Sunday, April 29, 2007

Preliminary Race Report: T.I.V3

Note: This was written on the 38th hour of no sleep, so be aware!

One word: Beautiful!

Beautiful as in weather, scenery, rides put in, and times had. If you were on the roster for Trans Iowa V3 and didn't come, go ahead and kick your self now. Really! It was that good!

First of all, the weather was more like late May than late April. Highs near 70 the first day, no clouds, and only a stiff wind from the North West in the afternoon, which really helped dry out the roads. Today the temps soared into the 80's before the curtain dropped at 2pm. Yes, even the B level Maintenance roads were no big deal. There was some freshly laid gravel, but that wasn't the norm.

The battles won and lost on the road were tremendous. The stories will be great, I'm sure.

64 took the start at 4am. Saturday morning. 21 finished. Ira Ryan took the prize again. Joe Kucharski won the Single Speed class, representing Michigan. (On a 29"er, no less!) We even had one fixed gear finisher!

I'd post full results, but my Race Notebook came up missing!

The event went off without a hitch, due to the great support of some fine volunteers. Thanks to Redgie, Ron, Jeff, Rob, and Marty.

A special Thanks goes out to Zach Dundas, who made the 34 hour ordeal that much more bearable.

The Awards Ceremonies were rather shoddy and poorly done. For that, I appologize. I only will say in my defence that I'd been without sleep for 35 plus hours and wasn't on a very high functioning level.

Okay, overall this was the very best of the three T.I.'s so far...............and perhaps ever!

Not going to make any rash decisions, but if I had to say now.............

That's it, I'm done with this. Let others tell the tale. I will only say that I have notes this time so history revisionists, be forewarned! (You know who you are!)

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