The Story Of A Forced Retirement

It is very likely this was my last action as a race director

I'm kind of reminiscing today since we are coming out of the pandemic almost two years to the month that we went into it. Two years ago this week our world was changing on an hourly basis. I also was on the job of being a race promoter. I had a couple of important things to figure out for an event I was putting on with N.Y. Roll called the C.O.G.100. 

We'd put the event on for the first time in 2019, and in many ways it was a test. First of all, it was a test to see if I was really ready to call it quits in the race promotion business. Not that it was an actual 'business' in that I made a profit. Ha! Yeah.....far from it! 

But I had recently stopped Trans Iowa and N.Y. Roll thought my crazy idea for a single speed only gravel event was a good way to just, you know, test the waters and see if I'd be willing to help him put on an event that I may or may not be a part of in the future. There was talk of a two year stint for me, then maybe I'd be involved yet, or maybe N.Y. Roll would just take things over. We didn't really know what would happen exactly, but we had a loose plan going on back then for something to be continued for a time. 

So, year one of the C.O.G. went well enough and year two was coming together as planned. I had to do a recon of part of the second year's course, which was different than the previous year's course, and that was to determine a new way to do the resupply town routing. I had seen a possibility on the map, but it needed verification. Once I had that part verified, it would eliminate a possibly confusing bit we had in the original course's planned route. 

And it worked. It was going to really clean up the cues too. But when I got back home that day two years ago, the news made my heart sink. I was in contact with N.Y. Roll and we tentatively had planned on postponing the event for a year right then and there. Of course, we didn't make that official for several more days, but that decision was pretty well made right then and there.

And of course, a year later we were in no better shape, and so N.Y. Roll and I just cancelled the entire thing. In between that final cancellation in 2021 and the last recon two years ago, I discovered that 'just riding for fun' and not having anything to plan for was actually pretty liberating. Refreshed and with a load of 15+ years of planning and worrying, and  thinking all the time about events behind me, because I couldn't do those things due to the pandemic, this period brought me a sense of clarity. I was free. 

And then I knew I was done. 

The last time I did that. C.O.G. 100 from 2019.

 So, that last recon two years ago is a kind of weird, odd way to have it all end, but I'm not sad about it at all. I didn't plan on things going the way that they did, and you could say, the pandemic sort of forced my hand. But in the end, it was a good thing. I've given enough. Now its time for others to do so....

So, I know many of you secretly, (and some not-so-secretly), hope for a return of an event I put on or another, well...... That won't be happening. 

That all ended two years ago, and I just don't see myself ever doing those things in that way again.