Posted On: January 30, 2008, 2:36 pm CST

Posted By: Iowan

The Register's Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa, is an annual seven-day bicycle ride across the state. Heading into its 36th year, RAGBRAI is the longest, largest and oldest touring bicycle ride in the world. RAGBRAI is sponsored by The Des Moines Register newspaper. It is NOT a race. There is medical support as well as traffic control on busier intersections by law enforcement between 6am & 6pm each day. The riders begin somewhere in western Iowa & end in eastern Iowa traveling from west to east to alleviate headwinds as well as riding in the setting sun when they are tired. The RAGBRAI officials have limited the number of bikers to 8,500 plus all of their support vehicles. This is because in 1988 there were 23,000 riders, which were too many to be accomodated at the overnight stays. The overnight stays are in the towns mentioned in the article and over 200 towns request they be scheduled for the overnights. The towns have different events and food for the riders. The thousands of riders consist of individuals, teams, families, etc. from all over the WORLD. Lance Armstrong has ridden in the event for the past two years. The 99 counties in Iowa (all of which have had RAGBRAI go through) are only trying to alleviate future lawsuits. The course the riders take across the state of Iowa are mainly county roads & even gravel at times, so that vehicle traffic doesn't become hindered as much. It takes a long time for thousands of riders to go from one overnight stop to the next. It's the public's mindset today to have somebody else pay for a tragic accident. The "I need to sue somebody. Somebody should pay!" attitude has caused all the issues with liability to the counties! The event has seen 26 deaths of which only 3 are directly related to bicycling accidents. The ride was held for 11 years before anyone passed away and the cause of death was a heart attack. After 35 years with the first lawsuit last year, stemming from the death of rider in 2004 on the Crawford County blacktop, who was wearing a helmet, what else can you say, but WHY???