Minus Ten Review 2009-48

Some nice flowers sent to me for T.I.v6 registration

Ten years ago on this blog I was detailing the "fallout" from the just completed Trans Iowa v6 registration. This was back during the "heyday" of post card registration where I would get in a bunch of gifts and nice things from registrants.

Today's image shows flowers which I always liked getting, and still do, although now there isn't a reason for anyone to do that. So, this is something I miss, and looking back, I cherish those times when I would get something thoughtful like this from a registrant.

I will detail the whole evolution of Trans Iowa registration in the "Trans Iowa Stories" series at some point, so I won't dive too far down the rabbit hole on that front. I will say that this particular Trans Iowa was about when the press to get in was felt. I had about 45 card entries that didn't make the cut off for T.I.v6.

Looking back, I had a roster limit of 75, and of course, not everyone would ever come to any T.I., so realistically speaking I'm looking at 60-ish starters. Out of the 45 extras, I would assume, based upon the fact they were rookies, and rookies were always the biggest part of "no-shows", that maybe 15 of the 45 would have actually shown up. This is why we eventually went to 100 as a limit, then 120 in the last few years. My intentions were always that we not overwhelm volunteers and, especially myself and any co-director I may have had at the time, because we wanted to be sustainable, provide a good experience for all (including myself and volunteers) and not to overwhelm the local populace with hordes of cyclists.

What the "right" amount was, in my view, was right around 100 riders actually in the event. The record number we ever had was 106, or 108, I'd have to verify that, but that was max for convenience stores and the locals in my view. Had we gotten any "bigger", I would have had to fundamentally change what Trans Iowa was at its core. It would have ceased to be the event I had guided it into being.

A great example of this is the Dirty Kanza 200. They realized after a while that they could not continue to have the original, Trans Iowa based format they used to use. The convenience stores were just not cutting it. This is when they went to the aid station formatting that they continue to use to this day. How they get around not irritating road users and locals probably has something to do with the fact that the Flint Hills are sparsely populated and there aren't many to tic off in the first place.

Anyway, that's a quick hitter on why I did what I did back then.