The City of Rippey was bursting at the seams when an estimated 40,000 people came through during the Register’s Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa (RAGBRAI) on Tuesday.

Mary Weaver was one of the organizers and she describes how the early morning went with one of the local vendors, the Rippey United Methodist Church.

“They had people waiting for Maid-Rites at 8:30 in the morning. They were warming them up in the microwave so they could quickly serve those people. But then they were out of food, they ran out of Maid-Rites by about 1 o’clock. Those people had 1,400 pieces of pie and they were all gone, just sold out.”     

Weaver points out the first cyclists showed up at 6:30am coming from Carroll on their way to the next overnight stop in Ames. She talks about the scene in Rippey of when most of the riders ventured into town.

“From about 10 o’clock until 2 o’clock it was (just) solid people. If you tried to walk through them, because of their bikes, it was just almost impossible. And then they were stopping and being in line for the food vendors as well. It was just mass humanity.”     

Weaver says there were about 40 vendors, five were from Greene County and one of the other highlights was the “signature rock,” which was donated by the former Hamilton Redi-Mix and it is filled with signatures from RAGBRAI riders and will be kept in town. She thanks everyone who was involved, including the Iowa State Patrol and the Iowa Department of Transportation for traffic control along the state highway near Rippey, to the vendors, and volunteers for giving RAGBRAI participants a positive experience.