COOPER, Iowa, June 8, 2011 –  A female bicyclist who was riding topless on the Raccoon River Valley Trail Sunday afternoon was issued a verbal warning by Greene County sheriff’s deputies who were acting on a complaint from the public.

“We received an anonymous phone call at 4:24 p.m., saying that a female rider was south of Cooper on the trail, north-bound, with no top on,” said Sheriff Tom Heater, a veteran in law enforcement in the county.  “As far as I know, that’s the first one of those we’ve had, isn’t it?”

Heater said two deputies headed for the trail in separate patrol cars.

“We caught up with her at about Winkleman Switch,” he said, mentioning the trailhead located in a rural area midway between Cooper and Jefferson.  “When she saw the first deputy, she stopped her bike, got out some kind of shirt she had with her and put it on, but it was kind of a skimpy little top.  By then the second deputy was there.  They talked to her and said there’d been a complaint.  She said, ‘Well, it’s hot!’ “

Heater said one of his men said, “Oh, come on!” and rather bluntly urged her to use more modesty.  She promised she would.

The sheriff said the woman is from West Des Moines, but “I don’t really want to name her because there were no charges filed.  It was just a warning kind of thing, and she didn’t give us any grief.” 

He said she was “not very big– our guys listed her as about 5 ft. 7 in. and 110 pounds — and not a big-breasted woman.”  He said one deputy added “that if you saw her riding topless from a distance, you might just think she was a guy out there riding without a shirt.”  The sheriff added “she must be a pretty strong rider.  She didn’t say anything about having a car up here anywhere, so if she rode all the way up from West Des Moines and was riding back, you know she’s in pretty good shape.”

When asked if the cyclist was wearing a helmet, Heater said the deputies made no mention of that in their report.