IowaBikeRide.App

How to Enable Offline Use

This site and all of its contents is designed to be cached by your phones browser.  This "should" work on all browsers, but we all know how technology is.

Try any of the following options.  Test the page out while in airplane mode.  You should be able to refresh the page even in airplane mode and it should work.  *fingers crossed*

Option 1 - Android Chrome "Install"

1. Load this page on your phone. Make sure it loads fully, it is ~25MB the first time.
2. Install the page:
   1. Select the "Add IowaBikeRide.App to Home Screen" button on the bottom of the page; OR
   2. From the three dot menu in the top left select "Install App" or "Add to Homescreen"
3. The website icon  should appear on your homescreen or in your app drawer.
4. The app should now work whether you are online or not, try enabling airplane mode and refreshing the page.  It should still load.

Option 2 - iPhone Safari "Install"

1. Load this page on your phone. Make sure it loads fully, it is ~25MB the first time.
2. Install the page:
   1. Then tap the ‘Share’ button
   2. Scroll down and tap ‘Add to Home Screen.’ 
3. The website icon  should appear on your home screen or in your app drawer.
4. The app should now work whether you are online or not, try enabling airplane mode and refreshing the page.  It should still load.

Option 3 - Generic Bookmark

1. Bookmark this page. Make sure it loads fully, it is ~25MB the first time.
2. Put the bookmark on your homescreen.
3. The page should now work whether you are online or not, try enabling airplane mode and refreshing the page.  It should still load.

Updates

I will continue to update the information on this page to the extent that I have time up until around noon on July 22.  After that, I will be on my bike loving life.

So perhaps, on the evening of July 22, update this page to get the latest.

How to Get Updated Information

1. Be conected to the internet.
2. Refresh this page twice allowing it to load completely each time.
   1. Yes, twice.  Due to how the caching works, the first refresh loads the ~25MB into the cache.
   2. The second refrefresh updates the data on the screen.

Will Refreshing Work if I am Not Connected to the Internet?

It will not load any new data, but the page should still load from the cache correctly.

About

I am a huge fan of RAGBRAI®.  But not related, sponsored, or endorsed by the organization in any way.

Let's face it, 25,000 cell phone users can really mess up the cell network in rural Iowa.  So, in years past, I would gather all of the information I could find for the ride and the towns and save it on my phone.

It was not very user friendly (myself being user), I had to remember where I saved a thing, and what the file name was.

This year I decided to stop mistreating myself by organizing the information in a better form.

Hence, this website was born.

How does it work

It uses technology called Progressive web apps (PWAs) to cache the data in your browser.  This is my first time dabbling with this and I am sure I could have done things better.

Contact

To be clear, I threw this thing together very last minute.  There are certainly numerous errors and omissions.  For that I apologize.

Feel free to contact me, however, know that I will not be responding nor can I alter anything after July 22 until the ride is over.

 

Donations

This site has no ads and no sponsors, let's be honest, no one likes that junk.

However, if you found this site helpful, or even if you didn't, please consider donating to the towns fund below.  Seriously, the towns and the volunteers put in tons of work and time into making the ride what it is.

As of the morning of July 22, 2022, only $95 has been donated!  That is sad.  We can do better than that.

RAGBRAI Community Fund