History Rediscovered

(L-R) Ryan, myself, and Troy from the end of the "Race Against Death Tour"

This weekend I was digging around for some images I thought I might have tucked away some where. Okay......I need to explain. These weren't digital images, they are images on Kodak paper. You know........photographs? So, they were in a desk I haven't looked in for a while, so I didn't know exactly where they would be found.

Digging around I found a few other things. Maps I used to set up some early Guitar Ted Death Rides, some cues I drew up for solo gravel rides, and some early Trans Iowa cue sheet sets.

Those T.I. cues were from V2 and V3. I had forgotten how big those things were! They were a full 5.5" X 6" in size! That's crazy when the last set I produced were 4" X 5". The set for V2 is kind of a strange one because the second half was never seen by anyone but Jeff Kerkove and myself. I looked those old cues over and you know what? I can see much of it in my mind to this day, thirteen years later. Weird, huh?

I know a few folks would love to see what the second half of T.I.v2 was going to be like, but......nah! I've kept that off the radar this long, why stop now? Besides, there is a big chunk of T.I.v2 that was used for the Trans Iowa Masters Program. So, it isn't like I haven't let some of the cat outta the bag.

Ginormous cue sheets!

Well, eventually I came across the few images I have from my tour that I did in 1995. If you haven't noticed, I am recounting that tour in blog form every Sunday here. It's called the "Touring Series". Check it out.

The big thing that keeps striking me about looking back is that the entire way that we did things back then would nearly be impossible to recreate today. No cell phones is probably the single biggest thing that factors into this. I think about how many things are connected to that little device and how not having those things changes everything about a ride today.

No images, no social media, no connection to the world wide web, no information about weather, nothing! Try taking your next ride and leaving your phone at home and your GPS computer at home. See if you don't get anxious about that. Well, we never even had that choice back then.

So, just trying to do a big, long, self-supported tour with zero connection to anything would be deemed, well.......maybe it would be called "stupid" by your relatives and friends. They probably would be pretty offended if you tried that stunt today. Back then, no one thought twice about letting you do that. Yeah.....they thought you were crazy, but they weren't going to tell you not to do it because they couldn't keep track of you. That situation was everyday normalcy back then! 

Then there is the whole distracted driver thing now. That wasn't even an issue back then, and I suppose you could partially blame cell phones for that as well. Cell phones are the devil! Ha! But seriously, we never ever had any fear of being pasted by an inattentive driver back then. Someone trying to scare you or just downright being mean? Yeah......we got that, but rarely did that situation ever arise. Things were totally different out on the open roads back in the 90's.

So, I was reminiscing over the weekend as I looked at those old cues and especially at those old images. You can look forward to seeing a few of those in the coming weeks on the "Touring Series" which, again, posts every Sunday for the next several weeks. I am excited to post those images. The story of the one above will be told at the end of the tale. I won't give away what that is just yet. It does show the three main characters in the story though. Ryan, Troy, and myself. I am easy to spot since I was the biggest guy by far! Ha!