THE CHANGES

After TIV1, we decided that we were going to make some definite changes to the event. First, we were going to need some volunteers. Jeff decided it would make more sense for him to help run the event rather than be in it. I decided something would have to be done about the finish line and the end of the event. More eyes were needed that weren’t so tired!

It was almost universally agreed upon that something needed to be tweaked to keep it from becoming a road race on gravel. It was painfully obvious that cyclocross bikes were the rig of domination at TIV1. That was okay, but racing tactics like drafting, teams, and support needed to be addressed.

The finish line deal, which miraculously turned out okay, was a point of contention between the Decorah Time Trials folks and us. In essence, DTT director, Rich Gosen, was not pleased by how negligent we were in our accounting of the racers and was pretty upset his folks were part of our nonsense. Suggestions were made, but in our view it became clear that we needed to separate the two events from each other. Instead of a mutual finish line, or (as we had hoped for awhile) using part of the Time Trial course in TransIowa, it ended up we were simply holding the event on the same weekend and we hoped to share awards ceremonies .

Instead, we decided to have course observers in place near the end of the event to tally riders as they passed by. This was done in deference to Rich, who insisted we needed to be more accountable with regard to folks out on the course. In doing this, we hoped to have a better handle of who was up the road at least 3-5 hours before they might finish. Another idea implemented due to Rich’s influence was the DNF line, which was essentially my cellphone number. We insisted folks report in as they dropped out, so we could have a better handle on who was out on the course and who wasn't. Jeff’s folks were in again for the Algona checkpoint. They would tally the riders leaving and dropping in Algona. There were some changes in store for that as well.

In TIV1, we allowed support crews to attend to the riders. This was done in a variety of ways, but some teams had folks running to get food for folks, mechanic work on bikes was performed by non-event participants, and clothing changes with massages were happening. Some particular folks later vehemently denied such things were going on. Either way, we decided based upon the eye witness accounts and later racer reports filed on the web to make the self-supported part of TransIowa more strictly self-supported. In a first of many borrowed ideas from Dirty Kanza 200, we decided to use drop bags as the only form of support allowed for TIV2. They would be available at the halfway point in Algona.

Another change, influenced by Mike Curiak, was to add more Level B Maintenance roads. The B-roads in TIV1 were there totally by accident (with the exception of the bridle path through Pilot Knob State Park). That wasn’t a thought going in, and Jeff and I only discovered what they could mean to TransIowa after the running of the first event was accomplished. Mike insisted it would be a great idea for the fledgling event as well. The pathway through Pilot Knob was not handled well in the first TransIowa, so we had a better plan for marking the entrance and exit to that for TIV2. Of course, the route was totally different with only Algona, the road to Pilot Knob, the horse path through it, and Decorah being the only things held over from the first TransIowa.

The time cutoffs imposed at the start of TIV1 were not very well received and racer comments influenced us to announce these well ahead of time. The start time was changed, another suggestion by Mike Curiak, to 4 a.m. That allowed us to increase the mileage to approximately 340 miles. Otherwise, only minor tweaks were made beyond what I mentioned above.

Jeff and I were conscious of a greater demand for event participation, so prior to registration we announced the field limit would be increased to 70. Of course, this increased our insurance costs as well. We had online registration again and the fee was set at $40, which barely covered the costs of insuring the event. Everything else was out of Jeff and my pockets.

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THE LEAD UP

To say that this year’s event was going to be affected by the weather was just a mild understatement! It was dominated by the weather. To understand exactly what happened, we need to examine the situation from earlier in the month. When April started, we were getting several storms with heavier amounts of rain dropped over southern Minnesota and northern Iowa. This ended up causing widespread flooding across the state of Iowa. The week to ten-day period prior to TransIowa looked promising for the event because we enjoyed summer-like temperatures and dry days. This served to get the surface dry, but the water tables had not had time to drain down properly. At least they were not ready for what happened this weekend.

 

A high pressure system parked itself above the eastern U.S. and blocked the passage of weather systems for a few days. It coincided with TransIowa weekend, which turned out to be all of our undoings. The annual running of TransIowa on the weekend of April 29-30 was marked by rain, mud, and gritty performances by several of the racers. The event, which started in the early morning hours in Hawarden, Iowa, began with a slight drizzle coming down and high hopes for the riders to reach the finish town of Decorah, Iowa. There was, however, a wrench in the works that became the undoing of everyone’s best laid plans – a soaking rain that started a day and a half before the event start. The skies opened up over the course on Thursday night. The rain continued unabated throughout the weekend from there. By the time the race started, the ground, which still hadn’t fully recovered from the rains earlier in the month, were totally saturated with water. Rain was forming in pools, rivulets, and lakes all over northern Iowa.

This had a very negative effect on the B-roads especially. The B-roads are, in reality, just dirt. There is often no drainage system in place and in a couple of instances, no ditches to gather rain water. Iowa dirt forms some of the stickiest, thickest, pastiest stuff I’ve ever seen. It gets stuck onto any metal or rubber surfaces and holds on for dear life! This made these sections of the course that I had intended to be hindrances to the speedier bikes into unrideable quagmires. In fact, you couldn’t even walk them! The mud would literally suck the shoes off your feet!

Not only was this a race killer, but the gravel itself was so engorged with water, that it became much like riding on a beach. The rolling resistance was unreal. Western Iowa has the distinction of having a high amount of glacial till type gravel. High in granite and quartz content, it’s ground up consistency being most like sand. In the eastern part of the state, we have mostly limestone gravel roads, which are more like concrete when wet. In fact, in many cases our gravel gets faster when it has been rained on! Unfortunately, the riders got nowhere near the eastern part of the state!

Once again, the Pizza Ranch in Hawarden made out like bandits - as well they should have - by hosting our humble little pre-race meeting. I was glad to see the racers and their supporters took advantage of the food on offer and spent their hard earned dollars there. The folks that live and work in Hawarden are some very fine people and they deserved our support for hosting this event’s start. I heard similar goodwill stories from the folks staying at the various host family houses and from the folks down at the new Super 8 motel. Makes me feel proud to be an Iowan, it does! (sniff!) Ah - I digress! Anyway, a special thanks to David Nice from Colorado for lending us a hand in getting the drop bags readied before the meeting. After everyone ate, we had a quick Q & A session, and then called everyone up for the bags. We were a bit surprised by the 19 no-shows! I knew the weather would be a deterrent to people showing up, but I didn’t think that many would drop out! After the end of the meeting, everyone scurried off to their beds for whatever shut eye they could muster before the early morning start.

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THE EVENT

The riders were required to cover a course that measured 340 miles and do it in 35 hours or less. A halfway checkpoint was established in Algona, Iowa at the 154-mile mark, where riders could access the drop bags sent ahead from the start. The rest of the course was unsupported, and the riders were self-navigating by cue sheets prepared by the race organizers. The route itself was unknown to the riders until the pre-race meeting the night before the event.

 

Jeff and I tossed and turned all night with the jitters. It wasn't helped out by the fact that our host home had the World’s Loudest Toilet in the bathroom downstairs where we slept. That thing sounded like it was powered by a jet engine! Anyway, we popped out of the sack at 2:30 a.m., got our clothes on, and bolted for the nearest convenience store so Jeff could procure his requisite black goodness fix before our 3 a.m. arrival at the West Sioux High School parking lot. I haven’t been so wide awake in a high school parking lot at that time of the morning since...well...another story for another time! At any rate, Jeff and I were ready to go. The racers started showing up shortly afterward. The lights were kindled on their helmets and handlebars and we lined up to head out at 4 a.m. sharp. As I tooted the horn to signify the start of the race, I noticed that Aerosmith’s song Back in the Saddle Again was blaring out of my radios speakers. How fitting! The winds that had been forecasted were nothing but breezes and we had a fine mist spewing in our faces, but it seemed fine to us. Spirits were pretty high, and hope was still in good supply.

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The roll out was three miles on pavement before I pulled the van off and the racers made the left hand turn onto the first gravel section. Within a few miles, a lead group of about eight riders broke away from the main field. In the darkness, it was impossible to tell who they were, but they had several minutes advantage on the main field by the 20-mile mark. The conditions were steady, and the pace that the leaders were setting was a bit torrid for a 340-mile event. It was my opinion at the time that this lead group would either disintegrate or be absorbed again by the main field later in the event. However, I hadn’t seen what effect the B-road sectors were going to have. I would change my opinion!

 

After the 21-mile mark, the lead group had about a four minute gap on the rest of the field. These guys were relatively fresh and excellent riders, yet they had been slowed tremendously by the first mile of B-road, which for all intents and purposes is nothing but a dirt pathway. The soaking rains had turned this section of road into an unrideable sea of muck. The riders were forced off their mounts and were reduced to walking the entire mile. That slowed them down enough that the average speed for the lead group was dangerously close to being outside the time limit for the checkpoint town of Algona by 6 p.m. To make matters worse, the gravel roads, which most of the race was routed on, were also soft and slow which made progress even tougher.

 

I was pleased with the way the event was unfolding until I saw how long it took for the race leaders to traverse that first section of B-road. I chalked it up to having it be so dark when they hit that muddy mess. There was another B-road section at about dawn. I thought this would be a better gauge of things to come. I was aware there was worse to come and the racers weren’t. With 30 miles of the course covered and more B-road encounters, only about eleven riders were inside the time limit to reach Algona. It was about this time the rain came back with a vengeance, which only added to the misery. I was hoping the onset of dawn would help them out by allowing them to pick better lines through the B-roads. My concerns were growing as each minute passed with no riders in sight. 

Finally, I saw a few guys coming up the road, but the time that had passed by was putting a finish in Algona by 6 p.m. in jeopardy. The lead group was about eight or nine riders strong. They still had several minutes lead on another slightly larger group. It didn’t really matter though, because only the lead group had any prayer of getting to the check point in time to continue onwards to Decorah. The race was over for the other 37 riders and we were only 45 miles into the event!

The end came quickly for the rest of the field. At the town of Paulina, Iowa, many riders realized it was already over for them and packed it in. Probably a wise choice, because the next twelve miles to Sutherland, Iowa proved to be the undoing of everyone else in the event! That twelve miles had 4.5 miles of B-road that must have been walking speed only as it took our lead group just over two hours to cover the distance. At the 62-mile mark, the B-roads, which were a main feature of the opening salvos of the event, had taken their toll on the field. No one was within the specified time limits anymore. Hope was gone. The event was essentially over at this point. No one was going to make that nearly-100 miles that were left to get into Algona by 6 p.m. Not with the extreme effort that had been put out already. Several of the lead group decided to try to race for Algona anyway. The race organizers allowed anyone that wished, to race to Algona for their pride and honor. We agreed that we would bestow prizing upon anyone that could roll into Algona using the course laid out on their bike.

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While Jeff and I watched the lead group plow it’s way through the last B-road sector, we noticed that there were two extra fellows tagging along in the back. They turned out to be none other than Dallas Sigurdur and Lindsey Gauld, who were the Canadian counterparts to Paddy Hummeny, who had been grinding along in the front for most of the event. An amazing bridge up! Lindsey and Dallas had been nowhere to be seen just ten miles back and here they were! Paddy was suffering badly from a respiratory ailment that he had been battling for a week, so he pulled the plug, along with three others from the lead group, in Sutherland. Dallas and Lindsey kept grinding, and soon, they were the only two left standing. At the 119-mile mark, in Mallard, Iowa, they finally pulled out. No one arrived in Algona, as all the competitors called it quits by 7 p.m. The Crazy Canadians gave it their all, but the course and the forces of nature conspired to beat all challengers this year!

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 The competitors in this edition of TransIowa put in a gritty performance, but the conditions prevailed upon them, and due to the format of the event, the entire field was outside the time limit. The event ended in Algona, where an impromptu raffle was set up by the event organizers to distribute the prizes for the event. The competitors were gracious, complimentary, and very wet! In the end it was a bittersweet way to leave the event.

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What this all meant was the riders could not meet the minimum speed requirements to allow them to make it to the Algona checkpoint before 6 p.m. on Saturday. We made every effort to get the competitors something for their efforts by raffling off any of the prizes donated to us by our generous sponsors to the remaining folks that showed up in Algona to retrieve their drop bags. Everyone was very complimentary toward the event, and Jeff and I. We say thank you! and are proud to be associated with such fine athletes. Everyone seemed to be very understanding of the plight we were all being subjected to. That just shows me again how cool the endurance racing crowd is. I was impressed.

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THE AFTERMATH

I suppose some folks would tend to look at this and think that it is all a failure. That would be a tragic miscalculation on their part. If anything, this years event was a resounding success. Jeff and I made some tweaks to the event since last year, and they worked out beautifully. The participants in the event seemed to fully understand the reasons for the way things turned out and accepted that gracefully. I met several new people and got to experience several new things. I think several of the event participants would agree. Will there be another TransIowa - a TIV3? Hmm...yet to be determined! Give us a rest and Jeff and I will decide later. Whatever the outcome, I have had a great time doing the previous two TransIowas, and I have learned a lot!

Just a note upon re-reading the last paragraph here: I would have to be honest and say that in reality I was fearful the event was in fact a total failure, and all due to my planning so many B-road sections in the first half of the course. I took it pretty hard and it influenced the direction of TransIowa for the following years to come to a huge degree.