Tuesday, February 12, 2019

A Word On Old Routes

The T.I.M.P. route map. It's vague, and it's the best yer gonna get now.
Lately I've noticed a renewed interest in a certain route I offered for a short period of time in 2014. It was the "Trans Iowa Master's Program" route. There has been requests about it, requests for cues, information, etc. Beyond what you might gather at the T.I.M.P. site, there is nothing I am ever going to put out concerning that route ever again. Why? Well, I have a couple of reasons......

First off, and this goes for all past Trans Iowa routes, and many GTDRI routes, I don't like just handing over a route I busted my butt to ferret out for nothing. I also am not at all interested in selling my route information. If you were fortunate enough to have finished a Trans Iowa, and you managed to keep your cue sheets, you earned the right to that route in my opinion. Anyone else? Not so much. Otherwise I feel that "if I can do it, you can too" and I'll point you in the right direction to get the resource materials to get you started. You can learn all about how to do routes as well as I did. Having routes "just handed to you" doesn't seem right to me. Especially long, difficult ones.That's just how I feel about that, and I always have.

Then there is the reason I have concerning risk to me. I don't feel I should hand out a route like the T.I.M.P. and certainly not when it may come back to bite me in various forms in the future. I can think of several reasons there alone why it isn't wise to put out a route for just anyone to ride. So, that vague red line on that map of Iowa is all you are going to get from me concerning the T.I.M.P. route.

 Yeah, so I thought I would just put that out there to squelch any future requests for routes like the T.I.M.P. and old Trans Iowa routes. I will not be sharing those ever. I think that is pretty easy to understand.This is also why I haven't been too eager to pursue my idea for my "post-Trans Iowa" projects. For one thing, it is a time and energy consuming endeavor. The other thing is, I could be held responsible for "certain things", and I don't need that kind of hassle.

3 comments:

Rydn9ers said...

A person with a black belt in Google-Fu can find the T.I.M.P route or at least you used to be able to find it. I think it was from someone who rode it or somehow got their hands on it, looks like a great route if you're up to such a challenge. Maybe someday.

DT said...

I understand your concern, and your liability solely belongs to you. That said, I think it's be really cool to publish some kind of book containing recap's of all the old Trans Iowa's. This would have to include some kind of route overview (minimally what is shown in the TIMP screenshot above) as well as route highlights. I think it'd be really cool to digest that old info! As well as potentially a financial gain from selling the book/memoirs. Just my $0.02; the decision and intellectual property are yours to do with as you wish. I just think there's a big enough market out there to make it worth your while. Nick Legan's book being a prime example.

S.Fuller said...

I've had this talk with some other people recently in regards to routes. There's a lot of work that goes into generating a quality long route, even for a ride, let alone a race. I know how much time has been put into the Wind and Rock route so far this year, and that is just Gazetteer research, and driving, let alone re-driving and riding the route before the event. People would be surprised at the time/gas cost involved if it was all accounted for.