As the Register’s Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa (RAGBRAI) inches ever closer, the City of Jefferson is ready to play another role five years later.

Jefferson was an overnight town in 2018 for RAGBRAI and on Tuesday, the city will be a pass through on Day Three of the route when an estimated 30,000 bicyclists travel from Carroll to Ames. Jefferson Matters Executive Director Matt Wetrich believes this is a good “get” for Jefferson to be a pass through town on the 50th Anniversary of RAGBRAI.

“They only asked communities they’ve had great success with in the past and have had happy results. So again it was an honor for us to be asked to be a part of that. We were tickled and jumped at the opportunity.” 

Wetrich points out this Monday morning, the downtown streets will be closed to traffic except for East Lincoln Way, which will be closed Monday evening. Then on Tuesday around 8am, all of the side streets will be closed along Lincoln Way from Grimmell Road to Cedar Street until 1:30-2pm. Wetrich explains starting around 9am, bicyclists that equate to the population of Jefferson, just under 5,000, will be coming through Jefferson every hour until 1:30pm. Wetrich adds there will be about ten vendors stationed around the square, along with other downtown restaurants and food options to serve bicyclists. He says a brew station will be in front of Greater Life and free sweet corn will be served by the Iowa Corn trailer. 

“I think mid-morning, that’ll be craziness downtown. We have to shut down all of our vendors and our brew station at 1:30pm. That was an agreement we had when we first signed our RAGBRAI contract. That way it encourages the riders to keep moving out of here and head towards Rippey. (Iowa) State Troopers will be in town and they will be very aggressively shooing people out. And that’s just for their own safety, they wanted to be in Ames at six that night, so they got to keep that pace up.”      

Wetrich appreciates everyone’s effort, including the Greene County Secondary Roads and the Sheriff’s Office, to the Jefferson Public Works and Police Departments, and the volunteers.