What To Do?

<===The Upper Iowa River at Decorah in the area where the Big Wheeled Ballyhoo is supposed to be set at.

If you have not heard yet, we are currently experiencing the worst flooding in history....ever....here in Iowa and all over the Mid-West. It is affecting my town too, but for the purposes of this blog, the impact falls squarely on The Big Wheeled Ballyhoo.

The event is to happen ten days from now, so whether or not the Ballyhoo will even happen is the question that needs to be answered and answered really soon. This is a decision that has fallen squarely onto my shoulders. It seems to be the way things have gone for me this year. Big decisions that affect a lot of people. Let me tell you, it ain't easy folks!

On one hand, I can see that the clean up of the area in question, (assuming the flood recedes soon enough), will be a monumental task. And then you have to wonder if that saturated ground will recover enough in ten days to support vehicles that would have to be driven in there to set up demo rides and campers.

I'm thinking that is a tall order. Add to that the fact that we are facing another round of slow moving thunderstorms, (already in western Iowa) and you can see that this problem isn't going to go away quietly or even soon.

On the other hand I have a lot of people looking forward to seeing me and other folks. I have companies that want to debut new product here at the ballyhoo, and I have folks that want to ride some of the new 29"ers coming out. A lot of fun will be snuffed out if this doesn't happen.

See, I told you it wasn't easy being me! Ha ha!

Well, later today the axe will either fall or be held up for the Ballyhoo. I'm not too hopeful that it won't fall and cut this event off before it even happens. Stay tuned................

Update: 11:00 am The "decision" has been postponed until tomorrow morning in deference to the Decoarah folks. Once I have their input, an official announcement will be forthcoming on the Big Wheeled Ballyhoo site by noon tomorrow and later here and elsewhere.

Commenter's suggesting a fall date for the Ballyhoo must keep in mind that "trade show" season would prevent most companies from showing up, and Twenty Nine Inches staff (me included) would also be affected by this. Fall might be nice, but essentially it is already booked up and a Ballyhoo for that time period wouldn't be possible as it is formatted right now.

If the Ballyhoo is cancelled (likely at this point) there will not be one in 2008. Stay tuned.......