In this YouTube vlog, Victoria S. Dorsano documents her 7‑day, 400‑plus‑mile ride across Iowa for the 2026 RAGBRAI (Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa). She opens with her personal motivation—recovering from a torn ACL and broken kneecap—and explains that her coaching philosophy centers on tracking sleep, strain, and recovery to gain freedom for “crazy” challenges. Victoria outlines the RAGBRAI route (Onawa to Dubuque, 391.4 mi, 16,000 ft of climbing, a 160‑mile optional loop on day 5) and describes her packing strategy for nutrition, sun protection, and recovery tools. Throughout the week she tracks heart‑rate, HRV, sleep, and strain with a Whoop strap, sharing daily data snapshots and reflecting on how the extreme July heat (often >100 °F) impacts hydration, skin, and performance. A sponsored segment introduces Dawn, an AI‑driven mental‑health app that proactively checks in based on wearable data and calendar load. Mid‑week, Victoria decides to skip the 160‑mile loop due to bike issues, chafing, and food scarcity, opting for a 104‑mile day and still earning a “century” patch. The narrative shifts to the social side of RAGBRAI—pie, small‑town hospitality, meeting friends, and the camaraderie that becomes the most rewarding aspect. By the final day she reports surprisingly good Whoop recovery scores despite heat and tent‑sleeping, concluding that caring for the body enables full presence and enjoyment of the experience, not just finishing the ride.
Chapters
This might be the hottest bike ride I've ever done in my life. I want to be in my car on the way home.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Something's really hurting. We're so hungry.
I'm about to ride my bike over 400 miles across the state of Iowa in one week in the middle of July. Is Ragbrai, the Register's annual great bicycle ride across Iowa, and I'm going to be filming every mile of it. Now you might be saying, Victoria, why would you do this?
Why?
Well, because honestly, a few years back when I tore my ACL and broke my kneecap and went through a series of terrible injuries back to back to back, I thought I was never going to be able to be be active and enjoy my life again. So now that everything's feeling good and I have the opportunity to do this thing, I'm gonna do it. And honestly, that's the whole point of this video and what I preach in my coaching. I don't train hard, track my sleep, and obsess over recovery because I'm trying to hit a certain number on a scan. I do it because it buys me this— The freedom to say yes to something a little bit crazy and the ability to trust that my body can carry me through it. So before I go and bike 400 miles across Iowa, let me share with you guys a little bit about what RAGBRAI even is, the current route this year, and I want to share a little bit about how and what I'm going to be packing to stay healthy and hopefully well recovered along the way. And then I'm going to be tracking with my Whoop how my body fares across each day of this journey, and we will find out if I survive. If you've never heard of it, RAGBRAI is the oldest, largest, and longest recreational bike ride In the world. It's actually been running since 1973. Every summer, tens of thousands of riders start on Iowa's western edge, dip their back tire in the Missouri River, and ride all the way across the state to dip their front tire in the Mississippi River. It's not necessarily a race. There's not a clock and there's not a winner. It's 7 days of riding through tiny Iowa farm towns that come out in full force. I'm talking pie, homemade food, Live music, the whole shebang. People plan their entire summer around it, and this year I'm people. But make no mistake, while this does sound like a giant party on wheels, and part of it is, it's still 400+ miles of biking across Iowa in the grueling July heat. So fun and hard are not mutually exclusive here. Here is the 2026 route. This is RAGBRAI number 53, running from July 18th all the way to July 25th, from Onawa on the Missouri River to Dubuque on the Mississippi. On paper, it's about 391.4 miles with about 16,000 feet of climbing. Organizers are calling this the shortest route that they've ever put together, but the 10th hilliest one. But honestly, nobody really just ends up riding the route mileage. Once you count riding to camp, going out to food, hopping around each town that you're in, you usually end up clocking an extra 10 to 20 miles in there. And there is a fork waiting for me on day 5 of this route. Day 5 is actually the longest day of this particular route. Marshalltown to Independence It's 86 miles, but that day actually has an add-on route. In honor of America's 250th birthday this year, they are adding on an additional loop to make that day a whopping 160-mile day. Now, the longest I have ever ridden my bike is probably close to 125 miles. So to do 160 on the 5th day of riding back to back to back in the July heat, It's gonna be a challenge. All right, so let's talk about how I'm going to be packing to try to stay as healthy and well-recovered as I can throughout this entire ride. 7 days of riding is a lot of physical stress packed into a short window of time. Here's the thinking behind what's going in the bag. So to prepare for a biking adventure like this, I packed the whole week like it was one giant recovery session. I packed plenty of things to fuel, lots of sun protection, everything to keep my body in one piece and just recover the best I possibly could. Now, as I mentioned earlier, I'm gonna be tracking my metrics day to day with my Whoop. Which I will share with you guys as I go here. This is going to be tracking my heart rate, my HRV, my sleep, my strain day to day. So every single day I can see what this is actually costing my body and how well I'm recovering during the course of this ride. And speaking of tracking my physical metrics, a challenge like this is also a mental one. Seven days of riding can actually bring up some uncomfortable feelings, which is why I'm really excited to talk about today's sponsor, Dawn. Dawn is an AI mental health support app that is built for a gap that I think a lot of you guys will recognize. Even if you're seeing a therapist for your mental health, that's maybe only. for about an hour a week. The other 167 hours, you're on your own. That's really where Dawn can help. But here's what makes Dawn different from other mental health support apps out there. Most apps in this space wait for you to open them. So even while you might be struggling, you still have to have the wherewithal to go and look for that app. Dawn, on the other hand, reaches out first, which is where that tracking of metrics comes in handy. Dawn connects to wearable data and your calendar. So if Dawn sees a run of short night's sleep and a back-to-back calendar agenda, it checks in before that becomes a bad week. Not after. There's even a really nice end-of-the-day check-in, and it remembers all your previous conversations. So as you use Dawn, it's learning what throws you off and what's actually worked before. And when it's your body that's wound up and not just your mind, Dawn walks you through guided breathwork, guiding you through the process and not just naming the technique and leaving the room. The coolest thing is that its support is grounded in 3 evidence-based frameworks: CBT, DBT, and ACT, built with PhD clinical psychologists. While Dawn can definitely help with your mental health, it's not a therapist and it's not a crisis service. If someone is genuinely crisis, it points them to a 988 lifeline instead of trying to manage it on its own, which is exactly the kind of parameters I'd want built into an app like this. For adults in the US, there's a free trial you can check out down below. Link is in the description, and if you like it, you could subscribe to the app. Anyway, like I said, physical challenges can also challenge your mind too, and it can really help to have something like Dawn to get you through those tougher moments. Thanks again, Dawn, for sponsoring today's video. And without further ado, guys, wish me luck. We're hopping into RAGBRAI. Let's kick it off with day 1 at Onawa. Onawa is a small town at the western edge of Iowa. And while RAGBRAI tradition says that you should be dipping your back tire in the Missouri River, unfortunately they closed that off for us and only offered a tiny little pool of water for us to dip a tire. So we decided to opt out of that because there was a huge line. And instead we went to the RAGBRAI Expo. We spent some time walking around there but decided to turn in for the night to prepare for day 1 of riding. And that was when Iowa decided to turn the oven on. Hot as hell. It has been dangerously hot during this year's RAGBRAI ride. High temps are impacting bikers.
One of the hottest. It's hot, it's muggy, and it's the middle of July.
Triple-digit temperatures will present challenges for the riders.
And so it begins.
Flag!
Day 1, baby.
Elsie, you're crushing it. Good job. Believe it or not, I already got Thankfully it happened right at the one of the stopping towns. So day 1 recap so far, this might be the hottest bike ride I've ever done in my life. For the record, we are so freaking hot, we're gonna go sit in a movie just to get the AC.
One of the things I love about RAGBRAI is that stuff like that, that little kid's business, like so cool, and everyone's so friendly. Give us the secret to your health and longevity.
Stay as active as you can at whatever level you need to. Like, if you can't ride a bike and you need an e-bike, ride a dang e-bike.
Yeah.
Uh, whatever the case is, keep moving.
Keep moving.
Don't stop playing because you get old. You get old because you quit playing.
Where do we follow you? What's— give us your handle.
Adventure Time with Bane.
There you go.
All right, day 2.
It is, uh, just 6 o'clock in the morning. We are already on our bikes because there's a heat advisory for a real feel temp of 104.
So we're trying to get miles in as soon as possible and leaving camp. How's everyone feeling?
Awesome! Love it. So before when I said day 1 was the hottest day I've ever ridden my bike before, this tops that by at least 5 degrees. So it's 103.
Uh, we are just getting to camp now, so we clock in at 11.
We did good.
It is freaking hot. So we're gonna go recalibrate, shower, get camp set up, and then, um, probably spend the afternoon at the library because there's AC.
So, uh, that's how we're recovering.
The first 2 days ended up being between 97 and 99 degrees with a real feel of 111. And that was again for 2 straight days. Now I knew it was gonna be hot, but man, did it feel hotter than I ever imagined, especially since it was very hard to Escape when you're camping outside. All right, so we have showered.
We are at the library.
Christopher is playing something called Lime Ride Line. We're trying to kill time. I'm doing emails. We learned really fast that you don't fight the heat; you just learn to manage it. You find places where there's AC, drink as much water as possible, eat pickles, rehydrate, and get back out there. And of course. Find pie.
Follow the signs. I was like, pie!
Where's the pie?
Oh my gosh! What kind of pie are you thinking?
Because there's one other thing you need to know about the people of Iowa, and that is that they take their pie very seriously. Found the cherry pie. Very excited about it. It's day 3. We are absolutely feeling it. First 2 days were really rough, um, for the heat. And finally it rained last night. Had a tornado watch and it rained really hard, um, which was hard to sleep in, but it cooled down the temperature a lot. So we're able to start a little bit later. It's about 7. Overall, I feel like I couldn't keep up with hydration yesterday and the day prior, so I'm just gonna try to keep pounding water today. today to make up for it, uh, just because I was just sweating like every second of every hour.
Oh, it's 103.
Finally, on day 3, the heat started to break, and that's when something I wasn't really expecting started to happen. We are rolling out of camp, um, around 6:53, 7 o'clock, and we're heading to Boone, right?
I think we're heading to Boone.
Once I wasn't just surviving every single hot mile ahead, I actually started to look around, and Iowa in July is honestly a lot of fun. Good morning!
There's one hill in Iowa, this is it.
You know that's right. There's little towns with a few hundred people putting out lemonade and lawn sprinklers for thousands of strangers on bikes. It stopped feeling like a challenge that I was just grinding through and started feeling like a week of something special that I got to be a part of.
Day 4. How are we feeling? We're out here. We're out here. Hasn't been too bad today. High five!
Woohoo!
Today is the long day. Uh, normal route's 87, extended options for 100 or 160. I'm gonna try for 160.
The plan was originally for me to attempt the 160-mile double loop. This would have been the longest distance I would have ever biked in a single session, but unfortunately having some bike issues earlier in the day ate up some time on the clock And that would mean that doing the full double loop meant rolling back into camp right as showers were closing and food was gone.
The first few towns that we were supposed to get food in ran out of food, and then the other one at like 67 miles also had no options but pie. And we need like a meal.
And that was still with 2 more days of riding ahead.
We're so hungry.
And then unfortunately there was the chafing of a new bib that I decided to wear that did not sit right. And I was genuinely worried about my skin being so raw that I could not stand another 2 days on the bike after that day. So I made the call.
Okay, we finally got some food, which was great. My face is still windburn and sunburn pretty bad, um, and that is honestly one of the biggest Things that I'm trying to weigh out if it's worth going that full distance or just doing up to 100 and getting that Paris Loop patch. So, oh, one of the hard things to decide.
I skipped the 160 and opted for the shorter extra loop instead, putting me at 104 miles for that day. Still over a century, still put me past the 400 for the week. Just not at the cost of my skin, my recovery, and the two days that I still had in front of me. So I put my music in, put my head down, and just got it done. And while I was slightly disappointed and frustrated, I couldn't make the 160-mile work that day. I was still proud of myself for getting the century patch. Okay, by day six, the ride had completely changed shape for me.
All right, we're on day six of seven. Today's a shorty; it's like forty-something miles. We're taking today a little slower anyways, and we're meeting up with my friend Sherry.
My friend Sherry, whose parents happened to live in one of the overnight towns we were stopping in, met up with us and rode along for that day. And that's when something really started to click. The best parts of this whole week had nothing to do with the miles or the data or how my body was really recovering. It was all about the people. Which made the camaraderie of finishing on day 7 that much sweeter. Now, for those of you who are actually curious about how my body did throughout this whole trip, I would say surprisingly well, and my Whoop scores actually show that. I was able to sleep fairly well in a tent and able to still have mostly green recoveries for most of the days, which I was very, very surprised about given The heat, the outdoor sleeping, just how tired I was for most of the trip. But my recovery scores were pretty great. So yeah, taking care of my body so that I can do cool events like this obviously matters, but not necessarily for the numbers or the victory patch. It matters because it helps me show up fully present without my body holding me back for the hard stuff and the beautiful human once-in-a-lifetime kind of things. That's what the work of taking care of your body actually allows you to do. Not just get to the finish line, but to enjoy and be present for the whole journey to get there. And that, my friends, above anything else, was the most beautiful gift I got from RAGBRAI. Hope to see you in the next adventure.
