Among Jeff Kerkove's many talents was his ability to design graphics. This was for T.I.v2 |
Side Track Story: Ironically, Ergon played a big part in the first Trans Iowa and it was this sponsorship which Jeff secured for the event which began his relationship with the company he has worked for up until this very day. Ergon was an unknown company in 2004. They had a presence in Europe, specifically Germany, which was their home country, but in North America, in 2004, no one had ever heard of them. They were trying to crack the market here with a new, radical grip which they said would revolutionize cycling. They had made some overtures to the endurance crowd when, by some way I am still not aware of, Jeff made a connection with them. Whether or not Jeff instigated the relationship or Ergon did is not clear to me, but at any rate, they sent every registered rider a pair of grips to be stuffed into their "goodie bag". This was their initial introduction to the North American market, and it was a major coup of sorts for such a weird event to pull off that sort of deal.
But that wasn't the only big deal Jeff put together. He also was aware of an upstart eyewear company by the name of Tifosi. He managed to get them to send every registered rider a pair of one of their casual wear models, which, as I recall, were orange framed and kind of styled after the classic Ray-Ban glasses. So, for your $20.00 entry fee, which was what it took to cover our insurance bill and nothing more, every rider received about $80.00 worth of goodies, once you include the other bits and baubles Jeff procured from sponsors like Hammer Nutrition and others. That didn't go unnoticed by the riders, by the way.
During v1 I had time for lighthearted stuff, like leaving gnomes alongside the road. |
Furthermore, after much discussion with riders and the Decorah folks, we decided to move the start time to 4:00am on Saturday and to plan on a 2:00pm Sunday finish to facilitate the longer course and still have a relevant conjoined finish celebration with the Decorah Time Trials. Besides the finish ceremonies, we would have no connection with the Decorah event at all. This was mostly at the Decorah folks insistence, since we were not quite on the same page with regard to organization as that longstanding event. But that said, it was Richard "Deke" Gosen's idea that we have a "DNF call in number" that we were to enforce riders to use in the event of dropping out or emergency. This we did by using my personal cell phone number, which stayed in use throughout until the last Trans Iowa.
Other than upping the entry fee to something like $30.00 due to increased insurance rates, there were no other significant changes to discuss going into our second try at this.
Next: Tales Of v2 Part 1
1 comment:
Somehow I ended up with 2 pairs of the sunglasses. I still wear them to this day. And the Ergon grips are awesome. I bought a few more pairs since then, and I wouldn't ride anything else on a flat bar bike.
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