Trans Iowa: Is It Time To Write Down The History?

<===Trans Iowa V1 winner, Ira Ryan stares down the camera man.

It has occurred to me lately that this silly little gravel grinder has engendered its own interest group that extends beyond the events competitors throughout the years. I recently have been asked (again! Sorry!) for route information on V1 or V2 from folks who are just looking for a good cross state gravel tour.

That got me to thinking, "Hey, I can't remember some of the stuff that happened and I was there!" Some of the details that led up to Trans Iowa and the initial pitch of the event to the masses, well.......I had forgotten some of that. So, I started thinking that perhaps some other folks might be interested in knowing the history of Trans Iowa. Maybe there ought to be a place where folks could go to learn about that.



<===The man with the plan. Jeff Kerkove riding in his own event: circa 2005

Am I right? Is there anyone out there that would appreciate something like this? What I am talking about is a site that I would set up, write down the history, tabulate all the results, (I know! Not too hard when only a hand full have ever finished the event!) Tabulate all the past starters, and maybe provide links to all the photo galleries and stories online.

If this is something worth pursuing, let me know. I am game for it. Just pop a comment on the blog here or hit me with an e-mail with your idea/take on this. If you have a contribution you'd like to submit for this, let me know that too.

Now, back to that route request reference made above. I am not going to post every Trans Iowa route ever done! Nope! Not going to happen.........ever! So don't get your hopes up for that. What I am going to do is post a link to a Map My Ride layout of a "hybrid" route drawing from the first half of T.I.V2 and parts of T.I.V1 and T.I.V3. Which parts will be what? I ain't saying and I don't think it matters to the folks that just want to ride across the state from west to east.

I have my reasons for this, but some of the more practical reasons are that some of the roads used for T.I.V1 and 2 don't exist anymore. Secondly, T.I.V1 was probably the weakest route from a scenic point of view and it had very few convenience store chances, as anyone who made it to Algona that year can attest to. Then you have the State Park in Forest City which I routed through, and that is very confusing. I will do a completely new section around that, if this route gets published. Finally, from a practical point of view, it might behoove me to eliminate some of the 15 miles of B Maintenance roads from this sort of route since brutalizing casual tourists is, well.........inhuman. I mean, this route will probably end up close to 350 miles anyway!

So, no cue sheets to mail out, 'cause I ain't doing that. I don't give away that which folks sweat and toiled to find out for themselves, and the end result would be a T.I. inspired route, using some of the elements from three versions of Trans Iowa. Don't even tell me to charge money for it! I am not at all interested in making money from this.

So, is there a place for all of this? If I do it, I am doing all of it, not just the route thing. Let me know. I don't want to waste my time if only a couple people find this interesting.