Whit and Sarah Oyler.

A Colorado couple, sunburned after days of cycling half-way across Iowa, got married Wednesday afternoon during the Register’s Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa.

Whit and Sarah Oyler, of Denver, tied the knot on the City Beach stage in Clear Lake. The couple had been on RAGBRAI together when Clear Lake was a pass-through community in 2014.

“We got engaged last October and the more we thought about wedding planning, we realized we didn’t want a big, expensive, crazy wedding,” Sarah says. “That doesn’t fit us. What fits us is something simple like RAGBRAI. He came up with the idea and it probably took me five minutes to process and then I said, ‘Okay, let’s do it!'”

Sarah says she contacted RAGBRAI executive director T.J. Juskiewicz about the wedding idea, who in turn contacted Clear Lake officials who helped set up the ceremony. Whit says they made everything incredibly simple for the couple.

“They couldn’t have made it any easier, the flowers, they were amazing,” he says. “They didn’t even talk to us about it, they just had them ready. They asked what her favorite color was, periwinkle, they just had them ready. Oh, my God!” The newlyweds say they appreciated their fellow bike riders and the folks in Clear Lake for helping them celebrate their wedding day.

“I honestly couldn’t be any happier with how easy this process was, how helpful everyone’s been, how nice everyone’s been in this town,” Whit says. “We’ve only been here for an hour, maybe two hours, and everyone’s been incredibly nice.” “All the riders today, it’s been a wonderful experience,” Sarah adds. “Congratulations from everybody, it’s really been great.”

The couple met six years ago while they were going to school at Oklahoma State University.

(By Bob Fisher, KRIB, Mason City)