This year's RAGBRAI, the Register's Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa, will spend Friday night July 30th in DeWitt, then end on Saturday in Clinton.
The Director of the Clinton Convention and Visitors Bureau, Lesley Webster, says on July 31st after going through Charlotte and Goose Lake, riders will enter Clinton on Highway 1-36, and travel to the riverfront where they can dip their tires in the Mississippi River.
"What our goal is and what we've been sharing with all of our businesses in town is what we want to do is really present the best of everything we have so that people will want to come back. They get routed through our Lyons Business District, they get routed down our riverfront which is gorgeous, and they get routed through our 5th Avenue South downtown shopping district."
She says they're expecting RAGBRAI to bring up to 20,000 people to Clinton on July 31st - about 15,000 riders, plus several thousand family, friends, and support staff.
Actually the impact on the city begins the previous weekend when many people park their cars and campers in Clinton, and then ride buses across Iowa to the starting point in LeMars. So far more than 800 passes have been sold for the special long-term parking lot.
Clinton was supposed to be the ending point for the ride last year, but it was cancelled by the pandemic.
