Welcome to Fairfield!

What a picture-perfect day for a bike ride!

Certainly that must be what was going through the minds of 10,000 cyclists and their support crew as they disembarked from Centerville this morning on their way to Fairfield.

The forecast could not have been better for today's 65.9-mile journey that will take the riders through West Grove, Bloomfield, Troy, Leando, Douds and Libertyville. No rain is expected, and the late July heat that so often characterizes this annual event is taking a vacation. Highs in the mid-80s are expected today and Friday when the cyclists will leave town for Bloomfield before finishing the ride Saturday in Keokuk.

Fairfield's Central Park has been abuzz since Wednesday night when preparations began in earnest. Barricades were set up around the downtown, as city staff hauled portable toilets into place. This morning, volunteers were busy setting up the beverage garden and the Cambridge Main Stage, as well as putting the finishing touches on the Central Park decorations accenting Fairfield's steampunk/glo party theme.

Michaela Mattingly was one of the Cambridge Investment Research employees volunteering this morning. The company pays its employees who wish to volunteer, and many take it up on the offer. Mattingly said she'd been on the square since 7:45 a.m., helping to decorate the square with streamers.

'We're just trying to make the square look a little more festive by tying them around poles, trying to liven it up a little bit,” she said.

Mattingly is from Ottumwa, and when RAGBRAI came through in 2016, she had no idea it was a public event. She assumed the festivities were just for the cyclists.

'Now I understand that this is a fun event for the entire community,” she said.

John Dillon is an intern with Cambridge, and said this is not his first time volunteering for RAGBRAI. The riders made an overnight stop in Washington in 2016, when Dillon helped the United Presbyterian Church serve meals.

'Today I'm helping to set up the square and coordinate the 24 interns working at five locations today: the square, Chautauqua Park, Jefferson County Fairgrounds, the high school and the middle school,” Dillon said.

In the afternoon, the interns will switch their focus from decorating to helping at the beverage garden.

Denise Hall is the chairwoman in charge of signage. Her committee has made about 60 signs indicating the location of shuttles, campgrounds, and everything else the riders would care to know.

'I've been painting signs about four nights a week for the past three or four weeks,” Hall said.

The Ledger asked Hall if she has always been so enthusiastic about RAGBRAI, and she said no. In fact, she left town the last time RAGBRAI came in 2013. What turned her into a volunteer six years later?

'I'm on the chamber board here in town, and the chamber director [Darien Sloat] strongly encouraged us all to be involved,” Hall said. 'Against my better judgment, I jumped right in! No, I've had a lot of fun. I've met a lot of new people.”

Hall has all the supplies in her car to make new signs at a moment's notice. Apart from that, she's an 'at large” volunteer, meaning she's a jack-of-all-trades, going wherever she's needed.

How many hours are volunteers putting in today?

'I started this morning at 6 a.m. because I had to go down Libertyville Road to make sure all my signs were still up,” Hall said.

Hall lives near Packwood, so she's not planning to make a trip home during the day, which she'll spend volunteering. And then she'll return to the square at 7 a.m. Friday to tear down.

Kelly Lynch is another Cambridge intern spending her day helping out with the preparations. Lynch is from Bloomfield, one of the pass-through towns, and got a text from her brother earlier this morning that he was driving his tractor on the road and got stuck behind the cyclists.

Tammy Dunbar is one of the executive chairpersons for Fairfield RAGBRAI 2019, in charge of publicity, hospitality, web and social media, information center and volunteers.

'It's all starting to come together,” she said. 'It's hard to believe it's finally here.”

The Ron Prill Bandstand in Central Park has been temporarily renamed the 'Cambridge Castle,” a place for Cambridge employees to hang out during the celebration. As part of that castle theme, Fairfield RAGBRAI 2019 chose a king and queen of steampunk: Fairfield residents Norbert and Marie Hammes. Norbert died on July 3 at age 106. He and wife Marie, who will turn 100 this year, were honored earlier this year as the longest married couple in the state of Iowa at more than 78 years.

Norbert and Marie got into Fairfield RAGBRAI's theme by posing for a photograph in which they wore steampunk attire such as goggles, top hats, vests and biker gloves.