Rear View '20: The First Quarter

2020 kicked off with the Iowa Gravel expo Pop-up Series.

 Hello Readers! Once again I am doing the annual retrospective on what went down over the year of 2020. This post will focus on the First Quarter of the year. Other posts will cover the other quarters for a total of four, one each week of December on Thursdays.This is the first "Rear View" post of the series. 

First Quarter: This seems like it happened a decade ago, but there was a time during 2020 that was 'pre-COVID-19' in America. The year started out with my usual "State of the Gravel Scene" posts and I'll have a little to say about that later this month. The other thing I had going on was another season of the "Iowa Gravel Expo" with N.Y. Roll. We did a 'pop-up' series with two events in January and two in February at Second State Brewing. 

But the biggest news early in the year was my switch to working at a new bike shop after 17+ years at the previous shop. Andy's Bike shop was my new employer and I got started off working here and there throughout the rest of the Winter until right about when COVID hit where I was working four days a week. 

Late January and early February brought about four to five weeks of decent fat biking weather. With all the time off I had, I was digging into some rides and I actually had one of my best fat biking seasons that I've had in many a year. Even though conditions were only good for maybe a month, and I typically with the old job would have missed out on a lot of the opportunities to ride. So, not much money in that, but it was fun!

The snow was the meat in a weird gravel riding sandwich time. Great gravel riding was had from late 2019 right up through to mid-January, and then again from the mark out of the gate in March onward. "Slop Season" wasn't bad, and the roads were top notch for early riding. I also had a trip in here, my last one for a long, long time. 

T-Bock's sports bar in Decorah, Iowa where the pre-race meetings for T.I.v3 and v4 were held. Seen here in 2020.

 I went up to Decorah, Iowa on Leap Day to interview Marty Larson of the Heywood Ride for RidingGravel. It was a glorious day with Mrs. Guitar Ted and I had a wonderful time. I also was gearing up for an event I was putting on with N.Y. Roll, the C.O.G. 100, which we had to tie up a lot of loose ends for with the event set to happen on the last weekend of March, and right away, a week afterward I was to do the 10th annual Gent's Race, but as we all know, THAT never happened! 

Everything went upside down mid-March and the World as I knew it was changed. No plans mattered, and all the social and economic weirdness kicked in with a heavy dose of fear. I just was freaking out, to be honest, and just riding out in the country alone on gravel roads felt odd, like I wasn't supposed to be doing this......maybe? 

And that was the biggest thing, right? No one knew anything for certain about anything- Just stay away from people, shelter at home, wash yer hands, don't touch your face, sanitize EVERYTHING and good luck finding toilet paper. Oh,,,,,,and all the gravel events were cancelling or moving dates to Fall.

Next on the Rear View '20: April, May, and June