The GTDRI Stories: Things Change

I was busy in 2008!

 "The GTDRI Stories" is a series telling the history, untold tales, and showing the sights from the run of Guitar Ted Death Ride Invitationals. This series will run on Sundays. Thanks for reading!

As 2007 closed out and 2008 dawned, I was in a state of flux concerning almost everything that I was doing that related to bicycles. My job in the shop shifted to where I was the sole mechanic, my role in website reviewing and story-telling was expanding, and I had events to produce and run like never before. 

How I managed to navigate all of it still is an amazing thing to my mind, but one thing that was deep down inside me was getting shoved to the back and this caused me no small amount of internal grief. That 'thing' was gravel riding and just having fun on a bicycle. 

Circumstances were forcing me to shove the gravel riding part of me back and advance the MTB side of things, which, at the time, seemed wise. I was being promised a paycheck for my work and opinions. I had people believing in me and giving me a lot of support. I was 'on the radar' of a lot of companies and industry folks. 

It was a heady time, and I fell for some things that, in retrospect, I shouldn't have. One big one back then was the idea that I should have put on this industry festival for 29"ers. I was involved with it the year before, but in reality, I thought it should not have been so organized and deeply rooted into the bike industry as some wanted it to be. But again- my fault for believing a fantasy. I was led astray. It is something I deeply regret getting in to. 

This and the rest of the 29"er thing was pulling me back from my gravel side, where I truly felt at home and most comfortable. But you know what they say, "comfort kills", and maybe what I went through was necessary. I don't know. But one thing is for certain- I am where I am at because of all of it.

The main thing for this story is that I had grander plans for the 2008 Guitar Ted Death Ride Invitational, but due to a very poor weather run for most of the first half of 2008, and the above stresses described already, I had to pull back my plans and do a route more local to me. That way I could ride it and drive it and not be gone all day long. 

A family trip to El Paso, Texas saw me riding in the desert.

The route was based out of Hickory Hills because I needed to accommodate riders coming in from out of town which I knew about beforehand. Part of this was wrapped up in my efforts as a reviewer of 29"er stuff. 

I had already done some looking around in this area by bicycle, and it wasn't the first time for a gravel ride in Tama County. There was the first GTDRI which covered some of the same territory as this 2008 version would. Trans Iowa v3 made a brief visit to the Northern part of the county,so I had some familiarity with that, but this time I would be poking around deeper into things. 

David Pals' maps he had given me did a great job of helping with the details and between what I already knew about and the bits I connected it all with, recon would be far easier than it would have been with my original idea, which had been inspired by Rob. He was a man who was helping me at that time with the 29"er things I was doing. That route would have to wait for another year though. 

The original right margin on the GTDRI site by Jeff Kerkove.

 So, as 2008 evolved we in the 29"er community became aware of a new model being developed by Salsa Cycles. The Brand Manager at that time was Jason Boucher, the same man who had sent me that email in 2007 encouraging me to continue on with Trans Iowa. He was giving out tantalizing hints as to what this bike was. It was a very exciting time and several of us were keenly interested in these tidbits of info.

Now, normally that wouldn't be a big thing in the world of gravel and this event I am writing about, only, it was. And it still resonates to this day. What happened in the Summer of 2008 and this GTDRI ride are a part of gravel grinding history not many people know about.

Next "Black Electrical Tape"