Trans Iowa V10: Things Are Shaping Up

The T.I.V10 commemorative cap: Modeled by B. Bottke

A little over a month from now and T.I.V10 will be in full swing. Now all things are drawing together to a conclusion and the only "wildcard" left to discover is the weather. (More on that in a bit.) Sponsors are prepping things to be sent out, cue sheet checking will happen soon, and the Pre-Race Meat-Up menu choices are all, (mostly) in. Here are some tidbits on the event organization end for you to read about.....

• Hats: Just a quick history on this first- The hats were supposed to be cycling caps originally, but due to the exorbitant costs of custom printed, (or even plain), cycling caps, we decided to go to a trucker style cap. This proved to be doable, so that's what you are getting if you show up for Trans Iowa V10. They are in production now and should be ready in plenty of time for T.I.V10. The logo for these hats was the original Trans Iowa design conjured up by Jeff Kerkove in 2004. I figured it would be a great way to tie in the 10 years of Trans Iowa with my 2013 design on the t-shirts.
• Recon Postponed: In order to get a better read on the roads and whether or not any of them might be closed due to Winter/Spring damage, we postponed recon till mid-April. Today was our first choice, but with the frost yet to come out of the ground fully, we thought better of it. Stay tuned for updates on this....
• Pre-Race Meat-Up: Thanks to all of you for answering the Pre-Race Meat-Up e-mail. I am submitting the data this weekend from that. Remember- the Pre-Race Meat-Up is mandatory to attend and you must sign on before 6pm Friday the 25th of April at the Grinnell Steakhouse or you will not be riding in Trans Iowa V10. No exceptions.... Some of you chose not to eat at the Steakhouse, which is fine, but that notwithstanding, the rest is still required for you to ride! Do not forget or fail to be on time! 
• Sponsors: If you have pledged anything for Trans Iowa, I am very grateful. Now would be a great time to arrange for delivery of the products for sponsorship. If there are any questions, hit me up here. Thanks for the support of Trans Iowa!
• Weather: As always, any forecast this far off is a crap shoot, but so far the weathermen and weatherwomen are sticking with a cooler, wetter Spring forecast. The next ten days will see cold nights below freezing and highs in the 40's-low 50's. The first 60°+ day isn't forecast until well into April with sub-freezing nights showing up until mid-month. This bodes for wetter roads and unrideable B Roads unless there is a big departure from the prognostications. Day of event forecast? Saturday morning snow flurries! Don't shrug it off, because it has happened before! 
• Trans Iowa Radio: Just a reminder that Mountain Bike Radio will again be hosting the popular call ins by riders and myself for Trans Iowa V10.  Details are being ironed out, and I will announce them as soon as I can. I may also be supplementing that with some longer audio-blog posts here. One of the limitations to the call in last year was that the allowable time for posts was only about two minutes long max. I kind of like to ramble a bit longer than that at times, so I may do that here. We'll see......

Stay tuned- more coming tomorrow!