Trans Iowa V11: A Look At The Rules Part 19

Last year I did a historical overview of each Trans Iowa up to T.I.V9. This year I am going to revisit something that I feel many folks have overlooked for a long time; The "Race Rules".

 Last week I took a look at the rule dealing with support between racers HERE. This week I am going to finish off the look at the rules by covering the last two here.
 21: If you exit the course for food, supplies, or any other reason, You must re-enter in the same spot in which you left. Got it!
22: Drafting is allowed. But please do not show up with 8 of your buds and turn this into a road race.

Rule 21 is pretty self explanatory. Again- we were trying to give riders opportunities and by letting them know that they could go off course to get resupplied without breaking the rules, we were hoping to give riders a better chance at finishing. This has worked out well over the years with riders going to farm houses, businesses, and parks to get water, mainly, but for food as well.

Rule 22 is another thing altogether. This one, tagged onto the end as it was, reflects the early banter on mtbr.com concerning the first running of Trans Iowa before it happened. On the Endurance forum there were guys going on about bike choice and also, there were several challenges to our rules and how the event was to be conducted. One of these was a main concern to Jeff who didn't want to see this turn into a road race with "teams" and team tactics. Drafting was one of those things that we envisioned as maybe taking place between a few riders, sure, but Rule #21 wasn't really motivated by that idea.

While big packs of riders are rare in Trans Iowa, and some drafting happens, we haven't seen anything like a Pro team drafting in the event. (Image by W. Kilburg)

We were more concerned that maybe a regional team would show up and try to make this more of a typical Pro type event with guys working for a singular rider burning themselves off when they were fatigued, and drafting their leader out to the front for a win. What we would have rather seen is a group of guys or gals working for themselves, but maybe doing some beneficial drafting work for a group, with an eye that all might finish and place as they could manage. So far, we've seen the latter and not the former.

And with that I conclude a look at the Rules for Trans Iowa. I hope you all enjoyed a peek at where they came from and how they have played out over the years.

Look for occasional Trans Iowa V11 updates here on Sundays now until the event happens in April.