Hiawatha and Coralville Looking for Help with RAGBRAI a Month Away

RAGBRAI, the huge bicycle caravan across Iowa begins a month from Friday and both Hiawatha and Coralville are in need of varying types of assistance from the public.

The Register's Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa (RAGBRAI) pedals off July 19th in Sioux City and riders will be rolling into Hiawatha throughout the day on Thursday, July 23rd. As the influx of 15,000+ riders and support personnel nears, Hiawatha is looking for families to host some of the riders in their homes. The form to act as hosts is here. There's also a variety of opportunities to act as a volunteer when the riders are in town. More information on volunteering is available here. There's also an informational meeting being held tonight at 6 in the Hiawatha Community Center.

Coralville, meanwhile, is more than halfway toward their goal of host homes, but still need about 300 volunteers. Full details on the ride's stop in Coralville are available here.

The week of RAGBRAI always seems to be a windy, hot one. Here's hoping for the riders on the 43rd installment that it's neither. However, I'm betting they'd take either of those over a wet July 19th thru 25th.