Preparations continue in Greene County along the route for when the Register’s Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa (RAGBRAI) comes through next week.

Greene County Engineer Wade Weiss says secondary road crews are continuing to do pavement and hot asphalt patching along the RAGBRAI route, as well as applying new material to the road shoulders and some brooming of the rock and sand areas. He points out it’s a concerted effort to keep everyone as safe as possible.

“Just try to make sure that Greene County is held with the least amount of liability (as possible). So we do some emphasis on those because of the amount of traffic that’s on the road. Obviously the road is not built for bicycle traffic it’s built for vehicular traffic, so there are some things that may not be the best for bicycles but ‘Bicycles Beware’ hopefully is what they (RAGBRAI officials) let them (bicyclists) know. We do as much as we can within the budget to try to get things patched.”        

Weiss is confident that the roads will be in good shape when RAGBRAI comes through the county on Tuesday. The route includes County Road E-53, to Iowa Highway 144, then south on County Road P-40 into Rippey, and then east on County Road E-57 into Boone County. The overnight stop that day is in Ames.