THE CHANGES

TIV4 was the first run with co-director David Pals on board. Keeping in mind that I just about died from TIV3, I was not very excited about ever doing another one. Several factors played into this.

 

First, Jeff was gone for good. His hiring at Ergon took him to Colorado and his duties just wouldn’t allow him to be a real part of putting on anymore TransIowa events. In my mind, since he instigated the whole deal, I felt like I should scuttle it in honor of him. I was also loath to do it alone, and in fact said I would not do it alone to anyone who asked about a TIV4.

 

Finally, my wife and family were against my doing it at all, but especially on my own. You could see I was in need of some help, and help did come. David Pals, a former starter of TIV2 and TIV3, decided to hop on board with me to lend a hand. With that, TIV4 was announced in August of 2007. With a renewed energy, I looked forward to putting on another event with the help of David. David also had a great background in Iowa geography and knew the area where the race was held quite well. This all was a big plus in our plans to put together the best TransIowa yet.

 

As far as changes went, we didn’t have anything too major. The registration was changed (again!) to reflect the dedication the veterans of the event had shown. With that in mind, the veterans were allowed to send in a postcard a week in advance of the opening up of the roster, which had a limit of 75. I maintained a waiting list to shuffle folks in when there was a drop. The system worked well, and we had fewer no-shows than we had in previous events. The course changed again, but was still a loop out of and back into Decorah. The recon of the course proved rather difficult when, on the weekend after Thanksgiving, an ice storm shut down any opportunities we were banking on for recon. The weather was relentless and never really let up until March. David and I did a little recon in January on a sub-zero day, but the majority had to be done in one shot in March and was a grueling trip due to the short supply of time before the event. Frost heaves and road damage was apparent already, but what we didn’t realize was that it would be worse on the day of the event. Much worse! The sponsors came through again, although we didn’t have as much booze this time, and actually, it was the lightest sponsorship we had had yet. The pre-race was held at T-Bock’s, but this time it was downstairs instead of the old third story. We had a spaghetti dinner arranged, which went over really well. Probably the best of the pre-race meet-ups since TIV1. David’s presence made the job a lot easier, and we came up with two groups of volunteers that were awesome to man the two checkpoints. The whole event, despite the weather difficulties, came together far easier than the last time I did the event.

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THE LEAD UP

A mention of the weather has to be made here. The weather is always a factor in TransIowa, but this time it nearly shut down the event before it started. Besides the aforementioned frost heaves and winter damage, rain nearly flooded out the course in several places I knew about and didn’t know about. In the end, the weather made the biggest impression on this version of TransIowa, and once again controlled the destinies of those that took part in it. 

 

"If we don't get anymore rain, I think we'll be okay", I wrote to D.P. in an email Thursday afternoon. Those turned out to be the proverbial famous last words as we got a thorough dumping that night of biblical proportions. D.P. had so much water at his place on Friday, he couldn't get out of his driveway due to the water in the street. We both had water in our basements (as did a lot of you out there) and we both had an event to put on that required us to be at T-Bock's in Decorah by 3 p.m. on Friday. Not much time to do a whole lot. I did an emergency drive on the first section of the course. I figured that if we were to be able to even have a start to the event, I needed to find that out right away. Thoughts of cancelling the event all together were very real as the flood waters spread across miles of usually dry Iowa farm lands. I found all of the course that I could drive was still dry. It was apparent we had just barely escaped having to cancel TIV4, and of course, I could only look at the first quarter of the event. The low water crossing of the Turkey River was the only place I had to make a go around, and that was easily taken care of.

 

I barely got into Decorah by 3 p.m. to meet up with some of my volunteers and check in with the fine folks at T-Bock's who were preparing our pre-race meal of spaghetti with homemade meat sauce/vegetarian sauce. The gal that made the sauce had started it that morning at 10 a.m. and had me test taste the two sauces to make sure I liked them. Huh? You'd have thought I was somebody important or something. Weird, I thought, but the sauce was excellent, so I gave them the thumbs up. I had help stuffing the race packets, the least amount we ever put in those bags for any TransIowa, and then folks started trickling in. We had a very successful pre-race meet-up, judging by the disappearing food and surprising amount of beer drank. I saw a lot of familiar faces and made some new contacts as well. The pre-race meeting was fine. I had to explain the work around at the Turkey River. I showed the guys the tape and told them how to read the signs we were going to put up. When I asked if they all understood that, I got blank stares. Silence. I found out later that my specific instructions were lost on some of the folks, or completely forgotten. More on that later, but it would be an important part of things down the road in the story of TIV4.

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THE EVENT Part I

Lying in bed on Friday night in a hotel room, I could hear the wind screaming over the top of the building. "Good", I thought, "Maybe that'll dry things up a bit for us." I was right, it did, but it nearly roached the whole field of racers in the process! I'll get to that in a minute. First we had to get this beast cranked up, so let's back up a bit and take a look. I told the racers they should make sure they got to the start good and early. I figured I might help avoid the last minute arrivals to the start line like we had last year. What I didn't count on was that almost everyone heeded my warning and the temperatures were so cold with a biting west wind. I arrived at the start with D.P. and Brother Mark at about 3:20 a.m. and there were already several riders milling about. Apparently, several folks actually camped out at the start line. At any rate, a lot of the field was there and huddled behind some dump trucks and heavy equipment trying to shield themselves from the wind at 3:35 a.m. At 3:50 a.m, I walked back behind the trucks and stuff and called the riders out to start. After a few words of caution, I honked the horn and pulled away at 3:59 a.m. One minute of mercy shown to the bone chilled riders.

 

Off we went up Quarry Hill Road. Team Polska and a few others tried to circumvent the neutral start by bypassing me on my left, but they quickly fell back in line and followed me out. What I didn't know until later was that one rider had sped over the last hill on Ice Cave Road just as we were pulling out. He was in such a hurry, he lost it trying to make the corner to jump in behind us and did an awesome power slide, gathered himself up, and joined in at the tail end of the line. That rider was eventual winner, John Gorilla. I sped on ahead after I was satisfied that I had gotten the field strung out enough to avoid mishap and parked along the side of the road to wait and see the spectacle of lights and bikes pass by. It's always one of my favorite sights during TransIowa. We corner marshaled the first turn onto and off of pavement just north of town without incident. The wind was still howling. Then we went on ahead to Cresco and waited at Kwik Star for the riders to appear.

 

They were later than we thought. This was bad for the prospect of finishers. It was clear already that if there were to be any, they would be selected from the first bunch of about 15-18 riders that appeared on Highway 9 that morning. Only one guy peeled off to stop and the rest kept moving. Snow was swirling in the streets and the wind kept on howling. D.P. and I hustled to the low water crossing to reroute the riders as we had explained at the pre-race the night before. Then we went to a point just south of there and settled in to see what we could see of the leaders coming up the road. Our photographer, Rob Walters, called then and said, "Hey, what's the deal? The riders are confused because they can't go across that water." I said that they had missed the flags we put up and that they needed to turn around and go back a bit. Rob said it looked as though they were doing just that and that he would point them in the right direction. Crap! I couldn't believe our flags were that poorly placed. We had them as close to the road as we could get them.

 

At any rate, the leaders finally came around. Rob snapped some photos and then we chatted for a few seconds. Just then, I got a call from Paul Jacobson explaining another large group of riders missed the flags too. I was bummed! Our idea seemed to be not working out too well. We headed on down the course, checking on any thing that might be wrong, but the course was fine and we were not seeing any mistakes on the cue sheets. We got to West Union and decided we were hungry. I knew the lead pack would be too, as they had bypassed the first two convenience store stops on the route so far. West Union was a full 80+ miles in and I knew they would have to stop. The wind never did let up. TransIowa always brings madness and frenetic energy when riders pull into convenience stores. Befuddled locals are left with jaws hanging open and slightly frightened teenage girls behind cash registers are just some of the more surreal highlights of these stops. It is a chance for me to check out bikes, set ups, watch strategies play out, and learn a thing or two. I get to chat with the racers and get a feel for how the event is being received. For me, personally, it is one of the highlights of TransIowa. Some of my most cherished TransIowa memories are from stops just like this one. Strangely enough, it would end up being the only convenience store stop on the whole day. The wind still screamed. We left West Union, and being confident in our course from there to the first checkpoint, we decided to go directly to the checkpoint. Tomorrow, checkpoint and checkmate!

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THE EVENT Part II

After the West Union stop, D.P. and I motored straight to the checkpoint to see how things were there. I met Bruce, one of our new volunteers, here for the first time. A great guy and he was a huge asset to us. Reconnecting with Redgie and Steve was good too. Everything looked settled and ready for the riders arrival. Then they came. Always a bit of chaos whenever the front runners show up at a checkpoint en-masse. The guys handled it well though. D.P. and I had to drive up out of Wadena to get a call that wasn't coming through. Seems that Wadena is stuck in the last century when it comes to communications. Not that it is a bad thing, mind you, it just is. This would become a sore point very soon! We decided we better hightail it outta Dodge before the troops mounted up, so off we went back out on course.

 

Everything was clicking well until we rounded a corner and saw a huge pile of mud, grass, and tree remains blocking the roadway. Amazing! A real mudslide in Iowa. We thought about trying to head off the riders at the checkpoint, but we remembered - no cell service! So, we tried going over the top. Good footing was found so we marked out a route for riders to follow. Just as we completed the task, here came the lead group. We yelled at them to "hike a bike! hike a bike!" and they all dismounted with wide eyes. John Gorilla approached the pile first, but at a point we hadn't marked out. He hadn't seen the flagging yet. He stepped into the gooey mud and went up above his calf in brown ooze. Brian Hannon took one look at that and was scampering off to the ditch, crossing a barb wire fence, and running down the pasture to circumnavigate the slide of earth. Team Polska and a few others, including Charlie Farrow and Joe Kucharski, figured out the path was marked and smartly shouldered their rigs and disappeared over to the other side. Gorilla followed and then they were gone. D.P. and I were left behind with our chase vehicle to find another route around the obstacle. D.P. and I had to go way out of our way to get around this, so by the time we got back on course at Volga, the riders had already passed through.

 

We noticed our cues were incorrect, telling riders to turn into the river when they should have gone left. We didn't see anybody wandering around confused, so we thought we would investigate. We found the riders up the road, on course, south of Volga. Joe Kucharski yelled at us as we passed them by and for good reason. We screwed that cue up. Our fault, and we knew it. The one thing I regret is that we didn't go back and mark it, but it wasn't too hard to figure out you don't ride into a river, I guess! That and a couple of other miscues were the result of the winter and the inability of us to get out on course. It just wasn't possible with ice and snow blocking roads for months on end. Lesson learned. We do another TransIowa - we get this part done before fall sets in. No exceptions!

 

We continued on to a point where D.P. and I had been before and exchanged a B-road for a road a mile north we thought had some cool hills. I didn't recall that they were "killer hills"! As we drove them, the steepness and the fact they were headed straight into the unceasing wind was overwhelming, and we weren't even riding! I understood why riders were taking so long to get to Winthrop after seeing this situation on course. We stopped in Winthrop and grabbed some eats at a convenience store just off course. It was about 4 p.m. and we were waiting to see how the lead group would fare. After waiting for awhile, we felt the urge to go up the road and we left with the knowledge that our photographer, Rob Walters, was to be staking out there. A pair of eyes that would come in rather handy a bit later. Our big concern here was a mile and a half section of B-road that we were almost sure would be flooded. We were prepared to do a reroute and we figured the rest of the course would be fine. After checking out the first mile section of B-road that looked just fine to us, we got an eye opening! We crested a hill and saw a lake. A huge lake that wasn't on the map. It inundated our course at its midpoint, covering a mile section of road with its waters that glinted in the late afternoon sun. It really was a pretty sight, but it horrified us. We quickly scrambled, looking at the map, planning a reroute that would be simple to follow and avoid any flooded areas. We busied ourselves with duct tape signs and flags, following the protocol we set up in Decorah the evening before.

 

We called Rob and asked if he had seen any riders. Strangely enough, he hadn't yet. Wow! They were taking a long time! We told Rob to forward the info about a course reroute to any riders he saw coming through. Right then, he cut us off because he saw three riders coming. We hung up with Rob and the cell phone buzzed to life again. This time it was Brian Hannon. He was reporting his DNF due to knee issues. I asked him if he was with any other riders. He said, "I'm sure no one else is up the road on us. You haven't seen anyone else, have you?" I replied that I hadn't, explained our situation, and Brian said, "Well, the other guys were just here, I'll run out and see if I can flag them down." I felt we had done our best to get a heads up out there. More due to luck than a plan, but none-the-less, there it was.

 

We finally got the course reroute taken care of and were back on track again heading for what we were sure was another reroute. It couldn't have turned out better. The B-road was totally passable. Dry, in fact. Weird! We couldn't get around a log that had been floated across the path by high waters, so we went around to check the backside of this sector of course. As we did, we didn't notice another SUV pull in behind us. The roadway was so narrow we couldn't even turn the car around. We were backing up when we saw the other SUV with a couple inside. The guy jammed on his accelerator, whipping up mud and dirt as if he was angry at us. I found a wide space in the path, pulled over enough to let him by, and stopped. He saw that, stopped, threw it in drive, and stomped his pedal like a oversexed teenager with a hot rod and nowhere to go. Wow! I waved as he passed by, but I doubt he noticed.

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THE EVENT Part III

Throughout the afternoon, we were receiving some information regarding DNFs and who was left riding. We were sure of three guys at least: John Gorilla, Charlie Farrow, and Joe Kucharski. Rob Walters, our photographer, saw them ride through Winthrop on to the second checkpoint. Other rider information was sketchy at best. We thought for some time that Marcin Nowak was still riding, but that his brother Maciej was missing or out, depending on who we talked to. At any rate, I was thinking that only a possibility of five guys were remaining and three was probably the truth.

 

Things changed as we got to CP2. When we arrived, we were fed some firsthand intel indicating there were indeed five riders still on course. The three leaders: Kucharski, Gorilla, and Farrow, but the remaining two were complete surprises to me. Charles Parsons and Corey "Cornbread" Godfrey were still plugging along. We received information that four of them had passed through Delhi, which wasn't far from CP2. This was awesome news to D.P. and I for a couple of reasons. First, we knew that our course reroutes had worked. We were most pleased with that fact. After all the miscues and stories of riders not seeing our course markings south of Cresco, we were really relieved to hear that the protocol seemed to be effective in getting the riders up the right path. Secondly, we were stoked to hear that we had more than three riders up the road. Now it seemed possible to have some finishers in Decorah after all. This was shaping up to be something good after all.

 

We took things easy for a while in Earlville. D.P. and I were bushed from all the rerouting stress and the length of our day was taking it's toll. Joe and Jeremy, two of our CP2 volunteers, fired up a grill and we all shared some steak. A few beers were consumed and we had some relaxing times mixed with good conversation. John Gorilla's wife, Adele, was there and we chatted with her. She seemed confident that her husband was going to come through fine. We left the checkpoint at the fall of dark and continued on with our recon.

 

Immediately, the roads were pockmarked and frost heaved far worse than anything we had yet encountered. I was down to driving about 20mph or less most of the time. Then we discovered another miscue coupled with some really bad roads. Frantically, D.P. and I looked over the maps, drove to a few points to check on some things, and set a plan in place. We went to work only to be checked up by a fallen tree that blocked the entire road. We needed to use this section, so D.P. went up on foot to mark the corner and I stayed behind and broke off branches by hand. I pitched branches into the ditch as fast as I could, thinking to myself, "How do you swallow an elephant? One bite at a time." With that section marked we turned our attention to part of the course we had seen that was impassable by car, but looked alright for cyclists. We had to hoof it around two foot deep ruts and three foot high frost heaves. The road was unrecognizable at this point and felt like fluff under our feet. Weird, but rideable. We set to marking the corner as best we could.

 

Since we couldn't drive the actual course from this point, we decided to go around on pavement to Edgewood. Through some earlier intelligence provided to us by our other photographer, Marty Larson, we knew the road out of Garber was under about five feet of water. We set to bypassing that and the sure-to-be underwater crossing in Bixby State Preserve just north of Edgewood. We decided to look at an early cut from the TransIowa course on Glacier Road. We had considered this stretch in our early planning but discarded the idea when we got serious about making choices back in the early winter. The road starts out as a meandering slightly downhill stretch. Then it gets really hairy! Glacier Road takes a big dive downhill at an incredible pitch, which in great conditions would be muy dangeroso, but in the state we found it, it was death waiting to snap its jaws on an unsuspecting cyclist. We were still willing to entertain the thought of going this way, but at the bottom, nature vetoed any thoughts of choosing this solution. The downhill, rutted and rip-rapped by the recent rains, was about a mile and a half in length if you only included the steep section. Yeah, some fast descending! Added to that was the fact that the big rocks you see were loose, moving, and slimy from water when you walked on them. This put the nail in the coffin.

 

TIV4 ended there for us. I suppose we could have routed the guys on pavement, but at an hour approaching midnight and on a Saturday night at that, I wasn't about to subject the remaining riders to that risk. Keep in mind, beer cans littered the roads as it was, a constant reminder of what locals call fun 'round these parts. It wasn't even a discussion on our parts. I think we just knew it was time to do the right thing for the riders' safety and to keep from having the cue sheets/reroutes spiral out of control. Riders with 200+ miles in their legs are not usually the sharpest tools in the shed. Sorry if I offend anyone with that comment, but I have seen it for three years running. It is what it is. We ventured back to Edgewood, picked out a likely finish line and awaited the leaders.

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THE EVENT Part IV

After we had decided to end the race at Edgewood, we called the checkpoint volunteers in Earlville and asked if all the riders had gone through yet. All but Corey Godfrey had passed. We told them to let him know it was done in Edgewood. We tried to reach the others on the road, but almost all of the guys had their cell phones shut down to conserve battery life. As we waited for the riders, a pair of law enforcement officials pulled up and asked what we were doing. We explained our situation. The befuddled look on the officers face told me he hadn't quite expected such an answer. He looked at me and said, "Well, I hope they aren't out there all night. There are plenty of drunks on the road around here." Then they drove away, which got me to thinking: If there were plenty of drunks driving, why weren't they busy catching them? Hmm, well, anyway!

 

We were wondering how we might get some sort of word to the guys to allow for them to make a race winning move if they wanted to. About that time, John Gorilla's support crew pulled up and we had them station themselves four blocks or so away to yell at the guys as they rounded what was to be the last corner. They weren't there long when we heard them yelling and screaming at three riders rounding the corner. Mind you, this was just past midnight in a small Iowa town. I'm sure they are still talking about it! Here they came to the line. I could see three shadowy figures start to reel up the cadence. Then a rider shot to the right curb and was coming on strong. I said, "That guy is flying! That's the winner!" It was John Gorilla, with Joe Kucharski second on a single speed, and Charlie Farrow third wheel. We shook hands and had to explain the situation to the three finishers who were a bit surprised and maybe a bit angry that we cut the event short. After our explanation, I think we had them convinced it was for the best. We tried to arrange some transportation for the riders, as they were beginning to get chilled in the rapidly falling temperatures. Joe Kucharski sat in our chase vehicle and had the heat just blasting! I wonder if he figured out it had heated seats! Soon we had both Joe and Charlie off to Decorah. Charlie got his prizing right then and there because he was heading back to Rochester, Minnesota as soon as he got back! John Gorrilla and his support crew stayed behind since they were with Charles Parsons and were waiting for his arrival. In the meantime, Adele found an unopened Busch Light in the gutter uptown and presented him with it. Not too proud to drink it, John cracked open the can and took a long, well deserved draw. He even let me take a funny shot of him with it.

 

Waiting for Charles to roll in gave me some time to chat with John about the event and how his ride went for him. I learned that he had gone down twice. Once in a soft spot of gravel going uphill and the other was a blow down in the strong winds. He fell in a way that usually results in a broken collar bone, but John's fate wasn't such that day. John also related that he thought Joe Kucharski had gone down once too, or maybe it was Charlie. Hmm, can't blame him for not remembering the exact details after such a hard day in the saddle. We started talking about his bike, a Ridley X-Nite cyclocross rig, which John proudly proclaimed as "the only other bike to win TransIowa". (His phrasing, not mine!) As a matter of fact, John is the only other winner of TransIowa. Some pretty rare company there with Ira Ryan being the winner of TIV1 and TIV3. Charles Parsons rolled in about an hour after the first three and their crew quickly loaded up and sped away.

 

It was about 1:30 a.m., and D.P. and I were standing there alone...for a minute or two! Then the Lincoln Super Fan van rolled up and staked out a claim waiting for their man, Corey, to make his final run in and finish TransIowa. We took our leisure and chatted, whooped it up (mostly Matt Gersib!), and laughed heartily. However, even the most valiant super fan gets fatigued and one by one they trailed off to the van for some z's. Time crawled by, the bars closed, drunks meandered up the street. Where was Corey? Through talking with Skip, I learned that Corey can be, ahem,...directionally challenged. I became somewhat concerned around 3 a.m. and D.P. finally said. "Let's go!". No more needed to be said, we were going out to search for Cornbread and bring him in if we had to. Of course, your mind starts to play with you at such an hour and with 24 hours on the clock already, we were really struggling to stay sane as it was. We reasoned that he should be near Edgewood, so we started the search close to town. We headed east, and then just over a rise in the road D.P. spotted the lights. It was Corey alright. We pulled up and chatted with him. I was making an assessment as to his ability to ride. He seemed lucid and was reasoning well. He told us he had missed several turns and was wandering around in the hollows for a while. Wondering if he shouldn't lie down and sleep, he decided against it when he heard coyotes yipping near by. We continued always within his eyesight - we didn't want him to make any false turns. Actually, it seemed to me that he picked up the pace mightily at the end. Maybe it was just me and sleep deprivation, but it seemed that way. I told D.P., "Hey, I've got an idea." I let Corey get pretty close to the rear of our vehicle, I turned on the 4-ways, and led him on in, beeping the horn Tour de France style. Ah, what the heck, I thought. We gotta have some fun since it was the end of TIV4. So what if it was 3:30 a.m.!

 

I drove back to Decorah in the dead of night with D.P. We couldn't say much, we were so wasted! By the time we got to our rooms, the soft glow of the coming day could be seen in the eastern sky. We slept for about two and a half hours and then I sprung up and met John and Joe at Kwik Star to download their prizing to them. We took a few shots and said goodbye. TIV4 was behind me. I went and filled the gas tank, washed over 500 miles of grit and grime off, and headed home. That's it. TIV4.

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THE AFTERMATH

The shortened course: I don’t suppose any past TransIowa finishers will argue, but some might, that there should be an asterisk by the names of the finishers of this year's course. Here’s why I don’t think that is necessary: every year is different. Period. That’s one of the reasons I like doing a different course every year. You can’t compare one TransIowa to another. Similar? Yes, but definitely not the same. That’s by design and how it should be. As for having to do the shortened course, I am at peace with it. It was the right thing to do and there isn’t really anything else to be said.

 

Finish line: Here is one real regret: that more folks couldn’t have joined in the fun at the finish. That was most unfortunate. Of course, by the time I announced it on TransIowa Radio, it was about what, 11:30 p.m.? Most folks are not going to hop in their cars for an hour drive to hang with some sweaty, tired riders at that hour. It was just a bit too far from Decorah and not easy to get to. Not that it mattered. I mean, we were on the borderline of getting into trouble as it was with the few folks we did have hanging out in Edgewood. Of course, the next morning we were done and outta there by 8:30 a.m., so not really a great time to come and hang out then either. Oh well, I did actually announce where the finish line was before the event, but that didn’t work out. Next year, it will revert back to the secret finish line and y’all will have to pay attention to TransIowa Radio to find out what is going on. That seems like the most workable plan as of now.

 

Pre-race hangout/meeting: That T-Bock’s meet-up was pretty good. I think T-Bock’s was pretty stoked about it too. They were really puzzled by the amount of beer consumed before an event like TransIowa. Heck, haven’t they heard of carb loading? Whatever the case, it was a great time and I think everyone made a few new connections there. I know I did. Of course, it was the only chance I got to see some familiar faces too, but it was way too short of time.

 

Two checkpoints: That idea was a success. No doubt about it. We have a lot more to tweak if we run TransIowa again. Cell coverage is one thing we didn’t even consider, and that should be better by next year, but we would need to make sure. A couple more eyes on the field with the photographers was a good deal too. That saved us a few times.

 

Is Decorah getting old? I bet I could pull off at least two completely new courses out of Decorah, but even last year we were discussing moving TransIowa around the state. Is it too good up in northeast Iowa? Hmm, I know it is hard to beat, but I also know other places in Iowa would be super cool too. While we would probably never do a point-to-point again, I wouldn’t rule it out. Also, the distance to recon the roads becomes a factor, so for now, if there is another TransIowa, it’ll be close to home unless there is a compelling reason to take it elsewhere.

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What about the date? Here’s something that has been brought up since the first TransIowa. Why late April? Originally it was because guys are usually looking for base miles anyway, or so we thought. Now we know that guys are training for TransIowa all winter long and taking it much more seriously than we expected four years ago. In the end, I always wanted to keep it on the last weekend of April. Now there is a wrench in the works that has caused me to take stock of when another TransIowa might take place. If there is another TransIowa, it will be at a different time, but not far from when it is now probably. Maybe a weekend later, maybe not. We’ll see, I’m not thinking about that just yet. I just know what date it can’t be on!

 

What are you saying? I know right now without any reservations that I would say yes to a TransIowa in 2009, but there are reservations! I love doing the event, I really do, but it’s stupid. Really stupid from a financial, time spent, and family point of view. But then again, I don’t care about the money and the time invested is worth it from other standpoints. The family thing? Well, yeah, that sucks. Maybe my kids will like traveling gravel later, but I tried it with the family last year and they were non-plussed. I guess it all depends on how much I dare to be stupid again. Stay tuned! Whatever happens I will say that I have not regretted doing a TransIowa with the possible exception of last year which just about killed me. Even that one turned out great and was a hoot really. I have enjoyed all the folks I have worked with - Jeff, and now David - very very much. The volunteers have been fantastic, from Jeff’s parents to the crew from ’08. To all of you, I say a huge thanks. It wouldn’t happen without any one of you. And the folks that I have met that have participated, wow! What can I say. You guys and gals are fantastic! I just want to take this chance to extend my thanks to all those who made this event what it was this year. The volunteers, the riders, the support people, and anyone who has had a hand in helping make TIV4 a great event. I enjoyed it. I hope you did too. TIV4, the end!