It was exactly five years ago today that N.Y. Roll and I put out the word that the C.O.G. 100 had been postponed due to the pandemic. It wasn't hard to do, and we did our due diligence in researching our options. I have to laugh now looking back because, apparently, the thinking was we'd pull out of the pandemic in six months.
Ha!
Well, as we all know, it was much longer than six months. In fact, we ended up cancelling the event altogether. It ended up being the last gravel event/race I put effort into as far as being the lead/race director/promoter. I will not ever be doing anything like that again. Race/event productions, that is. That part of my life is a chapter closed now.
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| The moment the modern gravel scene started. April 23rd, 2005 |
The anniversary for the beginning of my race promotion/director days is upcoming. Soon it will be 20 years since the first Trans Iowa took place on April 23rd, 2005. Twenty years! It is amazing how long ago that is, and how unreal it seems to me that I did that.
The image above is from the roll-out from the high school parking lot on the East side of Hawarden, Iowa. I'm driving the old shop van ahead of a little more than 50 riders. (Jeff Kerkove let in a few more than the roster limit!) I am pretty sure Jeff's dad, Dave Kerkove, took this image.
What is weird about this is that I can vividly remember certain parts of the day, like they happened yesterday. I was doing something really unusual and different for myself here, although I had helped put on a mountain bike event in the late 1990's. This? It was off the charts and quite the adventure.
I'll have a big post on this anniversary coming up on April 23rd, 2025. Stay tuned....
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