Trans Iowa Stories: New Process- Less Stress

You can barely see Jeremy Fry here in "The Truck With No Name". T.I.v9 recon

 "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!

The post-Trans Iowa v8 editions were mainly marked by how things were streamlined and less stressful than they were from v1-v7. One of the biggest helps in that regard was the addition of Jeremy Fry to the Trans Iowa team.

I never asked for help, and most times people just offered themselves up and I'd find a way to use their talents. Just as in the case of Jeremy Fry, he had come to me after T.I.v7 and said he wanted to be a part of Trans Iowa. Initially, that was being a volunteer at a checkpoint, which Jeremy did from v8-v13.

If all you considered was the impact Jeremy had from the standpoint of volunteering, Jeremy was invaluable to Trans Iowa. He would sacrifice a whole day of his for the event, traveling to and from his post, and often times he made a way to transport things I needed as well. He also brought along a friend of his to assist the day of on several occasions. He was trustworthy and I never had to wonder how he would handle my event if the need to enforce time cuts or if policies came in to question concerning the event. Jeremy was probably more prickly about those things than even I was!

A lot of Trans Iowa participants could probably vouch for Jeremy and his volunteering help. However; what a lot of people do not know is that Jeremy Fry was a big reason recon was so efficient and why the cues were so exact over the last several years of Trans Iowa.

Jeremy was perfect for the job, as he is a mathematician and teaches math at a local community college here. Me? I am horrible at math! The thing is, a LOT of math is done to get Trans Iowa cue sheets produced, and time figuring, which placed checkpoints, was a big part of recon and the event cues as well. Jeremy had to, more than once, send me corrections on my math. But that isn't all.

Wally and George also made the process of course checking really streamlined.

He also was another check on the cues from a rider's standpoint. We sometimes would lock horns about how things should be presented, but we always seemed to get through that and end up with the best cues in the business. Of course, as time went on, less and less of the gravel events used cue sheets. 

Jeremy and I didn't care. We used cue sheets ourselves to recon the course with every year for v-9 through v-13. (Jeremy rode in v14, so he had to recuse himself from helping me out that final year) Those draft cue sheet sets really helped speed things up in regards to field work, and with Jeremy in the truck taking notes, and with me concentrating on driving, we got to the point where getting recon done in a day happened. Usually it took two shots, but this was a MAJOR improvement over previous years when reconning the course might take several trips and not get done until shortly before a Trans Iowa was to happen. That never occurred with v-8 through to the end.

The processes were revised, and we had a method which allowed for a lot less stress and anxiety on my part. Adding in the yearly course checking with Wally and George, which also ended with v13, and Trans Iowa was almost becoming second nature to put on, in terms of logistics.Wally and George became invaluable to these processes as well. They were yet another layer of checking, another set of viewpoints, another set of reasoned opinions from which I could learn from and draw upon.

Of course, they were a blast to hang with as well, so that didn't hurt anything either! Also, it was another thing that took care of the imagery for the event, as Wally and George would use that annual Spring trip to scout out image taking opportunities, thinking about the timing of the light and where riders may be at during the event at certain spots. All this tied into making me more aware of things concerning the event itself, which in turn made how I ran it ever easier.

I hand cut and collated cues into sets, and bagged them, from v8 up through v10.

Then there was the offer from Mike Johnson, a multiple time Trans Iowa finisher, who wanted to contribute to the cue sheet production. He and his wife, Amy, would front the paper and the money for printing to get Trans Iowa cues done for the last few events. Not only that, but they, along with Jeremy or N.Y. Roll, would help to bag the things. Mike also was a valued volunteer, often manning a chase vehicle which marked corners and watched over riders with another stellar volunteer of mine, Tony McGrane. So, between Mike, Tony, and N.Y. Roll and Jeremy, I had more help with cues and with looking after riders than I ever could have dreamed of.

Speaking of watching over riders: John and Celeste Mathias were also indispensable and always cheerfully at the ready to help watch riders during a Trans Iowa weekend and report in numbers they saw go by their totally random observation point. By the way- I never asked for them to do this. They completely did it of their own accord. Celeste's photos were greatly appreciated by many as well, and her very unique perspective was so very appreciated by myself and others. Again- all unasked for. I couldn't have gotten better help. In fact, they were the ones who shepherded a fallen rider during the last Trans Iowa, making sure that rider was cared for and that this person got the proper medical attention. I am soooo thankful for the Mathias' help during those final T.I. years!

Mike Baggio and the the rest of the Slender Fungus, (Ari Andonopoulous, Dr. Giggles, Gumby, and more) were also stalwart volunteers over the last several Trans Iowa events. I'll get into some important stuff they helped me with in the upcoming stories, but suffice it to say, these folks made my life WAY easier in terms of putting on Trans Iowa too.

By the time the last Trans Iowa rolled around, I was set for help and these people took a TON of stress off my shoulders every year. They all were ready at a moment's notice to lend a hand during the event, and immediately afterward, almost always, they were the first to say that they were in again for another one, should I decide to do a Trans Iowa the following year.

I have no idea why that was, but I was amazed, and I still am, that these folks would be willing to throw their efforts and money behind Trans Iowa. They took a lot of worry off my shoulders, that's for sure. But in some weird twist, not having to stress about those things perhaps gave me too much latitude to stress about other stuff. For whatever reasons, I ended up being emotionally flattened after almost every Trans Iowa anyway. But that certainly doesn't take away the fact that these folks and their contributions made a HUGE difference to me personally, and in terms of the event. I know that the riders were impacted positively by their efforts as well.

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