Big Rove, a new 36-mile addition to the Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa training series, took 1,500 bikers between local breweries on June 29.

The route started at Big Grove in Iowa City, continued to Reds Alehouse in North Liberty, and reached its farthest point at Big Grove in Solon before looping back to Iowa City following its original path. Each stop on the ride featured food, drink, and live entertainment.

“This is a real short and sweet ride,” said RAGBRAI Director T.J. Juskiewicz. “You can hang out and listen to a band for an hour and a half, where the other training rides are much longer distances, so your rest time is a lot shorter. For this one, we want you to get on your bike, ride 10 miles, get off your bike for an hour, ride another 10 miles, get off your bike for an hour and a half, and so on in that pattern.”

Less than a month away from this year’s RAGBRAI, Big Rove not only provided training for bikers tackling the weeklong ride, it introduced group rides to those still relatively new to cycling. Events such as Big Rove and RAGBRAI promote the enjoyment of biking and also have a great economic benefit. Mark Wyatt, the executive director of the Iowa Bicycle Coalition, said group rides can drastically affect an area through increased tourism.

“Our Pigtails Ride, which is our women’s ride, had 855 participants and about $128,000 in tourism spending,” Wyatt said. “Our BACooN Ride, which just happened two weeks ago, had 2,600 participants. The tourism spending, and this is from tourists who are not from the particular area where the ride is held, was around $428,000.”

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In addition to the economic boost, the influence of large rides such as Big Rove have encouraged people to bike more regularly. A small number of bikers in each event experience an organized ride for the first time, Wyatt said.

“In our other events, about 12 percent of the participants are in their first organized bicycle ride,” he said. “I think once people start bicycling, they learn that it’s fun, and they enjoy it. It’s our hope that they stick with it and continue to bike for all kinds of reasons.”

Big Rove was the first large group-ride to take advantage of a newly opened trail connecting Iowa City and North Liberty, crossing the Iowa River on the Mehaffey Bridge. Iowa City has make great strides to strengthen its biking community with recent installations of bike lanes and trails. President of Think Bicycles Johnson County Elizabeth Hubing said Big Rove has helped to promote the new additions.

“Hosting things like this really help showcase the work that we’ve done, including building more bike lanes and trails,” Hubing said. “We’ve seen more and more trails connecting cities in our communities.”

Iowa City continually works to provide more resources for bikers. With more trails opening in the near future, she said, she hopes biking will become the mainstream thing to do in Iowa City.

“I want bicycle culture in Iowa City to be the top of the top,” Hubing said. “When people think of cycling, they often think of places like Portland or Minneapolis, where it seems like more people ride bikes than drive cars. I kind of want to get to that point, where biking becomes one of the primary forms of transportation, even throughout the year.”