Tom Teesdale Died Right in Front of Me on RAGBRAI

With ambulances and a paramedic on a motorcycle heading our way, I was furious at the riders on the left side of the road who wouldn't move over.

"What if that was their loved one?" I asked indignantly. The bicyclist behind me agreed.

It never occurred to me it was someone I knew, or rather, someone I knew of, Tom Teesdale, 62, of West Branch. 

I asked a deputy sheriff walking by us if it was serious.

Soberly, he said, "It's not very good."

They worked on Mr. Teesdale a long time before they even thought of moving him to a gurney. Then it was an even longer time before the ambulance left.

At the very beginning they let riders pressuring forward on the left pass by. I just stood there, waiting, with many others, not wanting to get in the way. Then they stopped RAGBRAI altogether.

I knew then that the bicyclist must have died. The only other time they stopped RAGBRAI, a man got his bike wheel caught in a big crack in the middle of the road and died. People were completely silent then because they saw it happen, and two other bicyclists were injured, at least one seriously.

In this case, Teesdale was way down in a deep ditch and no one was really sure what was going on or how serious it was.

He was a master craftsman with an international reputation for building custom-made bikes. Was that his son, crying beside the road?

Tom Teesdale will be sorely missed, not only by his family, but by his community and the bicycle community at large.