Lansing RAGBRAI organizers, tire-dip event to be featured in “Shift” documentary film honoring RAGBRAI’s 50th annual ride

In honor of this year’s 50th annual Register’s Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa (RAGBRAI), a documentary film titled “Shift: The RAGBRAI Documentary” has been created by The Des Moines Register. “Shift” tells the story of RAGBRAI through photography and interviews with three riders and a pair of community leaders as they overcome grueling miles and personal hurdles to find peace, redemption and clarity in the annual ride across Iowa.

The two community leaders featured in the film are Lansing RAGBRAI leaders from this past summer, Ian Zahren and Andrew Boddicker, both of whom have been interviewed extensively for inclusion in the nearly hour-long film, in addition to a variety of footage being filmed from the Lansing tire-dip ending to this past year’s ride last July. The two helped organize and carry out a local volunteer effort last year that yielded the largest profit of any community in the history of RAGBRAI, more than $113,000 that was then distributed to area community organizations as grant funding.

The featuring of the organizing pair and the Lansing tire-dip event is also resulting in a special screening of the film to be held in Lansing Thursday evening, May 11 at TJ Hunters Banquet Hall in Lansing. That special screening event will begin at 5:30 p.m. with a Purple Carpet social event, with the film screening beginning at 7 p.m. and a Question & Answer (Q&A) session with Zahren, Boddicker and the film makers scheduled to take place after the film screening.

Tickets for the May 11 screening and all other activities of that evening can be purchased in person at Lansing Hardware or online at www.lansingiowa.com, with proceeds from the ticket sales benefiting the Main Street Lansing organization. Door prizes and a silent auction benefiting area nonprofits, schools and organizations will also take place during the event.

Additional information, a video trailer of the film and an online means to purchase tickets can be found at https://mainstreetlansing.ticketspice.com/shift-ragbrai-50th-documentary.

“Shift: The RAGBRAI Documentary” explores the people who ride, the towns that host and the space RAGBRAI offers riders to find whatever it was that enticed them to put their lives on hold and risk saddle sores in the July heat. The film follows three riders and a pair of community leaders as they reach new personal heights, changing their lives in seven days and finding themselves - literally and metaphorically - in the middle of nowhere.

In addition to the Lansing film screening event, an exclusive premier screening of the film will take place Thursday, May 4 at Varsity Cinema in Des Moines, beginning at 6:30 p.m. Film directors Courtney Crowder and Kelsey Kremer will then host a talk-back session with some of the film’s subjects. Additional showings of the film will take place at Varsity Cinema in Des Moines at 7:30 p.m. Friday, May 5 and again at 7 p.m. Saturday, May 6. Additional information about those Des Moines showings, as well as the documentary film itself, can be found at https://ragbrai.com/documentary/.