John Karras, a former Des Moines Register features writer and co-founder of RAGBRAI, the annual bicycle event that sees 15,000 people ride across Iowa, died on Wednesday surrounded byloved ones.
Karras suffered a hard fall and a minor stroke in recent months and died from complications of that trauma, a family friend confirmed.He was 91.
Way before Karras and fellow Register columnist Donald Kaul nurtured the idea for RAGBRAI, the pair were just a couple of middle-agedcycling enthusiasts with a love of rural landscapes.
“You drive around Iowa, and it doesn’t —it’s not very impressive in a car,” Karras previously told the Register. “And one of the things that Don and I found bicycling: When you bicycle through Iowa, it was stunning. Incredible.”
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