Minus Ten Review 2009-20

So, this was the poster for the last hurrah for this deal.

Ten years ago on the site I had just closed out the retelling of the Trans Iowa v5 story and was moving on. The next gig on my plate was The Big Wheeled Ballyhoo 2009.

Okay, so follow along here- The first one of these was in 2007. Two knuckleheads put the thing on and we were waaaay over our heads. But that said, it happened. It wasn't great, but it was not all that bad either. So, a second attempt was planned. Now, bear in mind that at this point I have zero idea of what a festival/mtb gathering/whatcha-ma-callit woodsie deal on bikes was supposed to look like for vendors and the industry. I mean, I knew how to have fun, but "fun" doesn't pay the bills and ya know..... The vendors have businesses to run.

So, 2008 comes along and the "BWB" is planned but major flooding ensues and the venue is not suitable for vendors or campers. I cancelled the event. Oh yes......did you notice the "I cancelled" part? Yes, I was ditched off on by Tim Grahl, the whole deal dumped into my lap with zero assistance on his end. bah! Then that precipitates the decision to move Trans Iowa. So, you'd think I'd have had enough sense to not do a Ballyhoo again. Nope. I was prevailed upon by a few folks to give it another go. Grahl ceded control of the website to me, and off I went. Well, the announcement was that the whole shebang was moving to Brady, Nebraska, which was the nearest village to the venue, I guess. I wanted to do the thing in Lincoln, but I was persuaded to try Potter's Pasture.

The rest of that crazy tale will be told later into the year.

In other news I committed to another Dirty Kanza 200, and my family was coming along with me. Also, my local reviewing friend in "Twenty Nine Inches" decided to quit. I understood why, but it did put the binders on me to step up my game.

So, I cannot recall now exactly when this happened, but by now I was taking Wednesdays off from wrenching on bicycles to do riding so I could review all the things entrusted to me to review. Good thing Mrs. Guitar Ted was supporting us, because I took another big hit financially, and of course, the website did not pay me squat to do all of that work.

Those were tough, tough days. Website crashes, bugs, spam attacks, monitoring comments on the site, learning web stuff, trying to make new advertiser relationships, and more. It was overwhelming. Then here I was trying to organize a festival. I shouldn't have been doing it. Too stubborn and loyal not to. See, I figured I owed the cycling community something back for what they had made of me. By 2009, "Guitar Ted" was a well known 29"er advocate. People treated me "weird", like I was some celebrity, and I thought it was......well, I didn't know what to think of it all. 

I remember telling Gary Fisher about it once, how I thought I was really just this "regular guy". He scoffed and said, "But you ARE Guitar Ted!"

Yep. He was correct. To a lot of people, I wasn't "just a regular guy". Just a short four years before no one had heard of me. This new thing was a blessing and a curse. It took me time to get used to it. In the meantime, I busted my head against the wall trying to make the website successful. Maybe someday it would turn around and I'd actually benefit from my work. That's what I thought anyway back ten years ago.