Update: July 27, 2011 — Lance Armstrong returns to Iowa for bike ride at RAGBRAI
Lance Armstrong joined the 10,000 bicyclists rolling toward Ames on Tuesday in the third day of 2008 RAGBRAI.
It's the 7-time Tour de France winner's third visit to RAGBRAI. He joined up somewhere west of Boone and stopped there for awhile before heading to Ames, reported the Des Moines Register.
His appearance isn't causing the stir as in previous years, when some warned the week-long bike tour across Iowa was in danger of being renamed LAGBRAI. He will be joined by some 200 riders on Team Livestrong at RAGBRAI this year.
Hei'll be introduced at a flood relief concert that's scheduled in the Iowa State Center parking lot from 7 p.m. 'til midnight in Ames. The state suffered debilitating floods earlier this spring. The concert features Styx and The Nadas.
In 2006, above, his first year as a civilian cyclist, Armstrong showed up to ride a couple of RAGBRAI stages to drum up support for public funding of cancer research.
He spoke at a huge gathering in Newton. Newspaper reports at the time said that a rolling cheer could be heard from the participants as Armstrong and his Livestrong entourage swept along the route past the slower riders.
Armstrong returned in 2007. Then-presidential candidate John Edwards, whose wife Elizabeth is battling breast cancer, rode for a day with Armstrong.
As Iowa was an early caucus state in the Democratic and Republican presidential primaries, Armstrong wanted to get the attention of presidential candidates on the need to increase funding for cancer research. A concert/speech one night in Cedar Falls drew 9,000 spectators.
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