Minus Ten Review- 5

Ahhhh! My car! Jeff Kerkove reacts to how his Mazda 3 was getting trashed during T.I.V2 recon

Well, this week ten years ago on the blog, I was finally able to get back to regularly scheduled programming when my CPU was wiped for virus attacks and restored to normalcy. Then it was off to far Western Iowa with my then co-conspirator in Trans Iowa, Jeff Kerkove, to recon the planned route for the now infamous Trans Iowa v2 course.

This was an all weekend deal as we would drive five hours to Hawarden, Iowa, on the Western border of the state, and start tracing the route back East. We would get to Jeff's hometown of Algona, stop for the evening to see Jeff's parent's, and stay overnight at their home. I believe it was on this trip that Jeff's mother, Linda, made a pan of Scotcheroos, which had Jeff drooling. This was a big shock to me since Jeff was so anti-anything sweet and gooey normally. It went against his very strict dietary guidelines, but you know what they say about Momma's cooking!

I got to stay at their place in Algona twice, as I recall. The first and second years of Trans Iowa. I'm not sure which version it was, but one year I got to sleep in the spare bedroom which had been converted into a computer room, and which had a great picture on the wall of Jeff when he was a youginz. I should have snapped a photo of that!

One of the approximately 14 miles of Level B road in T.I.v2's first 75 miles.

 We then took the next day to not only recon the remaining route to Decorah, but we also had a meeting with a couple of Decorah's established bike advocates who wanted to advise and coordinate our efforts along with another event there. We were busy folks that weekend!

I recall that we were in Osage early that morning and stopped at a Casey's where we got our first look at the car since we'd left Algona hours earlier. It was a complete mess. The entire rear end of Jeff's Mazda 3 was obliterated with gravel mud. I remember Jeff saying months later that he was still finding mud and dirt from that trip falling out from under the car or traces of dirt and dust inside of it.

In other postings from ten years ago, I started a series on handle bars and what led me to adopt a Midge Bar for my Karate Monkey. It was a series that ran concurrently for several days with multiple posts per day. Sheesh! I must have had a lot of time on my hands back in the day!

More next week on the Minus Ten Review.....