The 52nd RAGBRAI ride continues Wednesday as bikers make their way from Forest City to Iowa Falls. The route covers roughly 70 miles.
This is the fifth time Iowa Falls has served as an overnight host. The last time the city hosted was in 2021 and also served as an overnight stay in 1978, 1995 and 2004. Ali Campbell is co-chair of the RAGBRAI Committee in Iowa Falls and tells RadioOnTheGo News the city is expecting thousands of riders as they make their way to the Scenic City.
“You know, 2021 was coming on the tail end of COVID. RAGBRAI since then has grown each year, hearing from other towns already, the numbers are up. We have way more vendors this year than we did in 2021. So we’re just anticipating a bigger crowd than we did four years ago, which is great. It’s fun to see people experience our downtown. It’s fun to see them experience the river and all the great beauty that Iowa Falls offers. We’re one of the smallest communities that is capable of being able to do an overnight stop. That is exciting to riders. They want to experience the small-town Iowa feel. So while that’s daunting, our community steps up and it’s pretty exciting to watch.”
This year’s RAGBRAI theme is “Haulin’ Ash to Iowa Falls.”
“We really wanted to play off of all of our ash tree sculptures that we have in Iowa Falls. We kind of took that lemonade out of lemons with all the dead ash trees and we have, you know, over 35, 40 sculptures. We hope riders take a minute to kind of look at that and find them all over. They will be passing the sculptor on route, actually making a sculpture right by the Boat Club in Iowa Falls. So that’ll be kind of neat. It’s just something different, interesting to riders and interesting and intriguing for our community to celebrate.”
For more information on Wednesday’s overnight stop, you can visit the Facebook page RAGBRAI Iowa Falls.
Photo courtesy of Iowa Falls RAGBRAI Committee member Ali Campbell.
