The Changes

First and foremost, it was obvious the rookie registration process needed to be refined. Having folks standing at the door 15-deep at Europa Cycle and Ski waiting till we opened the doors so they could drop off multiple postcards for several riders, messed up overnight deliveries, and having people drive or ride bicycles hundreds of miles just to drop off a silly postcard was dangerous, unnecessary, and caused much confusion and upset folks. The registration would be streamlined to have folks send a card in by a predetermined date and there would be a lottery drawing from a rookie pool of cards with one entry allowed for each person. One card per person. Random drawing from a basket. Simple.

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Secondly, and not so much a change, but more of doing the unexpected, I decided to scrap the entire TIV11 course that was unused. There was maybe a thought of using some of the very end backward going out of Grinnell for TIV12, but everyone expected me to use the rest of TIV11, and I wasn’t about to do that. Besides, I never was fully stoked on that course anyway. That said, possibilities for future TransIowa routes might be there. Finally, I never really did release the final bits of the TIV2 course either, nor did I ever do that in TIV4 or TIV6, so it was consistent with the past as well.

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Another big change came when I found out that due to some personal, family-related issues, the Barn which we had used as a finish line for TransIowa several times, would not be a sure thing for TIV12. Instead of waiting on that to possibly clear up, I decided to nix the Barn, which had become an icon of the event, and end the event within Grinnell again. It hadn’t been done that way since TIV8, and I thought it was high time we got back to featuring the host city again with a finish in town. The potential finish line was pegged as Arbor Lake Park, pending approval by the powers that be in Grinnell.

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The event was announced on August 1, 2015 and with that announcement the rookie lottery was explained. There would only be one card per person, only sent by USPS, and only a certain specified size or smaller. The process was lauded by all who gave feedback on it and it was put into action on October 10 with a three-week period for rookies to send in cards.

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The Lead Up

The registration for finishers was the same as with TIV11, and started on October 17 and ran through the 24. Then the veterans had a week to send in cards from the 24 through the 31, after which all registrations were closed and completed when the rookie drawing took place on that same day, October 31. The process was marked by order and absolutely zero chaos, which was a welcome thing after TIV10 and TIV11’s craziness. There were, unfortunately, several cards from rookies that were rejected for poor penmanship, missing information, or pinged back emails. That said, there were good cards received and more than enough to hold a lottery drawing with.

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The recon of TransIowa has been honed to perfection, and Jeremy and I even had mock cues to work from. We only ran into a few minor issues, but got the entire course knocked out in a single drive. Of course, it helped that the northernmost part of the course came within ten miles of my house! That’s the closest I’ve ever run TransIowa to Waterloo. In fact, CP2 was set at a B-road which I ride often. There was a bit of change due to a bridge or two we found out, but overall, we got what we were looking for – a course that was different and got progressively harder as the event would wear on. Several weeks later I revised a couple of sections that I would have to recheck in the early spring. Final recon with Wally and George happened one week out from the event on a hot, dry, and very dusty day. More like the DK200 than TransIowa! It all went without a hitch, we had a blast, and the course was good to go. Wally confirmed my feelings as he stated the back third of the course looked really hard.

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The last two years of TransIowa saw little attrition to the roster. In fact, for TIV10 and TIV11, the roster did not start shrinking until March, which was odd. I thought after TIV11 it might be the new normal, but this year things were more ordinary as drops started happening in January. By April 1, we were down to 105 starters, so no new record for field size would be set this time. This lowered dramatically, and by April 11 we were down to 92 starters and one volunteer exemption. By the 20th, it had dropped down to 88 riders. The rookie field was down to 20 starters by this time. It looked as though we would have the lowest number of starters since increasing the field limit to 120 for TIV9. The lowest since TIV8 which had 67 take the start out of a possible 100. The Grinnell Steakhouse did not require the usual meal survey, so I just sent out a general email in March. I liked that much better than doing all the tracking down of riders that had not answered the survey.

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Two weeks from the event, there were a few key folks that stepped up to offer assistance. Matt Gersib, who was tabbed as the ride-along partner for me during the event, offered to drive me in his Subaru. Then Tony McGrane, who was going to be an on-course volunteer, offered to drive all the stuff down to Grinnell in his covered pickup truck, warding off any possible damage from the elements. Finally, a coworker at Europa Cycle and Ski, Andy Tetmeyer, offered a family RV to stay in which Bikes to You owner, Craig Cooper, said we could park behind the bike shop the night before the event. In a surprise to me, out of left field, TransIowa multiple-finisher, Mike Johnson, offered to do all the printing for cue sheets, which he did. All I had to do was show up for a cue sheet bagging party with Mike, Jeremy, and Dave the Wednesday before the event. Awesome help and much appreciated! Roster drop outs continued right up to the very end. We had two no-shows, so a total of 83 ended up taking the start of TIV12.

 

Once again, WTB stepped up big time with sponsorship, which included a set of tires for every finisher, and they even sent out Will Ritchie with two sets of tires that were unavailable to anyone else at the time, the brand new Riddler gravel tires. An anonymous sponsor pitched in for hats for the volunteers, stickers, and a new banner for TIV12. We also were going to get t-shirts for the volunteers from one of the volunteers themselves, Dave Roll. Amazing! Further prizing was provided from another TransIowa vet, Joe Stiller, who runs a company mostly concerned with bike packing called BarYak. He sent along two prototype cue sheet holders to be raffled off to riders at the pre-race Meat-Up. Mike Johnson 3D printed up a bunch of TIV12 trinkets in the shape of the state of Iowa as bag stuffers. We had some leftover bar tape to give away from TIV11 that was donated by Pedal of Littleton. Dave Roll came up with those shirts printed with my image on them which caused quite a stir. These were given out to volunteers. Finally, I gave away several t-shirts to clear out my basement from the leftovers of TIV10 and TIV11.

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The Event

The event ended up being one of the years when the weather, roads, and talent at the event added up to a lot of finishers. There was a record number of finishers with 47 out of the 83 starting. The weather was warm, sunny, and there was a helping tailwind for the first 160 miles which propelled many on to the fastest times in TransIowa history. In fact, the 24-hour barrier was threatened with Greg Gleason and Walter Zitz sharing the win at 24hrs 1 min. Only a botched final turn kept them from probably coming in at under 24 hours!

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"TransIowa is definitely all about the journey, because the reward at the end is sleep deprivation, soreness, and deep hunger. And maybe some sort of brain damage that makes you want to do it again every year." - Dennis Grelk, TIV7 winner

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We had a father/son pairing, Travis Brunner (first place single speed/fixed) and Allen Brunner, finish. We had three women’s open finishers, and would have had four if Crystal Wintle would've come in before the time cutoff Sunday, but she, along with Jon Vandis and Scott McConnell, finished after 2 p.m. The finish line at Arbor Lake Park worked out well. The event didn’t attract any undue attention there, and people were coming and going without issues.

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“Awful at times with moments of blinding, life affirming magic.” - Matt Wills on what TransIowa is to him

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THE AFTERMATH

It was the longest finished TransIowa at just over 340 miles due to the reroute of a bridge before CP2, which I found was out just before the event on Friday. We had the most finishers ever and it was the fastest completed TransIowa ever at 24hrs 1min.The aftermath of TransIowa was kind of bewildering and depressing this time. The event, which set a record for the most finishers ever with 47, was the highest of highs and had several emotionally charged moments. I suppose it was to be expected that I would have a downtime post TIV12, but it was particularly hard after that one. Of course, the event was deemed a massive success, and with the tweaks to how it was run, mainly involving giving more volunteers more duties, it was perhaps the easiest TransIowa on me that I have ever done. The registration lottery was a huge success, and besides some piddly complaints from a local volunteer fire department, there really were no negatives to TIV12 to speak of.

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​“… still reeling from what happened that day...it was the most epic 50 miles of my life…felt like I rode 100 when we got done…thanks for everything you do." - Andrew Christman

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A TIV13 kind of grew on me. It wasn’t an automatic thing right away. I decided that, ultimately, the number thirteen didn’t have to be feared, and by doing a TIV13, it would be a way to show that to everyone. Finally, a circumnavigation of Des Moines had always been on my mind since TIV8, and this was a good as chance as any to pull that off.