Trans Iowa Stories: A Fire In The Belly

T.I.v7- Passing some finishers as we searched for two lost riders Easter morning 2011.

 "Trans Iowa Stories" is an every Sunday post which helps tell the stories behind the event. You can check out other posts about this subject by going back to earlier Sunday posts on this blog. Thanks and enjoy!

Trans Iowa v7 wasn't even over yet and I had already committed to running a Trans Iowa again. "This couldn't be the way Trans Iowa would be run again", I was thinking.

I was, as I wrote in my last edition of these stories, very angry. I typically do not get really angry, I'm just not wired that way, but if I reach a point of frustration where 'that line gets crossed', well, then I am all about making some changes and that forcefully. Now, I had no intentions of violence toward David, although the source of my feelings was my perception at the time that he had let me down for no good reason. My anger wasn't aimed at anyone in particular. No- this was on me, and the next Trans Iowa was going to be the one that defined me. 

I somehow had realized at this point, innately I think, that Trans Iowa was Guitar Ted and Guitar Ted was Trans Iowa. The two were intertwined and regardless of who was helping me, and regardless of how I might try to deflect attention toward anyone helping, the public was already fixated on me being Trans Iowa. It just was how it came to be. Of course, I knew better, and I still hold to the narrative that I am a bit part player in the whole thing, but I am in the minority. However; at that time, bouncing around in David's Honda Element near the end of T.I.v7, all I knew was that people were looking to me to see what would happen next. And I was bound and determined to make that next experience the best one possible.

Corey "Cornbread" Godfrey on his way in after an incredible ride overcoming adversity in T.I.v7. Shot taken through a muddy wind shield!

The fire was lit. But first I had to get over what had just happened. There was the issue with David which eventually was resolved mid-Summer of 2011. Then there was the friendship with MG, which was on its way to being mended by late Summer as well. So, then I was able to turn my attention to Trans Iowa once again. There was no more distraction from putting on a mountain bike festival, or website work stress. The two sites I was running had been stabilized and the gravel site was running smoothly. Now it was time to make some plans.

We didn't have number plates for T.I.v7. We had "prayer flags"

I had a few people stepping up to help, but this version of Trans Iowa largely was resting on my shoulders. Route recon was, for the first time since Trans Iowa v3, all my baby. So, I was of the mind that I had to get cranking on that sooner than later. Maps were purchased, online resources were tapped, and I spent many nights digging into the possibilities.

One of those seriously considered possibilities was moving the event from Grinnell. I asked a few trusted folks about the possibility of moving Trans Iowa to somewhere West or South of Des Moines. Winterset, Iowa was a consideration, and the thought was we'd circumnavigate Des Moines, like Gravel Worlds does with Lincoln, Nebraska. However; after I considered the difficulties in setting up relationships, finding suitable venues, and making sure none of that cost me money, I quickly realized how well I had it in Grinnell. The event stayed put as a result.

I was on my own with those and other decisions this time, and the feeling of not having David Pals support and wisdom was felt sharply.  But that is not to say that I had no support. No- I had a lot of people and organizations looking to help in any way that they could. Grinnell was going to host again. That was a given, and Rob Versteegh, of Oakley, was onboard to provide access to "The Barn" and prizing for the winners. (Although the barn part fell through in the end) The volunteer list would once again include Wally and George, who had such a cool checkpoint set up that was so popular with the riders that I would have been a fool not to accept them again for T.I.v8. Plus, I had become fond of them rather quickly.

The group of cyclists from the Chicago area who called themselves the "Slender Fungus" were onboard as well to help in any way that they could. That and they promised to bring several riders to the next Trans Iowa. Support from other Trans Iowa stalwarts, such as Corey "Cornbread" Godfrey and Tim Ek were valuable motivations for me. I had more incentives than ever to move ahead with my plans.

Those plans included adding a covered bridge crossing to the route, going South, since we hadn't been that way before, and to have the most perfect cue sheets in Trans Iowa history. None of those things were easy, by the way, and one of those things didn't happen. The route finding was arduous. Not just in terms of research, but in the physical activity of route finding as well. One such story about the recon shows this in both ways.

One of the major hurdles to making any big loop course in Iowa is rivers. They impose a certain way of making routes that dictates what happens for an entire course. This is due to limited options to cross these rivers in many cases. The South Skunk River was a constant reminder of this, which for T.I.v8 happened to be the easier of my obstacles to overcome. The Des Moines River, however; was a beast to get around.

Tim Ek (R) and Charlie Farrow at CP#2 during T.I.v7. Tim was a major help to me back in this era of T.I.

I had searched online using Google Earth for hours trying to find a suitable bridge to get over the mighty Des Moines, and while there are several bridges, you can imagine almost all of them carry major highways. Not suitable or practical for a gravel road event! But I did come across one old steel gable bridge near Pella, Iowa that looked promising. The Iowa DOT maps showed that it was a gravel road, and Google earth images were inconclusive. I couldn't ask anybody, because the route had to be kept top-secret. So, the only way to find out was to make a four hour round trip down just to see. That doesn't include time doing any recon, by the way. That's just travel to and from. So, just to verify one bridge would take, in reality, most of a day. This was the sort of commitment I had to make to get the course developed, and my drive to do it right got me through all objections.

So, you can imagine the gut punch I felt when I found out that a farmer on the South side of that bridge had plowed the road asunder and taken it over as part of his farm field. I stood there at the Southern end of that bridge staring at a mere quarter mile of field to where the road picked up again. A quarter of a mile! No alternative was left to me other than to scrap that part of the planned course and go back home and start looking again. Now, I did get a few tidbits of information and I did figure out some things, so it wasn't a total loss, but getting over the Des Moines River was a huge problem.

Fortunately another find via Google Earth did actually pan out. I found evidence of another bridge over the Des Moines River leading from a gravel road which DOT maps showed coming out of a small town called Agency, Iowa. The town was once a Native American trading post and the site of Chief Wapello's grave. Perfect! I loved sending Trans Iowa through historical areas, even though the riders might never know they were historical areas. Another 2+ hour trip to get down there proved exciting due to the bridge not only proving out, but in that it had been recently replaced. So, there was little fear that it would be closed come time for T.I.v8.

Red arrows show return route of T.I.v8 on a paved county road bridge.

Recon was completed when we had a freak 50+ degree Sunny day the first week of 2012. I managed to get the cues started early, and the route looked great. No covered bridge though! I had one on the radar, but the return route wasn't lining up to take it in without adding a lot of mileage which would have put us over the self-imposed limitation of 340. The other bummer was that I ended up having to route the course over a paved county road bridge for the Des Moines River which was going to put in about two plus miles of pavement. But that was on the return route, and probably in the dead of night with the lowest traffic count possible. Besides, there was no other choice I could make without scrapping everything leading up to that point.

So, I poured over the cues diligently all the rest of the Winter. I mocked up a set, and through communication with Wally Kilburg, I was able to talk he and George Keslin into coming out to help verify my route. It was another layer of 'insurance' which I had conceived of post-T.I.v7 which would independently verify my cues. Originally I wasn't even going to go along, but Wally convinced me that my presence would not affect the outcome. In fact, he motioned that if a call had to be made to clarify a cue, mark a point for reference, or reroute, that my being along would be crucial to my goals. So, I relented and went along.

Wally and George would navigate by my draft cue sheets, and we could also look for a suitable Checkpoint #2 location. So, it was set up for mid-March and we would go on that first, unforgettable recon mission. I'll tell more about that later.

The point here is that I had to make a huge sacrifice in time, mileage, and effort to get T.I.v8 cues "spot on". I did those two previous mentioned recon trips to vet the bridges existences out, another previous recon effort of the Northern parts of the course, and that big drive in January which was well over 300 miles. The constant pouring over route maps, websites, and thinking about that course took a lot of energy. Then the drawing up of the cues, going over them three times or more to find mistakes, and make sure directions were clear. Look- the point I'm trying to drive home is this: I had a drive to make T.I.v8 perfect. I was energized like never before to pull this off. No false expectations, just 'nose-to-the-grindstone' work. All due to what happened in T.I.v7.

Did it work? Was T.I.v8 perfect? Yes, and no, and "it depends on who you ask". I guess the main thing that came out of Trans Iowa v7 was that this drive, this fire in my belly, well it made the rest of the Trans Iowa organizing and production after this a lot simpler, more precise, and it led to a lot less problems. And that was a good thing after an emotionally draining time going through things that should not have happened which undid friendships and hurt me personally.

I never went through anything quite like that again because of Trans Iowa. But that isn't to say that there weren't issues and excitement that I could have done without. That happened right up through to the end.

Next: We take a break from the story about the next Trans Iowa in the story, v8, and take a look at some of the artwork that defined the event in The Look Of Trans Iowa.