 |
| Ben Witt's first 36"er. The first one I ever saw or rode. I actually had this a while. |
That's right, it was Trans Iowa time, all the time, for the whole week. Well, almost the whole week. I did have a couple of diversions including getting Ben Witt's first 36"er that he had made by Mike Pofahl, the frame builder from Northfield Minnesota.
But it was definitely mostly about Trans Iowa. T.I.v5, to be exact. I was detailing the fact that we had several drop outs from the roster. Not that it was unexpected. It happened every year. I was also enlightened to find out that the drop out tradition has continued with the inaugural Iowa Wind And Rock. They had 71 on their roster, apparently, the day of the pre-race, and started 57. Damn droppers. I know the IW&R folks never said anything negative about this, but that had to chap their hides a bit. And really, it is completely unnecessary and totally unfair to the organizers to just not bother showing up for an event when the organizers have busted their asses for the riders.
Here's what I said ten years ago:
"Anyway, I see we are down to 59 riders as of today. I have said all along that just above 50 is where I'd expect the roster to get to before the start. With the expected "few" no-shows, this is a stone cold lock now. We may even get below 50, which would be dipping into record low numbers for a T.I.
Does that matter? Not to me. I don't measure the success or failure of T.I. by numbers. If the event comes off safely, and folks get some satisfaction from the challenge, then that is all that really matters in the end"
I'm willing to bet that the IW&R folks also really care about the same things more than folks not showing up, but still- shame on you folks if you just didn't show up without warning. Of course, I can say that now, because I am not running that event, but I know exactly how it feels to be on the end of the stick IW&R is, and it sucks when you just don't bother to be a responsible adult and you just don't show without warning. Trust me.
Anyway, I'll have more to say about this when I get to my "Trans Iowa Stories" series here on the blog. Stay tuned for that.
My (filtered) personal thoughts are
ReplyDeleteA) We had some late (3 weeks or less) drops with very valid excuses. We had some that could have been sent 6 weeks in advance.
B) No shows are not cool.
C) Experience led us to plan for a certain number of no shows.
D) Each entrant that did not take two minutes to let us know they weren't coming meant wasted time and money for the organizers. Cue cards, insurance, stickers and patches aren't free.