MUSCATINE, Iowa — The Register's Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa (RAGBRAI) brought almost 20,000 bicyclists to Muscatine at the end of July with organizers and businesses seeing a variety of revenue from the event.
Janet Morrow, the RAGBRAI Muscatine project lead, said many downtown businesses experienced increased revenue on both July 22, when many cyclists came to Muscatine to stay and drop off vehicles before continuing to the starting point, and on July 30, the day the race ended in Muscatine.
The Muskie Booster Club raised more than $30,000 by parking 950 cars and selling 660 showers, as well as providing concessions.
Contrary Brewing, according to the Greater Muscatine Chamber of Commerce and Industry, had their best day of sales since they opened on Saturday, July 30, and the second best day on Friday, July 22.
Morrow said a large number of cyclists remained in Muscatine after arriving, which she said is unusual for an end town.
"We had such great weather and our riverfront is so gorgeous that for the end day for people to sit around at the dip site and just enjoy the scenery is somewhat unusual for RAGBRAI," she said.
The event was important to Muscatine for more than benefiting downtown businesses, Morrow said.
"There are many reasons that the event was important, more than just benefiting the businesses but bringing in all these people from across the nation, and international cyclists as well. It brought a whole different group of people to our community to see it...that otherwise would not have come here," she said.
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