Scranton RAGBRAI Design. Photo courtesy of Scranton RAGBRAI Committee
Scranton RAGBRAI Design. Photo courtesy of Scranton RAGBRAI Committee

The Register’s Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa (RAGBRAI) is now one day away and even the pass-through towns are ready for several thousands of cyclists to come through.

The City of Scranton is one of the pass-through towns in Greene County on the second day of the RAGBRAI route on Monday. Planning Committee member Dawn Rudolph says they will have welcome signs for the RAGBRAI riders as they enter Scranton from Coon Rapids starting mid-morning on Monday. She points out that a variety of non-food and food and beverage vendors will be set up on Main Street between Madison and Stanton streets. There are about 16 vendors that will be present.

The route will be from Highway 25 to Madison Street, then onto Main Street. Riders will then exit south from Main Street and onto Lincoln Highway as they head toward Jefferson. Rudolph explains a lesson the local residents learned the last time RAGBRAI came through Scranton in 2008.

“We tried to have all of our vendors be local vendors. With a smaller population that’s really tough. And it was a strain on everybody because you needed workers, not only for those vendors but just for other things you needed to do, like the setup. We hope this time with a lot of outside vendors that this will ease the burden, we hope, for the locals.”

Rudolph adds that RAGBRAI officials will shutdown all RAGBRAI-related activities by 5:30pm to ensure that riders get into Jefferson around 6pm.