With the full route for the Register’s Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa (RAGBRAI) through Greene County recently announced, several communities are planning what they will do when thousands of cyclists come through.

With the overnight stop in Jefferson planned for Monday, July 23rd, cyclists will be going through Scranton on the 71.7-mile, second day. Scranton Mayor Cole Gustoff describes what having RAGBRAI coming through the community could mean for them.

“Oh I think it’s a great thing. Scranton has recently done new improvements since the last time that RAGBRAI came through back in 2008. So it’s a good opportunity for them to come through and see some of the new improvements that Scranton has done.”

Grand Junction Mayor Brock Lyons describes his initial reaction when he found out that Grand Junction was part of the official RAGBRAI route for day three.

“We had a lot of people in the community that were pretty excited about it, with a lot of sets of people coming through town. They get to come right on the edge of town and hopefully they’ll see some improvements from 2008 till now. But they don’t get a whole lot of exposure to the town. They come right on the edge of town. Yeah, we’re excited for a lot of people to see what Grand Junction is.”

The other community on the route in Greene County is Dana, before cyclists head over to Boone County on the third leg of the race.