ORANGE CITY — The Air Force Cycling Team’s years of helping RAGBRAI riders who’ve blown tires, crashed or experienced some other ride mishap became apparent as its nearly 140 members began lining up two-by-two for their official start on Sunday, July 20.
“They are like your saviors,” a rider told his friend as they rode past.
As they have for decades, the Air Force team’s active-duty members, reservists, retirees and civilians will spend seven days crisscrossing the route of the Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa, looking for hurt, stranded and struggling bikers. It’s the team’s 30th ride.
“Those AF people are angels on bikes,” one rider wrote Sunday on Facebook, recalling a member who saved a rider’s life a couple years ago after he collapsed.
RAGBRAI 2025 theme pays tribute to military service
The dedication of the team helped inspire RAGBRAI’s “Take Flight” theme for 2025 in support of Honor Flight, a nonprofit that, with military participation and support, organizes free trips for veterans to visit service memorials in Washington. Riders have showed their support by donating about $42,700 so far to support Iowa’s Honor Flight.
RAGBRAI chose the charity because many riders, like the Air Force team, have U.S. military ties, said Ann Lawrie, director of the cycling division for Ventures Endurance Events. A subsidiary of Gannett Co., the parent of the Des Moines Register, Ventures organizes and stages RAGBRAI.
A group of about 10 north Iowa veterans who had participated in an Honor Flight walked through the main rider campground Sunday in Milford, welcoming them to the town of about 3,300 and asking about their experiences on the ride.
Veterans Tom Arends, Henry Siemers, Ron Baack, Len Holdorf and Terry Heidebrink said going to Washington, D.C., to visit memorials honoring their service was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that often left them with tears in their eyes.
Air Force team’s mission on RAGBRAI has evolved
Service is also the guiding star of the Air Force Cycling Team. Drew Patterson, the team’s chief marketing officer, said it wasn’t always that way. Prior to about 15 years ago its focus was on athleticism. “It was all about speed and getting down the road,” Patterson said.
Now, “It isn’t just about, ‘Can I ride across Iowa,'” said Patterson, who’s also a talent manager for the Air Force at Joint Base San Antonio. “It’s, ‘Can I help spread the Air Force and Space Force message'” by helping people who are broken down or in need medical assistance.
“Or maybe they just need somebody to talk with, to get them down the road until they reach the next town,” Patterson said. “‘Service before self’ is our core value.”
June Lindner, an Iowa native and former Air Force pilot, said she’s glad the ride became more about “slowing down, talking with people.”
“It’s so much more meaningful,” said Lindner, now a Texas resident who’s ridden RAGBRAI 23 years with the Air Force team. “You make friends with the people you help, and you see them year after year.”
Ivan Lucero, a security forces official at Shaw Air Force Base in Sumter, South Carolina, said he enjoys talking with people about the education, training and travel he’s experienced with the Air Force.
Taking a break to share the ‘peace and calm’ of Iowa
Lindner and Thomas Abney, also an Iowa native who’s based in Texas, said RAGBRAI is a welcome return home.
“There’s a huge disconnect between the military community and civilian community,” said Lucero, biking with Sebastian Vargas, a native Iowan and civilian who works with airmen at Shaw on strength and conditioning.
Lindner gets a chance to see her 99-year-old father, who farms near Glidden. And Abney, riding his eighth year on RAGBRAI, said he runs into friends no matter where the route goes.
Abney said he enjoys the opportunity to represent the Air Force, “which has been so good to me over the past 14 years.”
He also enjoys being able to share Iowa with his fellow service members.
“It’s a break away from normal,” he said. “And you’re surrounded by thousands of positive people.”
Lucero said last year’s ride, with the most elevation gain in RAGBRAI history, was particularly difficult for riders. The stress of getting up the hills meant he and others spent a lot of time replacing bike chains or temporarily repairing them till riders could get to the next town for new ones.
And Abney said riders occasionally overindulge in alcohol on the ride. He’s seen people get dehydrated, lose their balance and tumble.
While that’s unfortunate, he said he’s glad that the Air Force team can be there to help.
“The team enjoys the reward of helping others,” he said.
And even in the midst of thousands of riders, there is a chance for solitude in the “peace and calm” of Iowa, Abney said, adding, “I like sharing that with folks.”
Donnelle Eller covers agriculture, the environment and energy for the Register. Reach her at deller@registermedia.com.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: RAGBRAI riders who are hurt, stranded get an assist from Air Force Cycling Team
Reporting by Donnelle Eller, Des Moines Register / Des Moines Register
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