April 11, 2025

Dear Friends,

The Full Route of RAGBRAI was released last week, always a thrill that stokes our anticipation of the Best Week of the Year! By all means, visit RAGBRAI.com for the deets, including a short stint of cycling in Minnesota!

We've completed five scouting trips so far, hitting every overnight town at least twice. We have one trip to go! Wherever you are, we hope you're embracing RAGBRAI preparation, on the bike and those other kinds of prep mentioned below!



The main topic here is your Detail Form, which requires you to login to your account at pkbelly.com. The Detail Form collects info we need in order to serve you! So keep reading for instructions on the Detail Form and other important topics:

Long-Term Parking in Guttenberg: A Few Recent Changes

We have been in communication with Guttenberg to correct a couple things, including the sack lunch for Saturday and the bike-shipping location:

• The Saturday sack lunch option, delivered to our location at Lakeside Ballroom at 6:00 AM, didn't appear on the Guttenberg website at first, but this has been corrected. Now you can order the sack lunch delivered on Friday by noon, and on Saturday by 6:00 AM. You will be supporting a Guttenberg restaurant with your order and enjoying a great convenience! Please note that if you ordered parking but didn't order Saturday (or Friday) sack lunch, you'll need to go back to the Guttenberg website and make a new transaction for your sack lunch to take on board the coach!
• On the 26th of July, bike shipping will be located at our staging area in Guttenberg, Lakeside Ballroom. This service will not be located at the dip site as formerly stated. It's a very flat ride from the dip site north about 1.5 miles, right along the river, very easy. Once you take care of bike shipping, you can easily shuttle back to the dip-site area.
• AND a REMINDER TO THOSE ON OUR E/W SHUTTLE FROM END TOWN TO START TOWN... if you're shuttling on Saturday, and since you'll be logging into your Detail Form anyhow, remember... Indoor Sleeping on site in Guttenberg, Friday night, July 18, is available for you to select on your PBV application, only $25. Sleep in the air-conditioned ballroom on the night before you shuttle, and be right where your shuttle departs in the morning, with food and drink available!

Recently, PBV sent an update on our E/W Shuttle, the parking link for Guttenberg, and much more...

Our March 28 Update on Parking in Guttenberg

OUR MAIN TOPIC:

Your Detail Form

(Login to Your PBV Application)

This is important, friends, and it requires a few paragraphs to explain. Thanks for reading carefully and completing your form by June 15th or so.

Who Completes the Detail Form?

Everyone who uses any services of Pork Belly Ventures - even if it's only a shuttle - completes the form. (You will not have your RAGBRAI Registration number now, but you will complete this part when you do have it.)

Your Detail Form:

Here's the Info We Need

from Each of You.

The Detail Form asks for information about many things, including your official RAGBRAI Registration Number. We are aware that you don't have this number yet, but all riders are responsible for logging into their PBV accounts and updating their Detail Form with this number well before July 18, 2024. We don't need your confirmation numbers. We will need your Official, Six-Digit RAGBRAI Registration Number, coming to you in early June.

Here are the responses you need to provide on your Detail Form.

RAGBRAI Registration Number--by July 10, 2025, this portion of the Detail Form must be completed by every person who is using any service of Pork Belly Ventures. For now, you can enter the word, "Later."

Extra Night in Rental Tent--If you already HAVE the rental-tent service of Pork Belly Ventures, and if you plan to arrive at our Orange City campsite via our E/W Shuttle or by private transportation on FRIDAY, July 18, you may reserve this extra night in your rental tent. (The tent service is seven nights--Saturday, July 19, to Friday, July 25.)

If you're on our tent waiting list, please wait until we can put the tent service on your application, and only then, you can select the extra night.

Our shuttles from Omaha and Des Moines operate only on Saturday. The extra night in your rental tent is not available to those on these shuttles.

We provide rental tents on Friday, July 18, only in Orange City. Not in Guttenberg. (In Guttenberg, you can sleep in air-conditioning, in the Lakeside Ballroom at the center of our staging area, only $25.)

Dietary Restrictions--For those using our support, we do not want this part of the form to be misleading. There are limits to the variety we can provide for our included evening meals. We cannot promise a strictly vegan option. Sorry to say, we cannot handle every food allergy or dietary restriction. We can provide a meatless alternative to the entree and a GF alternative to the entree. Sometimes we can do better, and we'll try. We will offer these alternatives for each of our three included evening meals, and we will make every attempt to offer these alternatives for the optional evening meals as well. We will publish the menus as soon as we can, probably in the later part of June.

NOTE: If you have a dietary restriction, we understand that you may have questions about food options. We will address this topic--regarding our evening meals and our in-camp vendors--in our June Letter (your travel guide for PBV) published in June, and/or in our update called Our Week in the Corn. Please bear in mind that you may need to hit the supermarket during RAGBRAI or bring a little stash of nourishing, non-perishable foods/bars you like and can eat.

Bike Info--On the detail form, we ask whether you'll have a bike for us to transport on our shuttle, whether you're shipping the bike (BikeFlights), or whether your bike will arrive some other way.

Bike Type--we ask you to select from a menu of bike types and let us know whether the bike will be boxed or unboxed when we transport it on the shuttle.

Omaha Folks--please give us complete information so that we can get you assigned to the coach/departure you prefer. Every year, lots of Omaha Detail Forms are incomplete, but we hope this year will be different. We need to know your airline, flight number, arrival time, PLUS your preferred departure time for Orange City. For instance, you may arrive on Friday night, but hope to sleep in and board your coach at 10:30 AM on Saturday. Please be sure you complete your Detail Form by mid-June, when we need to create and publish our rosters.

In summary: Our web administrator has created software that we can use at the site for counting bike types, assigning riders to coaches on our various shuttles, and producing reports on things like dietary restrictions. Your detail form, completed on time, helps us serve you in MANY WAYS! We couldn't manage without it.

Your Detail Form:

Finding It and Completing It

You will not find a tab at our website that says "Detail Form." You will login and find the tab within your own PBV registration.

In a word, Login.

You'll scroll down and see the view above. Please look for the green tab across from your name, labelled Detail Form.

Another way in… At the top of your PBV email confirmation, find a link: “Click to Continue the Application.” Use this link to bypass the login process. Your unique link will take you to your unique application, where you'll see this view and can click on the Detail Form.

Who Does and Does Not Choose Preferred Departure Times?

Not everyone needs to choose a departure:

• Those using our E/W Shuttle from Guttenberg to Orange City have chosen a departure already on a drop-down menu on their PBV application form.
• To those using our Omaha airport shuttle to Orange City, we need your arrival info (airline, flight number, and when you arrive, or for those who drive, your ETA). In addition, please choose a preferred departure time between 7:30/8:00 AM and 4:00 PM. WE BUILD THIS DEPARTURE SCHEDULE AROUND YOUR ARRIVALS AND PREFERENCES. You may select First Available, meaning that you want the first available shuttle departure after your arrival. (Trust us to allow time for you to claim baggage and transfer to our hotel from the Omaha airport.) If you arrive on Friday and select First Available, we'll do our best to assign you to one of our earliest departure times. Omaha passengers, you can complete this form anytime between now and mid-June. (We caution riders about arriving in Omaha after 3:00 PM. You would likely miss our last departure.). Later on, we'll advise you on the free airport shuttle that will transfer you to our hotel parking lot.
• Those using our Des Moines airport shuttle to Orange City don't need to choose a time (but you need to answer other questions on your Detail Form). All coaches depart at 9:00 AM.
• Those using our post-RAGBRAI shuttles do not need to choose a departure time. On the last day of RAGBRAI, July 26th, all coaches to Quad Cities airport depart at 1:00 PM or 2:30 PM. All coaches to our Omaha airport hotels depart at 3:00 PM, and all coaches to our Des Moines airport hotel depart at 3:15 PM. We will have a separate update that explains and describes the last day of RAGBRAI.

How Soon Should You

Complete Your Detail Form?

It's a good idea to do it soon, but if you want to wait until you get an official number from RAGBRAI and then do it all at once, you can. By mid-June, we'll hope to provide our caterers with numbers on dietary restrictions, and we will begin even earlier creating shuttle rosters (early birds would have an advantage on Omaha bus assignments). So everyone should shoot for completion by June 10th or so. Thanks!

Group Applications and the Detail Forms

for Each Rider

If you're on an application with other people, then you'll need to have your group leader share the login credentials with you, or you can provide the group leader with your responses to each question on the form. It might be worthwhile to have a phone call with your group leader for the purpose of completing your detail forms. Thanks!

How We Can and Cannot Help

We can send login credentials to your group leader.

If you're having trouble, we can help you find the tab for the Detail Form.

Of course, we can answer questions about your shuttle or other aspects of our services.

We CANNOT fill out the forms for you. There are too many of you. We ask you NOT to email us with information for your Detail Form. It is something you will have to do, as individuals or as groups.

Full Payment and

Cancellation Deadlines

We're more than a month from our payment deadline. On May 15th, full payment of balances will be due. By then, we need to know who's in and who's out.

You can write to us for your login credentials if you intend to make payment online with your credit card.

You can mail a check and SAVE a little on credit-card processing fees. Send your check to PBV LLC, 412 Forest Glen Drive, Council Bluffs, Iowa 51503.

If you need a little more time, one more paycheck, whatever, please let us know. We need to know that you're planning on us, but we CAN be flexible on the deadline if it helps you. Write to us: tammy@pkbelly.com and pete@pkbelly.com.

We remind you of our Cancellation Policy and Refund Deadline, so that there's no misunderstanding. June 15th is the last day to cancel and get a 90% refund. After June 15th, we don't make refunds with this exception. If you took our cancellation protection when you initially registered, then you have extended your 90% refund to Wednesday, July 16th at 10:00 PM. If you have our protection and cancel by email by 10:00 PM on July 16th, we will make a 90% refund. After July 16th at 10:00 PM, we make no refunds.

GROUP NAMES

for the Rental Tent Grid

and for Shuttles

We'll keep reminding you until sometime in June, when we need to go forward with the rental tent grid and the shuttle rosters.

If you wish to be assigned to the same coach with other folks in your group, OR if you would like your rental tent to be set up next to someone else's rental tent, YOU MUST HAVE A COMMON GROUP NAME ON ALL APPLICATIONS. If someone types "Team Cycologist," and others type "Cycologists," then we will sort alphabetically and NOT know who is supposed to be together. If one group member types "OFWCC," and another types "Old Folks with Credit Cards," we will sort alphabetically and NOT know who is supposed to be together. Type identical common group names on all applications of your group members, please. Even if two people are on the same application (even if you have the same surname), the common group name helps us a great deal. Thank you! You're helping us serve you better!

(And just saying, friends, at check-in, we'd like to avoid anyone getting upset because their tent is not near their friends' tents. This happens, and it's too late to fix it. Please USE AN IDENTICAL COMMON GROUP NAME on the applications of ALL OF YOUR GROUP MEMBERS.)

PBV Availability

Our Weeklong Support and Partial-Week Support are available, and we're getting new folks every day.

Our Rental Tent Service is sold out. You can get on the waiting list.

Our pre-RAGBRAI shuttles from Omaha and Des Moines are available.

Our E/W Shuttle from Guttenberg to Orange City is available. If you sign up, see the link above on Parking in Guttenberg.

Our post-RAGBRAI shuttles back to our Omaha airport hotels, back to our Des Moines airport hotel, or to the Quad Cities International Airport are all available.

The Process for Cancelling Services:

Write an Email.

To cancel services, simply write to us at tammy@pkbelly.com and/or pete@pkbelly.com. If you're due a refund, you can include your mailing address in the text of the email. An email establishes the date of your cancellation. It makes it possible for us to look you up by name, or if the name is very common, we can look you up by email address. And it allows us to copy members of our team on the reply and keep everyone in the loop. We are scouting and traveling to other events in April, May, and June, and we don't promise that we will receive voice messages. Email is the way to cancel some or all services on your registration.

Do not go into your registration form and remove all services, please. This complicates the process on our end, causing us to search for confirmation emails and reconstruct your registration to determine whether a refund is due and the amount.

Simply write us an email, and we'll take it from there.

MORE SPRING UPDATES

Coming Soon...

We have just sent the Bike Shipping Update.

Soon, we will publish these topics:

• An Update on our 2025 Season and all the cycling events we serve!
• We will invite you to schedule massage appointments during RAGBRAI and offer you dorm rooms in one overnight town, as well as any leftover hotel stays we have on various nights.
• In early May, we hope to offer our indoor sleeping opportunities on several nights of RAGBRAI!

Something else to look forward to...

For those of you who follow us on FB, soon we will be rolling out our Bike Shorts videos--some of them produced last year, and some new ones--describing our services in advance of RAGBRAI!

You can do this, folks. Login. Locate the green tab that says Detail Form. Complete and submit!

We'll be on your screens again soon, and until then, we wish you warm weather and time in the saddle!

Your friends,

Tammy and Pete  

Pork Belly Ventures LLC 

Tammy: 712.328.0161 h, 808-375-8921 c, tammy@pkbelly.com

Pete: 402-681-2613 c, pete@pkbelly.com

 www.pkbelly.com