The teenagers in this section of Sac County were well-behaved overnight.
Not a one of the bright orange signs marking the RABRAI bike route had been stolen or turned around, arrows purposely faced the wrong way and sneakily hung back in place — a seemingly harmless prank until 15,000 riders end up in someone’s front yard.
This was a welcome blessing when Deb Ewing and Mark Reid, RAGBRAI’s official route markers, began their day at 3:30 a.m. to a predawn fog that hunglike a thick quilt, obscuring most everything outside their brights’ beams.
Over the next 14 hours, Ewing and Reid duct-taped, stapled and staked nearly 2,000 signs up and down county roads as they laid out one day of the Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa, better known as RAGBRAI. By the time the pair reach the Mississippi River on the ride’s final day, they’ll have hung about 14,000 signs, putting more than 3,000 miles on their van as they driveand doubleback along the 454-mile route.