Iowa’s largest bicycle advocacy organization appears to be first major organization splitting from the suddenly vulnerable yet iconic statewide bike ride known as RAGBRAI, instead backing a new rival ride announced just this week.
The Iowa Bicycle Coalition, and its spinoff Iowa Bicycling Action Fund, has endorsed a competing ride planned next summer for the same week as RAGBRAI called Iowa’s Ride, according to a statement from coalition director Mark Wyatt.
The new rival ride was announced this week by T.J. Juskiewicz, the now-former director of the Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa. The viability of RAGBRAI was dealt a blow as he and the three other members of the ride’s marketing staff at the Register walked out in protest of a prohibition against them speak freely about the newspaper’s controversial news profile of Carson King.
The Register faced scorn from readers for reporting that turned up a pair of years-old racist tweets by the Busch Light fan turned unlikely fundraiser for the University of Iowa Stead Family Children’s Hospital. Juskiewicz said he wanted to respond freely as backlash spilled over to the bike ride staff.