportswriter Bil Gilbert wrote a Sports Illustrated story about the Second Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa, which he rode in 1974. Riders started coming from across the country to join in.
“Without the Bil Gilbert article, RAGBRAI wouldn’t have had the national and international attention,” said Leo Landis, museum curator at the State Historical Society of Iowa.
International riders have been riding RAGBRAI since at least 1980 when Padric Keating of Ireland became the first, Landis said.
This year, Van Duzer fans are coming from as far away as Australia. James McKoy, 62, a retired firefighter in Melbourne, watched dozens of Van Duzer’s videos after Australia locked down cities during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“When I watched his RAGBRAI videos I was like, ‘I need to do that!’ McKoy said in an email from his home in Australia. “Plus I've forgotten how many people he interviewed on his trips who were fans who said things ranging from, ‘You got me off the couch and on a bike,’ to him literally saving their lives from depression through his inspirational videos.”
Richard DeCaire, 58, and Connie Velten, 55, a couple from Ottawa, the capital of Canada, also are big fans of Van Duzer. They planned to ride their first RAGBRAI until Velten tore a tendon recently.
“I get breakfast in bed and then we watch Ryan,” Velten said before her injury. “That’s our Sunday tradition.”
She said his videos show the positive side of people and give “you a good feeling.”
Like Skoda, Velten likes that RAGBRAI is not competitive, and said she and DeCaire will ride in 2024 after she heals.
“What I hope Canadians aspire to is the idea of being nice and kind,” DeCaire said. “When he talks about Iowa nice and RAGBRAI and what a great time he had there, people seem to generally have that impression. I think that’s what ended up drawing me to wanting to do RAGBRAI.”
McKoy will ride RAGBRAI with his partner Moira. She was not into crowded events until she watched Van Duzer’s videos. They will get to Sioux City after first flying 18 hours from Melbourne to Des Moines, with an eight-hour layover in Dallas. Their Brompton bikes fold up and fit into a suitcase.
When they get to Iowa, McKoy said, he can't wait to meet people from across the U.S. and globe, drink craft beer and eat “lots of pie.” Most RAGBRAI riders are used to training in the summer heat, but it is winter in the Southern Hemisphere, so McKoy and Moria have used indoor bike trainers, cranking up the heat and leave their fans off.
“Not quite the same but you still build up a decent sweat,” McKoy said. “Moira is a three-time Triathlon Ironman and I have a long history of endurance sports. So we are not too concerned.”
Word of mouth still important to spread RAGBRAI
Ever since Des Moines Register journalist John Karras and Donald Kaul created RAGBRAI in 1973, Iowa transplants have spread their love of it to friends, family members and colleagues in the Midwest and beyond. Van Duzer first heard about RAGBRAI from an Iowa friend who rode RAGBRAI every year and bugged him to do it.
He told his friend "no" several times because he thought it sounded boring. He said that when he finally rode his first RAGBRAI in 2012 — one of the hottest and most years for the ride — he experienced something he’d never felt before.
In one small town Van Duzer saw a grandma hosing down cyclists. She told him Iowans love showing off their towns and she was doing her part.
“I was like, ‘Holy crap, this is the most amazing thing in the world.’ Because I love people, I love big events. I feed off of energy, positive energy, and that's what RAGBRAI is.”
Iowa Bicycle Coalition Executive Director Mark Wyatt said word-of-mouth — whether it be from people who ride RAGBRAI or see videos of it — still is the most effective way to draw potential riders. Storytelling is a part of RAGBRAI and all riders are part of a brotherhood and sisterhood who ride across Iowa, Wyatt said.
“Ryan has a really good eye to capture that fun and that spirit and that energy that we all feel,” Wyatt said.
Other social media influencers also have begun spreading word of RAGBRAI to their followers in recent years. Wife-and-husband team Kara and Nate of Nashville, Tennessee, inspired dozens to ride RAGBRAI in 2022 after making YouTube videos of their 2021 trip across the state.
“YouTube is something that people can go back and watch over and over to get excited about,” Van Duzer said. "People do a lot of the rides that I do because of YouTube. They know when they go to my channel and they watch my RAGBRAI videos, it's going to make them feel good.”
Where to find and follow Ryan Van Duzer
Van Duzer mainly posts videos of his cycling adventures on his YouTube page. Subscribe here.
Known for: Extreme cycling adventures he turns into min-documentaries, as well as his RAGBRAI videos.
Instagram: @duzer, 43,400 followers.
Twitter: @duzer, 8,363 followers
Philip Joens is riding his 18th RAGBRAI. He has completed the river-to-river trek six times. He covers retail, real estate and RAGBRAI for the Des Moines Register and can be reached at 515-284-8184 at pjoens@registermedia.com or on Twitter @Philip_Joens.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: YouTube influencer Ryan Van Duzer rides in his sixth RAGBRAI
