Sunday with about 10 minutes to spare before the final cut off at 2pm, Janna Vavra crossed the finish line of T.I.V7 in Grinnell, Ia.
While Trans Iowa has always had women in each of the seven versions, this one is the first to feature a women finisher. Janna was one of five women starters and was quick to compliment her competition by saying that they should serve to inspire other women to stretch themselves to reach for bigger challenges like they have.
Congratulations to Janna Vavra and all the women who toed the line at Trans Iowa V7!
Trans Iowa V7's new overall champion, Dennis Grelk, was in the front of the event most of the 322 miles and finished with a time of 28 hours and 40 minutes.
Dennis took advantage of an opening late in the event as he surged to the front and never looked back, crossing the line well ahead of second and third palce finishers, Tim Ek and Troy Krause.
Single Speed/Fixed class featured two finishers this year with same times. They were Aaron Gammel and Ben Shockey.
A "Special Achievement Award" goes out to Corey "Cornbread" Godfrey, who after detonating his derailleur and chain, went back to Grinnell, got it converted to a single speed at "Bikes To you", went back out and joined in on the ride, finishing out the loop, just for fun. Corey figures he put in a little over 310 miles.
More detailed reports are coming throughout the week. Stay tuned!!
4 comments:
AWESOME news on the winners!!! I really enjoyed listening those updates,GT,kool beans! Looking forward to reading more about it this week L)
As the father of two daughters I am VERY happy to see women participate in an activity I enjoy and do well too. Congratulations Jana and thank you for setting a standard.
Thanks for providing the audio updates for us armchair TI fans, so cool to have the first ever woman finisher & stoked on Corey Godfrey's comeback to just go back out & "RIDE IT" for fun after his malfunction, he is a great guy indeed!
Thanks for proving that cutting you and Scott loose was the right thing to do, and congratulations, Jana. You were a hammer the whole time and a pleasure to ride with. I also don't think I ever truly thanked you for patiently holding a light on my hands while I broke my chain and unwrapped it after getting chainsuck so bad it had wrapped itself on the outside of my front der cage, necessitating I break it to not bend it jamming it back into place... But I digress. Anyway, thanks again. And congratulations to all who finished. It was an impressive accomplishment, especially given the 2pm finish cutoff.
It was truly unfortunate to, on one hand, have no fewer than five (promoter caused) cue sheet errors, and resultant time delays, combined with the (in my opinion) arbitrary finish line "cutoff" of 2pm cause people who had traveled halfway across the country to simply give up, because there was no chance of making the stupid, arbitrary cutoff of 2pm. This is what happened to Bruce Currin and I less than 30 miles from the finish, and when we realized we wouldn't make 2pm, immediately out the door went 4 months of training, preparation and all that.
And that's the difference between TI and great events like the Dirty Kanza 200. At the DK200, even if Jim Cummins has gone to bed, he'll leave a clipboard out for you to record your name and finish time, so at least you can be counted as a finisher. And that matters. I would have worked 10 times harder to get across the line yesterday if a similar thing had been the case at TI, and it would have been very little extra work on the promoters part. So as it sits, you likely won't see me back as a TI competitor again, but I'll continue to ride/race the DK200 every year for as long as my body will allow.
Thanks GT, Dave and all the volunteers, and also to Jeff, Lis and Anita and the Gammell kids, who were the Lincoln crew's support crew this year. I will be pulling either support crew or volunteer duty next year to pay back those who have supported me over the years in my TI endeavors. Thankfully I was able to get it done in '09, or I'd be shut out... I should have just stopped after that. Checked it off.
Anyway, thanks again.
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