RAGBRAI moves on, with little left behind

By Kate Hayden, khayden@charlescitypress.com

The day after an estimated 15,000 RAGBRAI bicyclists descended on the town, organizers said they could barely tell anything had happened on Wednesday night.

“This morning I was driving around town as the bikes were leaving … areas were already cleaned up and looking great. I think the RAGBRAI committee should be commended for the job that they did,” City Administrator Steve Diers, an advisory committee member, said.

Community members credited a tightly organized executive committee and the streams of volunteers who helped welcome RAGBRAI 2017 to overnight in Charles City.

“We didn’t have any major problems at all,” Fire Chief Eric Whipple, an executive committee member, said. “I think Charles City really stepped up to the plate with RAGBRAI. I heard a lot of compliments from riders that Charles City did an excellent job this year.”

Although the threat of severe storms hung over the evening — riders themselves were soaked on the ride over from Clear Lake — emergency services stayed in contact with the National Weather Service-La Crosse department, and the worst storms ultimately avoided Charles City and it’s guests.

“The main threat was some heavy rain and possibly lightening … We got a little bit of rain but nothing to really dampen the spirits of the organizers or participants,” Whipple said.

Outside police departments, the Floyd County Sheriff’s Office and the Iowa State Patrol helped the Charles City Police Department patrol the day’s events, Whipple said.

Diers said he had heard some complaints from riders that some bars had not opened, but said those decisions were made by the private business owners.

“The city, we didn’t have any association with any of those things. We would like to see everybody open and having a good day,” Diers said.

The experience was very new to Heidi Pavlovich, who was serving for the first time on a RAGBRAI executive board — and who had not fully experienced RAGBRAI in previous years, she said.

“This was my first true time, seeing it all to scale with the bikers. It was really, really fun being part of it,” Pavlovich said.

Cash spent at the beverage garden in Central Park had not yet been fully tallied by Thursday afternoon, but Pavlovich said the executive committee intends to find a way to give back to the community with any profits made from the experience.

“We had several compliments on how organized Charles City was and ready to go, which I think is a huge bravo from the executive committee’s standpoint. The flow is good, we know what’s going on, we tried to be as organized as possible,” Pavlovich said. “I’m very honored to get to work with this great group of people.”