Things went well with the lead-up to the first Guitar Ted Death Ride Invitational. I was going to head out about 6:00am on August 19th, 2006. Who else would show up? I knew maybe of a couple of riders, but otherwise, I had absolutely no idea how many folks would engage with this idea.
As was the case for the subsequent 13 years of rides, there was a surprise or two in terms of who showed up. And in another indication of how things would go over the years, someone showed up at the last minute, and we left later than I would have liked to.
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| Original, unused maps for the first GTDRI from 2006. |
But just previous to the ride, I was in good spirits and was excited to give it a go. Here's a bit from my August 18th, 2006 post here concerning the first GTDRI.
"Well it's been a long time coming, but it's finally time to go on that long "death ride"
that I've been planning all summer long. Just an outgrowth of two
things really. One being the desire every summer to go on a long, long,
all day bicycle ride. In the past these attempts at cycling overload
would result in hours of zombie-like behavior afterwards due to
dehydration and a total lack of an understanding of nutritional needs. (
What?! You can't ride for hours and hours fueled only by a bag of Doritos at the halfway point?) The other factor leading to the incarnation of this ride was the experiences that I have had at both Trans Iowa events and at the Dirty Kanza 200 this past May.
That's pretty much the whole reasoning behind the initializing of "The Death Ride". Now I also have a small test model for what is going to be Trans Iowa V3. It'll be not only fun to throw myself into an all day cycling frenzy, but it will be all for the cause of research!"
Note the reference to Trans Iowa v3. I had decided, and Jeff deferred to my judgement on the matter, that T.I.v3 should be a big loop course. The first GTDRI was a bit of a testing ground from the saddle of a bicycle to see just how that might play out for us. Of course, I got the idea initially from my participation in the first DK200 just a couple of months prior.
I had 150 miles, or approximately that, on tap, so basically, almost a half Trans Iowa. I had pass-through towns that would mimic resupply points and checkpoint ideas. I had roads on sections of gravel I was contemplating for a future Trans Iowa. So, in a way, this was all research and testing.
The ride itself was pretty amazing. First of all, Matt Wills, a Lincoln, Nebraska resident, drove starting at midnight from his hometown and arrived just in time for the planned 6:00am start. He then rode the entire course, and turned around and drove home, all with zero sleep! So, I was floored by that to start out with. I couldn't believe someone would do that for a ride I was putting on.
In the end we had six riders including myself. I knew that the Pals brothers, David and Mark, were probably showing up, but local Jeremy Bidwell and another rider from out of town, Corey Heim, were complete surprises. Everyone was on a single speed except Jeremy who rode an old, polished aluminum Cannondale Super "V" bike with gears.
We had a stop at the convenience store in Traer, which ended up being used for several GTDRI and Trans Iowa events in the future. Then it was on to Gladbrook and another convenience store, which also saw use on a Trans Iowa or two. Here we had a 'sit-down' lunch and Mark and David Pals father, Daryl, joined us. Just after leaving this town, Mark and David dropped off the route and called it a day. Not long afterward I ran the first GTDRI across a Level B Maintenance road that figured into Trans Iowa v9.
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| GT, (L) and Corey Heim at the rest stop in Steamboat Rock, Iowa. Image by Matt Wills |
Notice that 40 ounce bottle of beer in the image above? Well, there is a funny story about that. We had been already almost 100 miles into the ride and it was late afternoon when we pulled in to Steamboat Rock and a planned resupply point. We walked into the convenience store and I recall contemplating getting an energy drink because I had been fighting the 'sleepies' before rolling in there. As I stood staring blankly at the selections, I noted Matt Wills, essentially doing the same thing as I, but in front of the bottled beer selections.
Matt turned and looked at me, and in a slightly demure, quiet voice, asked,"Would you share a 40 with me if I bought one?" I answered in the positive and so, there you go. We sat outside and quaffed a 40 of Bud heavy right there in the parking lot.
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| From earlier in the ride. (L-R) Corey Heim, GT & Mark Pals-obscured - behind Jeremy Bidwell. Then David Pals Image by Matt Wills. |
This ended up being, what I am pretty sure was, my longest ride in one-go ever. I rode from my house to Pfieffer Park in Cedar Falls to start, which is about 6 miles, and I rode back afterward. I did not compile those miles on my computer. So, I figured I probably rode 164-ish altogether there. Just slightly further than I did at the 2015 DK200 where I missed the last checkpoint cut-off by two minutes, and further than my 2016 Gravel Worlds finish.
The ride garnered a bit of attention since Matt Wills posted about it on the now defunct "Folks From Lincoln" blog, a site where the gravel scene was shown to many readers of that blog in the Nebraska area and beyond. So, I think it is safe to say that between Trans Iowa, the DK200, and the first GTDRI, we all helped stoke the fires of the early gravel scene and spread the news far and wide via the then popular blogging format.
Conversely this had almost no effect on the local Waterloo-Cedar Falls cycling scene whatsoever. It would be approximately a dozen or more years later until folks picked up on riding gravel roads in the area around Waterloo and Cedar Falls. And even then, it was pretty much the same routes. While I know of a few hardy souls that did gravel loops around New Hartford, these were, by in large, racers doing training rides. Not the general cycling public,as was the case in Lincoln, and elsewhere, for many years.
But that did not deter me. I planned on doing another GTDRI the following year, and for as long as I could foresee into the future back then.
Next: Developing Reactions To The First One
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