Every year someone asks Becky and me why we don’t do RAGBRAI.
If you’re not familiar, RAGBRAI is the Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa. Something like 10,000 cyclists ride about 500 miles across Iowa every year (since 1973) in the world’s largest bike-touring event. By all accounts RAGBRAI is a lot of fun. Since Becky and I are both from Iowa, and since we do long-distance bike tours. it’s a good question. Why don’t we give RAGBRAI a try?
The answer for us is the difference between the crowd and the community.
The crowd is composed of individuals, or groups of folks, each focused on their own interests. Perhaps at times there’s some degree of cooperation, perhaps not, but by nature the crowd is made up to some degree of competing interests.
We’ve all seen unruly, destructive crowds. But the crowd can be kind, orderly, and helpful. RAGBRAI, I think, is a big crowd of mostly nice, helpful individuals and groups riding bikes together.
The community is a circle in which people find their identity in being part of a story bigger than themselves. The community values people first and prioritizes common purpose over individual or small-group interests.
The crowd is easier. You can smile and be nice and pretend. You can bob-and-weave your way through the crowd without truly engaging.
You can get lost in the crowd.
The community asks for buy-in. You step into the circle to commit to the big story of shared sacrifice in pursuit of a common purpose. Shared identity and the common good replace competing interests.
The community can, however imperfectly, seek ideals like truth, justice, and service. While individuals within the crowd may seek those, the crowd cannot.
The community can demonstrate authentic love. It can do so because love first existed in a community of three. Therefore, the community invites you to drop masks and engage at deeper levels.
Ideally, the community can be nurturing and supportive. Mostly the community is messy and difficult and frustrating because it’s composed of imperfect, broken people.
The FREEDOM TOUR is a community. It’s hard. It’s chaotic. We’ve made lifelong friends. It’s wonderful, and about the most fun we’ve ever had doing the hardest thing we’ve ever done.
It’s a blast! And we thank all of you continue to be part of this remarkable journey.