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| Another year for this as the GTDRI site header! |
The seventh Guitar Ted Death Ride Invitational turned out to be one of the iconic rides in the series. This one had a little bit of everything. Weather, great people, and a great, very memorable route. I cannot claim to have much of a hand in this ones outcome because there are always just too many wild cards in making any ride a "classic". That this ride went to "classic" status, in my opinion, right away, was due to many things far beyond my control. One of the most important parts of that was the people that showed up for this one.
That started out with meeting one of the riders the night before for a nice sit-down dinner in Grinnell. Then the next morning, when bright and early, Matt Wills came up from Lincoln, once again driving through the middle of the night to get there. That's one of the odd things about the GTDRI. The fact that I would draw riders from hundreds of miles away, from different states, yet Iowans were largely ignoring the ride up to this point. That would change in later years, but I always found it odd that Iowa cyclists were either unaware of, or ignoring gravel riding.
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| Matt Wills arrived at 5:00am after driving through the middle of the night to ride this version of the GTDRI |
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| The spectacular Sunrise was a portent of the heat, rain, and beauty to come during this ride. |
This particular GTDRI had three people drive up from Kansas, (two riders, one photographer), and the aforementioned Matt Wills who drove over from Nebraska. I had two fellow Trans Iowa riders from the Waterloo/Cedar Falls area show up in Mike and Jeremy. Courtney was also a fellow T.I. veteran and was from the Des Moines area. Craig drove over from Marion, and Dennis, a local Grinnell public defender showed up on his Fargo.
Nine of us riding. I mean, that was okay by me. I was thrilled that anyone should show up at all, but the gravel ride thing was still pretty odd yet in 2012 and I guess it took several more years for many to decide it was something worth looking into. So, pardon me for saying this, but anyone who showed up back then, well they were pioneers of gravel riding in my estimation.
But it was obvious to me by 2012 that this thing wasn't going away. Gravel riding was here to stay whether or not any tires or bikes were ever made for it. We were having way too much fun to just let this fade away by this point.
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| John Mathias cresting a steep Level B dirt road hill during the morning of the 2012 GTFRI |
Maybe the 2012 ride was even more special because it kind of marked that moment for me. The time when the gravel riding part became ingrained in the community of riders that were taking part in it then and weren't letting it go. These were the people that made this whole thing start to snowball into a really big segment of cycling.
Between 2012 and 2018, that six year period, was when "Gravel™" became what it is most like today. Pre-2012 it was an "under-the-radar" deal. I'm not saying one era was better than the other, or that anyone "missed" anything. If you feel one way or the other, that's your decision to deal with. But I saw a sea change, and to me, it all started to gain steam about at this time.
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| Mike Johnson (R) and Craig Irving climbing a Level B dirt road just North of Brooklyn, Iowa. |
We had a photographer on the seventh GTDRI, Celeste Mathias, who did a bang-up job photographing the ride. That was a first for the GTDRI and her imagery really made people look at Iowa gravel riding differently. I got a lot of comments on her images that I used in my original report on this ride. (I'll share some in my next post in this series)
Things like that made gravel riding look more appealing and fun for those who saw those reports and social media posts. The idea that having a group ride, not necessarily a race, started to take a hold of the imaginations of more people. I'd like to think that this GTDRI was a "classic" for those reasons as well.
Next: Part 2
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