The Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa, RAGBRAI, begins Monday as bikers will make their way from Orange City to Guttenberg during the week-long event.
This year’s ride will go through several area towns including Meservey, Alexander, Latimer and Coulter before making their way to Iowa Falls during day four of the ride. Bikers will trek nearly 70 miles from Forest City to the Scenic City Wednesday.
Latimer will serve as the meeting town Wednesday during the ride. The RAGBRAI website says a meeting town is a town usually mid-way through the route with local vendors, opportunities to meet support drivers and more amenities to explore around lunch times. Melissa Simmons, co-chair of the RAGBRAI Committee for Latimer, tells RadioOnTheGo News the city is expecting roughly 30 vendors to be on site.
“Our busy time can vary depending on the day, the weather. If there’s a wind behind them, they (RAGBRAI riders) may be early. Depending on how fast they ride, they were expecting to have them in town probably between 10 and 2 is kind of our busiest time is what they’re telling us. We are hoping to have our vendors all set up and ready to be serving by 9 a.m. and then the state troopers will come through about 3 o’clock and kind of do a soft close down is what RAGBRAI is calling it, but our shutdown time for the day, we’re saying, is three o’clock in the afternoon.”
There are several Facebook pages set up for the latest information on pass through towns and the meeting town each day of the ride. Some of those pages for day four include Alexander-RAGBRAI, RAGBRAI-Latimer and Coulter RAGBRAI.
Photo courtesy of Melissa Simmons, Latimer RAGBRAI Committee co-chair
