Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid.

[Grog]

When I did big rides organized by Velo-Quebec, they would always go on the road before the bikes and be very generous with orange paint. There are LOTS of potholes and cracks and the like and they were nearly all indicated pretty neatly. They had a good technique to put warning signals ahead of time if we were to be going fast on a dowhnill, etc.

I'm not saying that RAGBRAI is not doing its job. I'm nearly sure that they do have lots of orange paint on the road, too. But maybe this should be emphasized next year... Dunno.

[pinkychique]

I have to wonder about how much responsibility should be placed on the county for poor road conditions. There are several roads that I frequent here that have VERY bad shoulders, and many riders just ride with the cars going by them at least 55 mph or more. I'm not sure whether they are city, county, state roads, but still.

I don't think it's right to just go after everyone you can in the sad event of someone's death . It happens. Blaming everyone else won't bring someone back right?

[smilingcat]

I'm not a lawyer but... so I go to this county in Iowa, form a cycling club at a local bike shop. We get together and go for a "group ride". You get the idea. Well how is the ban going to apply? or a family reunion "group ride"

And about this person getting killed on RAGBRAI ride, was he riding safely? I've been on some rides where people act pretty stupidly, like they should have won the Darwin Award hands down.

Like one of the previous posters, I'm sure they will work things out. WITHOUT banning directly. They may do so overtly with unreasonably high event fee...

Yup guacomole ride is NO-MORE!

sad (accidents do happen but you shouldn't be profitting from it). I could of sued the city of Lake Forest when I crashed but I didn't. I'm sure they would have paid out dearly. but I didn't sue. They didn't go out of their way to cause an injury. IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT AND I WAS JUST UNLUCKY THAT DAY!! Why ruin it all?

smilingcat

[Geonz]

Unfortunately in ILlinois we had a related incident some years back that we're still reaping hte "benefits" of. A rider was injured because of road conditions and lost because the rider was not "an expected user of the road," so they shouldn't have had to think about safety for cyclists; it wasn't as if, the majority ruled, the road had been marked for cyclists or anything!
This created an instant and huge disincentive for ever doing *anything* to a road so that a rider could say "I'm expected here." http://chicagobikelaw.blogspot.com/search?q=boub has the details including a link to a list of known times when the case meant planners & government folks decided not to do things that might be confused as admitting bicyclists used roads.

Fortunately I *do* think the tide is shifting (I'm certainly shouldering up to it and trying to help). I'm hoping that bicycling will start to be something that even people who can afford cars do for good and valid reasons.

[singletrackmind]

The amount of money RAGBRAI drags along will be hard to ignore. Even those of us on a budget spent lots for food, supplies and entertainment. Here's to hoping it's still up and running when my son's finally old enough to take the tour.

Am I the only one to think it ironic the money the county was made to pay might make it more difficult to fund the fixing of the road?

[Geonz]

Welp, if RAGBRAI disbanded because "well, somebody might sue," and people did it anyway... that would definitely be the biggest Critical Mass ride ever!

[Tuckervill]

There's a guy in Arkansas who wants to get a ride across Arkansas going. He gave up because the "state police wouldn't sanction it".

I thought that was a ridiculous reason....that he could do it just like the guys who started RAGBRAI did--by just getting on their bikes and riding. Everyone could have their own sag--there wouldn't be many people that first time if he didn't advertise. It would make its own mass as time went on. Just like RAGBRAI.

Karen