Marshalltown’s Tom Kurth to Start 38th — and Possibly Final — RAGBRAI Stage | News, Sports, Jobs

TR PHOTO BY ROBERT MAHARRY Marshalltown stalwart RAGBRAI rider Tom Kurth, left, flanked by friend Lanny Nuese, right, is heading out on his 38th and possibly final two-wheeled journey across the state this weekend. He turns 80 next month.

Tom Kurth has his son David to thank for the fact that he first participated in RAGBRAI in 1986. And almost forty years later, the elder Kurth has not stopped.

The Marshalltonian, who has lived in Marshallton his entire life and graduated from MHS in 1962 and retired after a long stint running the cleaning company he took over from his father, has biked the event’s entire route every year since — with the exception of 2020, when the event was canceled due to the pandemic — and he can’t wait to get back on his bike this weekend and begin the journey from Glenwood to Burlington, near the state’s southern border.

The 2024 ride is a memorable one for Tom Kurth, however, as it could be his last. He turns 80 next month and is a caregiver for his wife, Sara. His attachment to the Register’s Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa, the event’s full legal name, has been a rewarding one, but interestingly enough, it didn’t develop until he was well over 40 years old.

Because the family lived on the west side of town on Highland Acres Road, David often went horseback riding out of necessity, even before he had a driver’s license. This is where he became interested in RAGBRAI.

“My son was 14 years old and he came to me. I hadn’t ridden a bike since I was 16 and he wanted to come with me to RAGBRAI,” Tom said. “And I was an athlete and I thought, ‘Why not?'”

Dad started training to prepare himself (David, who was in peak physical condition as a teenager, didn’t have to) and bought his son a bike, which he still rides to this day. On the first day of their first ride—which, fittingly, given this year’s route, started in Council Bluffs and ended in Red Oak—Tom joked that his son “flew across the state like a fighter jet” with a $20 per day allowance for meals.

“I thought I was going to be busy all day, and I was excited. I got in around 12:15 (pm) and we had breakfast at McDonald’s. And (David) had been there for a while,” he said.

David didn’t complete the route that year, but his father did. Still, the younger Kurth went back to school and told his friends how much fun he’d had, and soon a group of 11 kids wanted to go the following summer. Tom agreed to be their sponsor on one condition: if they gave him any trouble, he would call their parents to pick them up.

The group was “great,” he recalled, with no problems at all, and by the third year the number of children he sponsored had grown to 14. Tom was able to recruit three more parents to help with mentoring.

“We took them through the state and I told them the same thing when they were 14 (kids). They were great. They were young men, but they were only 16. So that’s how I got hooked,” Tom said. “David got a girlfriend and a job and married that girl. So he broke up with me, but he still goes out with me a day, basically all the time.”

Over the years, David, a class of 1990 graduate from MHS who now works as a researcher for the Iowa Soybean Association, has joked that his father became something of a RAGBRAI celebrity as one of the oldest riders to continue to ride the entire route year after year—so much so that he even participated in a scavenger hunt. He’s also an avid documentary filmmaker of his routes, chronicling every city and state he passes through along the way.

“That’s why I called him kind of a RAGBRAI veteran. He’s been there so many times and people seem to know him. And he’s a talker, as you’ve noticed,” David said.

Tom still rides an old-fashioned bike with his name on the back and doesn’t get any help from an e-bike, and Tom’s friend Lanny Nuese, a fellow cyclist who accompanied him during an interview on Wednesday, affectionately called him “crazy” but impressive for his seemingly endless endurance. But on a more serious note, David, now a Des Moines-area resident, praised his father as a strong advocate for cyclists and a patron of popular trails like the High Trestle when he visits. Tom is an active member of the Iowa Valley Bicycle Club and regularly helps clean up the trails around Marshalltown.

“I think he liked to stay active. He actually rode his bike to work almost every day,” David said. “He’ll ride into town if he has to go to court or if he has to talk to someone or whatever. And if he needs a part for a car and it’s not that big and he can strap it on his bike, he’ll ride into town.”

Due to his wife’s health issues and his advancing age, Tom considered dropping out of this year’s ride and only secured his registration ticket at the last minute. He is unsure whether 2024 will be his last RAGBRAI.

“I hope not. I’m going as long as I can,” he said. “(Sara and I) kind of came to an agreement this year. So it could be (the last ride). It could be, but I don’t know, I feel good. I feel good.”

Whatever his final decision, Tom can be confident that he has made his son proud.

“He always says, ‘Every day, every mile, every hill,’ and that’s true. He’s ridden every bit of it,” David said. “The last few years I haven’t ridden every day, but I think I’ve ridden with him at least one day every year. So it’s pretty fun to do that with him and enjoy it.”

After hip surgery two years ago, Nuese and other friends thought Tom would quit then, but to avoid being suppressed, he persevered again. As for advice to anyone who might be interested in becoming a RAGBRAI regular, it’s relatively simple: just do it.

“It’s easier for the younger kids to do it. Some want to do it. Some want to use their phones and computers and sit at their desks and not go,” he said. “But once they go, it’s like they get hooked. And some of the kids I’ve sponsored have gotten buses and are going. They’re in their 50s now.”

The elder Kurth has a grand vision for his eventual retirement: He will win the lottery, see to it that the Iowa River’s Edge Trail is paved from Steamboat Rock to Marshalltown (the city of Marshalltown is currently the lead applicant for a federal grant to make it happen), build a nursing home along the completed trail and spend the rest of his days in a wheelchair.