Mike Conklin's Diaries - Part 9 - Saggy Thursday
July 27, 1995, is a day that will live in RAGBRAI infamy.
It will be impossible to be with the CUBS for a week and not learn about Saggy Thursday. Those of us who rode it will never forget. A few of us have commemorative t-shirts. Those who didn’t do Saggy Thursday, but have made this trip before, are bored with the story. That’s because they weren’t there. Here’s the scoop.
This particular Thursday on RAGBRAI was a 74.2-mile day from Tama/Toledo to Sigourney. It followed a Wednesday when many of us did the official century loop the Register makes available each year, meaning lots of riders were already struggling.
This was another sultry day in what had been an exceptionally hot, sunny week, but the big threat started out to be a tornado. There were warnings in the morning. Black clouds started rolling in around lunchtime and, though many riders found cover to wait and see what materialized, the rain never came.
Instead, the clouds totally disappeared, the sun started blazing again from a noon position, and winds from the south, gusting up to 25-30 MPH gave us a “wind-heat” factor of well over 100 degrees since the temperature already was in the high 90s. These winds were so strong—and I swear this is true—riders had to pedal to get down hills.
Even this might have been bearable, but, after turning south from Victor, we faced 20 consecutive miles of nothing but one roller-coaster hill after another—all head-first into the wind. It was like riding into a blowtorch. It was actually easier going up hills because they shielded you from the wind.
All of the above was compounded by practically no shade to be found anywhere, no towns, and precious few food-stands all the way into Sigourney. It’s estimated more than half the 10,000 riders sagged that day, a RAGBRAI record. The Register commandeered dozens of vehicles—flatbed trucks, cars, ambulances, farm tractors with wagons—to transport beaten and fried riders into town.
One personal recollection has stuck with me all these years. As my wife and I finally arrived at the “Sigourney” city limit sign, a woman was on her hands and knees below it---crying, most likely---while a male companion was sympathetically patting her on the back.
If there was one good thing to emerge, it is this: Saggy Thursday led to organization of the CUBS. About a dozen of us rode that year with an organization known as Northwest Passage, but, upon arriving in Sigourney, we discovered that totally inadequate housing (i.e. no showers) had been arranged. A few of us decided then and there to form our own group.