Educational Media Reviews Online

In the opening scene of this documentary, 300 Iowans on bicycles are strangers in a strange land on Venice Beach, California. The video follows the Midwesterners on a vehicle supported group bicycle trip across the United States from California to the Atlantic Ocean. The trip participants are a cross-section of ordinary people including farmers, For many of them, stepping outside of their usual lives for this three-month journey is the most adventurous thing they have ever done. As they struggle up the steep grades of the Sierra Nevada mountain range they begin to realize that the trip is a whole new ballgame from RAGBRAI (a popular group bicycle ride across the state of Iowa organized by the Des Moines Register Newspaper).

Riding across the U.S. is a popular fantasy trip for touring cyclists, so it's disappointing that this video doesn't offer more background information about how this ride was organized and planned. The route map is never shown. The goal of the trip is occasionally referred to as a vague mission to promote Iowa, but no information is given about how the trip was organized or how people decided to participate. Scenes are not always labeled to show where or when they occurred during the trip or to identify the speakers. Though several participants are profiled, the interviewer didn't ask especially pointed questions. The riders don't have much to say beyond things such as "this is harder than I thought it would be," and the viewer never gets a good sense of what the riders expected from this tour or how their perspective may have changed after spending weeks on the road together.

One nice scene shows a big party for the riders thrown by Midwestern ex-patriots in Wyoming. In this and other scenes, the riders express a strong Midwest self-identity, which is somehow related to their participation in the ride. This theme of local identity in the context of a cross-country trip pops up throughout the video, but remains largely unexplored.

Because of the lack of background information, this video comes across more as a souvenir for the riders who participated than as either a how-to video or a travelogue. It doesn't convey enough information to help anyone planning a cross- country bike trip of their own, and it doesn't show what made this particular bicycle journey unique.

Not recommended. Libraries in Iowa may wish to purchase for local content.