He’s been saying it for a while, to be sure. Notice the word COULD. He’s not claiming that he is trying to hit that number. Some of the context of that quote is missing so I’m not sure what he said he will smash. If it were the previous RAGBRAI peaks or the Italian record then 55k to 60k are sufficient to smash those numbers and I believe that he has said he wants to do that.

If he really believes 100k could show up then he needs to do exactly what he is doing: voice his opinions about what could happen. The ISP and local governments need to be forewarned. The transportation engineers at ISU need to hear it so perhaps they will volunteer their expertise. RAGBRAI has no authority to control who uses Iowa roads and when. Phippen can’t prevent 100k from showing up. That authority can only come from the police and governments and they need to hear from Phippen well in advance so that they can weigh in and impose/enforce limits if they want to do so.