Guitar Ted's Ride For Jacob: Part 1

Many of you long-time blog readers know I have done a long Summer ride which started out being called the "Death Ride", which then became the "Guitar Ted Death Ride Invitational", and once I went back to doing the ride solo again, it simply became the "GTDR"

I wanted to continue my tradition of "one long day in the saddle" this year, and I have been waiting for the right opportunity to arise for months. Then my son died earlier this month, and this changed a lot of things, obviously. One of those things was how I viewed this effort I wanted to put in on the bike. 

It no longer seemed appropriate to use the death ride thing anymore. Again, fairly obvious why this would be. So, when a gay pride event shut down our ability to be open at the Cedar Valley Bicycle Collective last Saturday, I was motivated to use the opportunity to do this long ride on gravel. The weather, furthermore, was forecast to be as about as perfect as one could hope for in August. Everything was coming together for this big ride. 

I decided to use my Salsa Cycles Fargo Gen I bike for this ride. I did this for a few reasons. One, I love this bike, and it has been with me for quite some time now. Secondly, I wanted to go 100% self-contained, and this bike has a ton of water bottle mounts. Plus it has the Redshift Sports Kitchen Sink handle bar with the corresponding bag which fits it. This allowed for a nice handle bar for riding and storage for food. The top tube bag was then used for repair bits only. This allowed for a set up which did not need a saddle bag or top tube frame bag.

While the bike has heavy wheels and tires, my brief test rides showed me I was going to have a momentum-machine, and coupled with the long, 180mm XT triple crank set, I was going to be okay. (I'll have more to say about this after the ride report.) 

So, the bike was set, the day was set, and all I needed to do was get a few good days of rest and get going as early as I could on Saturday morning. One note - I did ask N.Y. Roll to come along, but he had a previous engagement, so I did this ride solo. 

The route was set about three days ahead of the ride when the forecast solidified. There were to be pretty decent Northwest winds on Saturday August 23rd, and so I went North with the route with an eye to try out some roads I had not been on before. My plan took me to Janesville, Iowa, then to Shell Rock, Iowa, before heading mostly South toward New Hartford, Iowa, and then back East toward Cedar Falls and home again. I did not bother to count the mileage before the ride, leaving no expectations for this, and no mental pressure to 'achieve a goal'. 

I hand wrote cues with only road names, no mileages, as I was using Iowa DOT maps as a guide. Note: I only wrote cues from Janesville to New Hartford as I know the surrounding roads here well enough. Interestingly, this plan caused a couple of issues, which you will read about later. 

To keep this from being a novel-length post, I am breaking up my report into at least three parts. Today is Part 1, tomorrow's post will give you the first half of the ride, and Wednesday's post will bring it to the return back home. Thursday will be a gear review. 

I hope you all enjoy checking out the recap. Thanks again for reading Guitar Ted Productions!

Multiplication

 In celebration of the twentieth year of this blog, I have a few tales to tell. This post is one of them. This series will occur off and on throughout this anniversary year, I hope to illuminate some behind-the-scenes stories and highlights from the blog during this time. Enjoy!

 When I started Guitar Ted Productions in May of 2005 I had no other intentions for doing other blogs, websites, or podcasts. However; I did not take long to get myself into all three of those things. This post will be a sort of brief history of the blogs, websites, and podcasts I've been a part of throughout the years. 

You could say that Guitar Ted Productions was the second blog site I was associated with since Trans Iowa's site predated this blog by almost six months. However; I was not the one making any changes to that blog until 2007 when Trans Iowa co-founder Jeff Kerkove left for Ergon. But technically I was a part of that, so.... 

By 2006 I had an idea for a gravel ride and Jeff Kerkove felt I should "make it official" so he went ahead and set up the Guitar Ted Death Ride Invitational blog site without my knowledge and then handed it to me on a silver platter. Boom! Now I was involved in three blogs. 

A snippet of an article I wrote for "The Biking Hub"

By March of 2006 I was also a regular contributor to "The Biking Hub", an aggregator site for mountain biking articles from the web and a site started only a month and a half earlier which was trying to expand into original content. 

The editor, "Cory", (sorry! I have lost the last name to the fogs of time.), was instrumental in my early development as a writer. He took my submissions and patiently worked with me to hone my craft and become a clearer, more "professional" writer in terms of sentence structure, tone, and grammar. 

I owe a lot to Cory and the chance to become a better writer. This and the chance to start writing reviews. It was Cory's idea to do three-part reviews over time to give readers something different than the typical one-hit and done reviews which were the norm then, and still are today. I'd never seen anything done the way Cory was suggesting and I was excited to be given this template for reviews which I have stuck to ever since 2006. 

I cannot say for certain, but ever since I started doing reviews like this it seems to me other sites picked up on the style and whenever I see things like "mid-term review" or "out of the box", I cannot help but think Cory's ideas were the genesis of that style. 

So, "The Biking Hub" was my first site to write for. That lasted until 2007 when I made a switch.....

The last page posted by Twenty Nine Inches. By this point I had left the site.

 From some scattered submissions starting in late 2005 and running through 2006, my name appeared on articles on the "Twenty Nine Inches" website. Then in 2007 I went all-in on being a regular contributor. From that point on until the end of 2014 I was immersed in the big wheel world. 

My articles there came along at the height of my "influencer/reviewer/writer" status in the MTB world which gave me privileges which included flying to Monterrey to see Keith Bontrager, Gary Fisher, and Travis Brown, ride with them, and eat a home cooked meal at Keith Bontrager's home in Santa Cruz. I got to go to Deer Valley, Utah and ride. I was at Sea Otter three times. Plus several Interbikes as well. Those were crazy days and all due to the blog here. 

In 2008 I took what was a sidebar for gravel events on this blog to another blog, opened up a gravel focused chapter called "Gravel Grinder News", and started my transitioning into more of a gravel related blog here as well. Side bar: A little known fact is that the Trans Iowa history site, which was started at about the same time, was converted to Gravel Grinder News. Then I switched the Trans Iowa History site to its own Word  Press based blog. 

  Gravel Grinder News was an event calendar, then a review site toward the end of its "blog status". In 2013 Gravel Grinder News became an actual dot-com in its own right. That went on for 2013 and through 2014 before I was convinced to roll Gravel Grinder News into......

"Riding Gravel" was a site focused on gravel started by Ben Welnak, then of Colorado, back in around 2013 or so. He convinced me to join forces with him under his banner. So Gravel Grinder News went away and I became partners with Ben in Riding Gravel. 

This partnership lasted until the end of 2023 when I stepped away from doing anything for the site. This marked the first time since 2006 where I had not been contributing to a site, or writing for a site on a regular basis. 

Before I became a part-owner in Riding Gravel, I appeared on a podcast via Ben Welnak's "Mountain Bike Radio" network on a show called the "Guitar Ted Show". I would often call in and gab with Ben about Trans Iowa or early MTB/29"er history stuff. However; I was probably best known online in terms of audio when I did my "Trans Iowa Radio" broadcasts live from Trans Iowa every Spring. 

Those started with me using a few different audio-blogging services which have all - sadly- gone away so there are no archives of those reports. However; you can get a feel for what I used to do from the Emmy award winning documentary on Trans Iowa v7 called "300 miles of Gravel", by Jeff Frings. Jeff used a lot of my audio-blog posts from that 2011 event in his film and it is a great reference for any early gravel riding aficionado. You can Google it and find it online yet, I believe. 

Ben then decided to run a call-in podcast for each Trans Iowa for several years starting in 2013 for Trans Iowa v9. You can check that out HERE. 

This transitioned into the "Riding Gravel Radio Ranch" podcast which started in 2014 and ended in 2023 with a little over 100 episodes. That evolved into the "Guitar Ted Podcast" which is in season 3 now with 68 episodes as of this posting. 

I also have been a guest on several other podcasts going back to the 2010's including "The Path Less Pedaled", "The Shiftless Podcast", and also on "The Spokesmen Podcast". 

Besides the film and podcasts, I also have written feature articles for "Dirt Rag", "Bicycle Times", "Bicycle Retailer and Industry News", and was a contributor to an article in the Japanese publication "Bicycle Club". 

I also have been featured in several newspaper articles and other magazine articles. Most notably, Trans Iowa v3 was featured in a chapter of the book written by Zach Dundas called "The Renegade Sportsman" which came out in 2010. Zach shadowed me throughout the event and he captured my sleep-deprived, Red Bull fueled banter quite well, if I do say so myself. If you get a chance to read that chapter in the book, it is well worth your time to seek out. 

Finally, I also had blogs for my old employer's shop for a few years and the short-lived C.O.G. 100 also, which had its own blog site. There were the two websites I had for a bit. "The Cyclistsite" being the most notable where I and Grannygear wrote reviews on stuff not 29"er related. Then there was "650B.com" which I owned but never posted on. Ironically it is the only site I ever made money on. I sold it to someone in Alaska and I haven't seen anything of it since. Am I leaving anything out? I probably have forgotten something....

All these things because I started a blog in 2005. What was I thinking?

Where do I go from here after accomplishing all of those things? Well, ironically someone was trying to offer me a chance to write for a gravel related site as recently as a couple of weeks ago. The thing is, content writers do not get paid what they are worth, and this looked to be another pie-in-the-sky offer with no real foundational backing behind it which would lead me to believe I would not get remunerated for my talents. So, as for the future?

This blog and my podcast are enough. Time to quit multiplying my efforts all over the place! But I am eternally grateful for what I have experienced and have accomplished over these twenty years and due to this blog, really. Without Jeff Kerkove's encouragement to start writing? 

You probably would never had heard of Guitar Ted. Thanks for reading!

The GTDRI Stories: Reversed Influence

 

The recon for the 4th GTDRI was fun.

"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 the calendar turned to 2009, I was finding myself at another crossroads in terms of the website stuff I was doing. The entire network of sites I was a part of at the time was falling apart, I started another new blog about gravel grinding, and plans for a third outlet for cycling reviews was being laid. Of course, Trans Iowa, another "Big Wheeled Ballyhoo, and the next Guitar Ted Death Ride Invitational were also events I had on my "to-do" list. 

Somehow or another, I found the time to throw this route together that I had begun to conceive of around 2007. That was a big loop in Northeast Iowa. The whole idea stemmed around a suggestion for a starting point from a friend at the time. He had told me of Echo Valley State Park near West Union, Iowa. 

This time, instead of the GTDRI routes influencing Trans Iowa, Trans Iowa routes influenced the GTDRI. We had come through this area in 2008 and I had gotten a lot of great feedback on certain roads that were in the vicinity of West Union. Plus, there was a big chunk of road that never got used in T.I.v4 because it had been truncated before we got back to Decorah. So, with that already all looked at, and a bit from T.I.v3 added in, I had the majority of the course figured out without too much trouble. 

All I had to do was stitch together the loose ends of the route into a cohesive whole and then check out the bits I had not ever been on before. That mainly was the first 40 miles and maybe another 20 or so of the back half of the route. Of course, a trip to Echo Valley State Park was in order as well. 

The roads of Clayton County are pretty spectacular

I had to ascertain how camping might work out for the event. That trip also included a truck drive of the mostly flat section from Echo Valley to Elkader, which also passed through Elgin, a distance of about 25 miles along the Turkey River. 

This sector was pretty flat, and I didn't consider how brutal the rest of the course was until I had seen the bit I had to look at from Edgewood to Strawberry Point. There was, essentially, no where to rest from the hills other than the section along the Turkey river. 

This gave me pause. I decided that my including the flat portion at the end, by running the course anticlockwise, was not in the group's best interest, (if there was going to be a group, I never really knew!). So, I decided late into the planning stages to reverse the direction of the course and put the flatter part first. 

This kind of went against my initial vision of the route which had I ran it the originally conceived of way, it would have followed the T.I.v4 course exactly where I used it. But, as it turned out, the way we ran it was perfect. And we couldn't have chosen a better Summer to do this on either.

Next: The Year With No Summer

The GTDRI Stories: Reversed Influence

 

The recon for the 4th GTDRI was fun.

"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 the calendar turned to 2009, I was finding myself at another crossroads in terms of the website stuff I was doing. The entire network of sites I was a part of at the time was falling apart, I started another new blog about gravel grinding, and plans for a third outlet for cycling reviews was being laid. Of course, Trans Iowa, another "Big Wheeled Ballyhoo, and the next Guitar Ted Death Ride Invitational were also events I had on my "to-do" list. 

Somehow or another, I found the time to throw this route together that I had begun to conceive of around 2007. That was a big loop in Northeast Iowa. The whole idea stemmed around a suggestion for a starting point from a friend at the time. He had told me of Echo Valley State Park near West Union, Iowa. 

This time, instead of the GTDRI routes influencing Trans Iowa, Trans Iowa routes influenced the GTDRI. We had come through this area in 2008 and I had gotten a lot of great feedback on certain roads that were in the vicinity of West Union. Plus, there was a big chunk of road that never got used in T.I.v4 because it had been truncated before we got back to Decorah. So, with that already all looked at, and a bit from T.I.v3 added in, I had the majority of the course figured out without too much trouble. 

All I had to do was stitch together the loose ends of the route into a cohesive whole and then check out the bits I had not ever been on before. That mainly was the first 40 miles and maybe another 20 or so of the back half of the route. Of course, a trip to Echo Valley State Park was in order as well. 

The roads of Clayton County are pretty spectacular

I had to ascertain how camping might work out for the event. That trip also included a truck drive of the mostly flat section from Echo Valley to Elkader, which also passed through Elgin, a distance of about 25 miles along the Turkey River. 

This sector was pretty flat, and I didn't consider how brutal the rest of the course was until I had seen the bit I had to look at from Edgewood to Strawberry Point. There was, essentially, no where to rest from the hills other than the section along the Turkey river. 

This gave me pause. I decided that my including the flat portion at the end, by running the course anticlockwise, was not in the group's best interest, (if there was going to be a group, I never really knew!). So, I decided late into the planning stages to reverse the direction of the course and put the flatter part first. 

This kind of went against my initial vision of the route which had I ran it the originally conceived of way, it would have followed the T.I.v4 course exactly where I used it. But, as it turned out, the way we ran it was perfect. And we couldn't have chosen a better Summer to do this on either.

Next: The Year With No Summer

The GTDRI Stories: The Fargo Comes Home

Late November 2008 near Cedar Falls, Iowa

"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!

During Interbike time in 2008, Salsa Cycles announced that their newest 29'er would be an adventure bike dubbed the "Fargo". The same bike we had seen at the GTDRI only a few months earlier that was known as "Black Electrical Tape". Now it had a proper name, and the legendary model from Salsa Cycles has since carved out its own niche within cycling.

But more personal to me, and to the GTDRI in particular, was the fact that over the ensuing weeks and months since the 2008 GTDRI, I had become enamored of the whole idea behind the Fargo, or as I knew it then, the "Black Electrical Tape" bike. This proceeded to involve me in a breakout ride for the bike in Minneapolis' on the Minnesota River Bottoms Trail on the same day that Barack Obama was elected President of the USA in a historic election. A day I shall never forget.

Obviously, my association with the website, "Twentynine Inches.com" had a lot to do with this, but here's the deal- I was the only "media" person on this ride. The rest of the bunch included my friend at the time, Rob Walters, and everyone else was an employee of Quality Bicycle Products or Salsa Cycles. So, to have been invited up for this auspicious occasion was a great honor and privilege that I didn't take for granted then, nor do I now. 

All this fall-out from the GTDRI was leading to a day where I would end up coming home with the very bike I was assigned to test ride that day. Not only was this a result of GTDRI, this bike would end up being used for many future GTDRI rides. In a way, this ride, the Guitar Ted Death Ride Invitational, was made for a bike like the Fargo. The Fargo was also pretty much all about rides like the GTDRI. It was a perfect marriage.

That same bike from above as it sits today in 2022. (Notice that one of the water bottles is the same!)

Now, a full 14 years down the road, that Fargo still carries me on adventures. While the old GTDRI is a done deal, and I do not expect that I will revive the ride as it once was anytime soon, I still will do those "death rides" in the future, and I'll probably be on this bike to do them. One day, big mileage, ride-till-I-can't rides that are like the origins for the GTDRI. 

Now, they say "Never say never!", and I understand that circumstances may change, so I am not saying I wouldn't entertain a one-off revival of the GTDRI, but I don't plan on it. But, let's say it were to happen. Well, "if" it did, this is the bike I'm using for it. 

The image that graced the GTDRI home page for years is actually from the 2008 version

 Bonus: About That Image:

The above image was the one many of you that checked out the Guitar Ted Death Ride Invitational page saw when you landed there. In fact, it still is there. A weird, low angle shot of a bottle of New Belgium Beer and someone's crossed legs. A plastic bag of garbage and an unidentified figure lurk in the Sun washed background. So....why this image?

 This is from the post-ride socializing after the 2008 version. That year we were still buzzing about this new Fargo bike we knew then by the name "Black Electrical Tape". We were sitting with Jason Boucher, his family, (that's actually Jason's wife in the background), and Matt Gersib, whose crossed legs you see there. There may have been a couple of the others from the ride milling about here as well. 

I was giddy about how things had turned out and what I really wanted was to document Jason, the bike, Matt, and I because I knew then that this was a monumental moment in this ride's history. It was a monumental moment for the reasons detailed above, and for other reasons as well. Not the least of which was the friendship that was forming between myself and Matt. 

That is why this image is on the GTDRI page.  I've always had a certain affinity for this image as it represents a moment in time that became immensely important to me down the road.

So it was that the "soft debut" Fargo was one of the results of the third GTDRI. In three years, this ride had already resulted in some amazing outcomes that would endure to this day. But there were more GTDRI's to come, obviously, and next week we'll start on the next one from 2009. 

Next: Reversed Influence

The GTDRI Stories: The Fargo Comes Home

Late November 2008 near Cedar Falls, Iowa

"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!

During Interbike time in 2008, Salsa Cycles announced that their newest 29'er would be an adventure bike dubbed the "Fargo". The same bike we had seen at the GTDRI only a few months earlier that was known as "Black Electrical Tape". Now it had a proper name, and the legendary model from Salsa Cycles has since carved out its own niche within cycling.

But more personal to me, and to the GTDRI in particular, was the fact that over the ensuing weeks and months since the 2008 GTDRI, I had become enamored of the whole idea behind the Fargo, or as I knew it then, the "Black Electrical Tape" bike. This proceeded to involve me in a breakout ride for the bike in Minneapolis' on the Minnesota River Bottoms Trail on the same day that Barack Obama was elected President of the USA in a historic election. A day I shall never forget.

Obviously, my association with the website, "Twentynine Inches.com" had a lot to do with this, but here's the deal- I was the only "media" person on this ride. The rest of the bunch included my friend at the time, Rob Walters, and everyone else was an employee of Quality Bicycle Products or Salsa Cycles. So, to have been invited up for this auspicious occasion was a great honor and privilege that I didn't take for granted then, nor do I now. 

All this fall-out from the GTDRI was leading to a day where I would end up coming home with the very bike I was assigned to test ride that day. Not only was this a result of GTDRI, this bike would end up being used for many future GTDRI rides. In a way, this ride, the Guitar Ted Death Ride Invitational, was made for a bike like the Fargo. The Fargo was also pretty much all about rides like the GTDRI. It was a perfect marriage.

That same bike from above as it sits today in 2022. (Notice that one of the water bottles is the same!)

Now, a full 14 years down the road, that Fargo still carries me on adventures. While the old GTDRI is a done deal, and I do not expect that I will revive the ride as it once was anytime soon, I still will do those "death rides" in the future, and I'll probably be on this bike to do them. One day, big mileage, ride-till-I-can't rides that are like the origins for the GTDRI. 

Now, they say "Never say never!", and I understand that circumstances may change, so I am not saying I wouldn't entertain a one-off revival of the GTDRI, but I don't plan on it. But, let's say it were to happen. Well, "if" it did, this is the bike I'm using for it. 

The image that graced the GTDRI home page for years is actually from the 2008 version

 Bonus: About That Image:

The above image was the one many of you that checked out the Guitar Ted Death Ride Invitational page saw when you landed there. In fact, it still is there. A weird, low angle shot of a bottle of New Belgium Beer and someone's crossed legs. A plastic bag of garbage and an unidentified figure lurk in the Sun washed background. So....why this image?

 This is from the post-ride socializing after the 2008 version. That year we were still buzzing about this new Fargo bike we knew then by the name "Black Electrical Tape". We were sitting with Jason Boucher, his family, (that's actually Jason's wife in the background), and Matt Gersib, whose crossed legs you see there. There may have been a couple of the others from the ride milling about here as well. 

I was giddy about how things had turned out and what I really wanted was to document Jason, the bike, Matt, and I because I knew then that this was a monumental moment in this ride's history. It was a monumental moment for the reasons detailed above, and for other reasons as well. Not the least of which was the friendship that was forming between myself and Matt. 

That is why this image is on the GTDRI page.  I've always had a certain affinity for this image as it represents a moment in time that became immensely important to me down the road.

So it was that the "soft debut" Fargo was one of the results of the third GTDRI. In three years, this ride had already resulted in some amazing outcomes that would endure to this day. But there were more GTDRI's to come, obviously, and next week we'll start on the next one from 2009. 

Next: Reversed Influence

The GTDRI Stories: The Third One

 

"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!

I've noticed over the years that no matter how hard you try not to run fast out of the gate, no matter how much you tell others not to go out too fast, it never seems to work out that way. That's one of my chief memories of this GTDRI's start. maybe I secretly expected some mercy for all those beers consumed the previous evening. Maybe I expected that the others would be in a similar state as I. Whatever.....

The pace was withering, and I was not 100%, probably not even 75%, and I was just hanging on. All the while, Jason Boucher was bemoaning his "lack of fitness", and displaying a strength that spoke of something the opposite of what he was saying. I've no doubt he believed he was out of shape, but apparently his measure of that vague metric was quite a bit different than mine, or other's measure. 

But however you look at this, it was obvious that Jason and Matt Gersib (MG) had the motors to drop us at will. And they were off the front for most of the early morning hours. Now there was a reason for that as MG was plying Jason with many questions about the still secret Fargo dubbed "Black Electrical Tape" and Jason had to make sure all this was out of ear-shot of the rest of us. So, that may account for those two being out front for an extended period.

The morning fog pointed to a humid day ahead.

Michael Beck coming up on Matt Wills in blue and Jeffrey Bonsall on the right.

About ten miles into the day a Level B road that was a tad bit tacky caused us to have to stop and gather up the group.  I was thrilled about that because it gave me a moment of rest and recovery from the the previous night's shenanigans and the torrid early pace of the ride. David Pals was riding a then new Salsa Cycles Casseroll, This was the first year of the model that David was on which had caliper brakes. He was having problems with clay mucking up the caliper and eventually blocking the wheel from turning in the rear. Again, I was granted relief and the group was really good about the delay. 

(L-R) Jeffrey Bonsall, Jason Boucher, Matt Wills, Michael Beck. Clowning around with point and shoots.

The remains of a deer's leg, shot by Jason Boucher. This sparked a theme for the '08 GTDRI.

While we were fooling around, Jason Boucher, who has been a "camera nerd" for longer than I've known him, was off scouring the spot we were stopped at for some image taking opportunity. He found something. It was a gnawed off leg from some poor deer. This sparked a silly conversation and the saying, "It's all about Death!" became the catch-phrase used during the rest of the ride. 

Endless rollers met us in Tama County. Rider: Matt Wills Bike: Soulcraft custom drop bar MTB SS

Rider: David Pals Bike: Salsa Cycles Casseroll.

The riders stuck together well into Traer and one of the early uses of the station there on the East side of the road, just South of the rail road tracks. Interestingly, this place has decayed noticeably since these days described here, but back then, it was a pleasant enough stop. 

The ride then went into the heart of the "Bohemian Alps" of Tama County. These relentless, steep hills were very taxing on this very humid day of riding. This was the longest stretch with no resupply, so I don't recall much of this part. Somehow, even my original reporting on this ride glosses over that section of the ride. It isn't until we get to Garwin, Iowa where I pick up the story with any more detail.

Riders cresting a hill on a Level B Road East of Garwin, Iowa.

This GTDRI was a tough one. Several miles from the finish I had to stop and douse my overheated body with water. David Pals was not far behind me doing the same thing. We were way off the back, but in true "grassroots", gravel grinding fashion, someone came looking for us. It was Matt Wills, and once we had gathered whatever strength we could muster, David, Matt, and I pushed on to the paved road finish and back to Hickory Hills parking lot. 

The previous year we had a bit of socializing and this year of the GTDRI was no different. Out came the beers again and there was a couple of good hours of camaraderie. Jason's family came down and picked him up, and the whole mystery of "Black Electrical Tape" would carry on from this ride until September at Interbike. Meanwhile, a few of us drove over to LaPorte City for pizza. All in all, this was a successful event which eclipsed the previous two, which was a pretty hard thing to do, since those were really awesome rides as well. 

Next: The Impact Of The Third GTDRI

The GTDRI Stories: The Third One

 

"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!

I've noticed over the years that no matter how hard you try not to run fast out of the gate, no matter how much you tell others not to go out too fast, it never seems to work out that way. That's one of my chief memories of this GTDRI's start. maybe I secretly expected some mercy for all those beers consumed the previous evening. Maybe I expected that the others would be in a similar state as I. Whatever.....

The pace was withering, and I was not 100%, probably not even 75%, and I was just hanging on. All the while, Jason Boucher was bemoaning his "lack of fitness", and displaying a strength that spoke of something the opposite of what he was saying. I've no doubt he believed he was out of shape, but apparently his measure of that vague metric was quite a bit different than mine, or other's measure. 

But however you look at this, it was obvious that Jason and Matt Gersib (MG) had the motors to drop us at will. And they were off the front for most of the early morning hours. Now there was a reason for that as MG was plying Jason with many questions about the still secret Fargo dubbed "Black Electrical Tape" and Jason had to make sure all this was out of ear-shot of the rest of us. So, that may account for those two being out front for an extended period.

The morning fog pointed to a humid day ahead.

Michael Beck coming up on Matt Wills in blue and Jeffrey Bonsall on the right.

About ten miles into the day a Level B road that was a tad bit tacky caused us to have to stop and gather up the group.  I was thrilled about that because it gave me a moment of rest and recovery from the the previous night's shenanigans and the torrid early pace of the ride. David Pals was riding a then new Salsa Cycles Casseroll, This was the first year of the model that David was on which had caliper brakes. He was having problems with clay mucking up the caliper and eventually blocking the wheel from turning in the rear. Again, I was granted relief and the group was really good about the delay. 

(L-R) Jeffrey Bonsall, Jason Boucher, Matt Wills, Michael Beck. Clowning around with point and shoots.

The remains of a deer's leg, shot by Jason Boucher. This sparked a theme for the '08 GTDRI.

While we were fooling around, Jason Boucher, who has been a "camera nerd" for longer than I've known him, was off scouring the spot we were stopped at for some image taking opportunity. He found something. It was a gnawed off leg from some poor deer. This sparked a silly conversation and the saying, "It's all about Death!" became the catch-phrase used during the rest of the ride. 

Endless rollers met us in Tama County. Rider: Matt Wills Bike: Soulcraft custom drop bar MTB SS

Rider: David Pals Bike: Salsa Cycles Casseroll.

The riders stuck together well into Traer and one of the early uses of the station there on the East side of the road, just South of the rail road tracks. Interestingly, this place has decayed noticeably since these days described here, but back then, it was a pleasant enough stop. 

The ride then went into the heart of the "Bohemian Alps" of Tama County. These relentless, steep hills were very taxing on this very humid day of riding. This was the longest stretch with no resupply, so I don't recall much of this part. Somehow, even my original reporting on this ride glosses over that section of the ride. It isn't until we get to Garwin, Iowa where I pick up the story with any more detail.

Riders cresting a hill on a Level B Road East of Garwin, Iowa.

This GTDRI was a tough one. Several miles from the finish I had to stop and douse my overheated body with water. David Pals was not far behind me doing the same thing. We were way off the back, but in true "grassroots", gravel grinding fashion, someone came looking for us. It was Matt Wills, and once we had gathered whatever strength we could muster, David, Matt, and I pushed on to the paved road finish and back to Hickory Hills parking lot. 

The previous year we had a bit of socializing and this year of the GTDRI was no different. Out came the beers again and there was a couple of good hours of camaraderie. Jason's family came down and picked him up, and the whole mystery of "Black Electrical Tape" would carry on from this ride until September at Interbike. Meanwhile, a few of us drove over to LaPorte City for pizza. All in all, this was a successful event which eclipsed the previous two, which was a pretty hard thing to do, since those were really awesome rides as well. 

Next: The Impact Of The Third GTDRI

The GTDRI Stories: The Second One

  "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!

When it came to doing the second GTDRI, it was an exciting time to be in the gravel scene, such as it was. Mid-Westerners were excited about this new thing, and any new event was highly anticipated. There was a buzz around the Death Ride, but it never really manifested itself in numbers. That would be the case with this version. I had a lot of interest in the ride, but in the end, we had only six riders attend the ride. 

Again, I think the entire vibe and perception about this ride was misconstrued in so many ways. But whatever. I was excited, and I remember going down to Marengo with a lot of anticipation and concern about the weather. It was forecast to be rainy with occasional thundershowers. I ran into some pretty heavy rain coming down that morning. The plan was to meet at Doose's Cafe at 6:00am and get riding by 7:00am. 

With no sign-up or registration, I never knew who might show up. I knew David Pals would be there, and he had word that Matt Maxwell, a Trans Iowa v3 rider, would also attend. Matt was the "model" for the GTDRI webpage header that year. Jeff Kerkove took a photo from the suite of images that David Story had taken for Trans Iowa v3 and modified it to what you see above. By the way, for anyone that cares, it's P Avenue South of Traer, Iowa where that image was taken.

Rolling out under grey skies from Marengo on GTDRI 2. From L-R: Matt Maxwell, Emily Broderson, and Paul Metermann.

It was, as I have mentioned before, always a ride that had surprise visitors and a late addition. This time the surprise was Emily Broderson. She was the lone woman rider in the first Trans Iowa event. There are certain women who impress me for different reasons and Emily was a woman that left a big impression on me that day. First of all, she showed up alone to a ride where she probably was going to be the only female, and she knew that. That she had a flask of Wild Turkey that she shared with all of us was another reason why, but it is hard to put into words what it was about her. I do know she didn't shy away from tough conditions and an adventure, that's for certain! 

Paul Meyermann was the late rider addition, but honestly, he was a surprise to me as well. Paul was a quiet, industrious fellow who had been instrumental in clearing trails at Camp Ingawanis for mountain biking. He was primarily all about mountain biking and racing MTB. So when he showed up for a gravel grinder, I was a bit taken aback, But perhaps this was an influence of Jeff Kerkove, who trained for MTB endurance racing on gravel, which Paul would have been familiar with. That may be what he had in mind by showing up for this. 

Paul would later on succumb to an illness and die. He left a mark in trail clearing and creation that many in our local area have no idea about to this day, and to my mind, that is a shame. So, a shout out to Paul Meyermann here for his work to make MTB better in the Cedar Valley. 

Up at the top of the hill is David Pals, then Paul Meyermann, Matt Maxwell, and GT in the foreground here. Image by Corey Heintz.

Oh....and it rained. Hard. We were a bit concerned about how much time was being eaten up by traversing clay-mire on Level B Roads which were very steep and really slick. I went down as did Emily, as I recall. Our bicycles were jammed with mud, and had to be hoisted up or pushed along with wheels locked up from all the mud caked on the wheels. 

As David and I continued to be concerned that we wouldn't have time for the full 120 mile route, the rain did not let up. Plus, it was thundering all around us, although we never saw any lightning. This made us uneasy. So, we both knew that there was a shelter at the end of  a stretch of three nasty Level B Roads at Columbia Wildlife Refuge just a bit Southeast of Tama, Iowa. It was there that we stopped to wait out the storm.

(L-R) GT, Emily Broderson, Matt Maxwell. Image by Corey Heintz

Once we arrived at the refuge site we were so soaked that seeking shelter was not a big concern, plus the lightning and thunder seemed to have moved on by this point. Only a light rain had continued to fall. 

So, we cleaned up the bikes as best we could, rested, ate a bit, drank some of Emily's Wild Turkey, and contemplated our next move. David was pretty set on cutting a big part of the Western end of his course off to allow us to make it back to Marengo before dark. At this juncture I was just a rider. This was David's course and I didn't mind what he decided. We'd already had quite the adventurous ride up to that point anyway! 

I think it is worth noting the bicycles in the image above here as they represent the varied takes on what to ride on gravel with. First you have my Salsa Dos Niner. 29"ers were a big deal on the early gravel scene. David's Fisher Ferrous 29"er, (not pictured) was another representative of this from the time. Then you have, again what I call the most popular gravel rig of the 2000's, the Surly Cross Check which, in this case, was Matt Maxwell's choice. Emily chose a Surly Long Haul Trucker set up 1X, a unique choice which I don't recall seeing much of back in those days as a gravel bicycling choice. Another oddball choice was Corey Heintz's Surly 1X1 set up with Gazzolodi DH tires on Large Marge rims. His bike ended up being "the right bike" for the back half of the ride due to the 1X1's ability to float on the mushy gravel. Not pictured is Paul Meyermann's Specialized FS 26"er. Full suspension 26"ers were used at times and we used to see them back in the day on gravel as a choice for riding.

Emily (L) and Matt Maxwell at an old Casey's in Toledo, Iowa.

We finally decided to cut off about 30 or so miles and then we left for Tama-Toledo to find a convenience store. The image above shows the stop which was at an "original Casey's Convenience Store". For anyone not familiar, Casey's is a big chain of convenience stores which are spread across the Mid-West. Based in Iowa, we had the older stores in the chain, which were all about the size of a double-car garage and were covered in a corrugated steel painted this drab beige color. 

They were phased out in favor of larger stores right about at this time, but we did use the original Toledo location for this ride. Shortly afterward, by the next year, I think, this was shuttered and it remains an empty building along HWY 63 to this day. 

Another brief mention here about bikes. Note Corey's big tires on his green 1X1. Also, notice that Emily is using a mustache bar on her Surly. That's Paul's FS Specialized in the background. 

(L-R) Paul, David Matt, and Corey. Emily is obscured here behind Matt.

Leaving Toledo going West it became apparent that were would be fighting mushy, wet conditions all the way back to Marengo. It also got very hot and humid about this time. That hit me hard and there were some stragglers as well. This made for frequent stops to gather the group up. That slowed our progress down and then I flatted.

I was running an early tubeless set up using Bontrager's new- at the time- TLR stuff. My valve failed and I ended up sticking in a tube. This took quite a while more. The shot above is one I took as I rested from my labors a second. As I recall, Corey, on the right there, was pontificating on some subject for several minutes at that point. David later dubbed it the "Ditchweed Sermonette". If ever I do a recorded music album that name is finding its way onto a song or as the title to the project! 

It was at about that point when we were scrambling around the twisted roads Southeast of Belle Plaine that we had a check and were a bit confused by the route David had planned out. Ironically, this exact same confusion with roads had a big part in a future Trans Iowa only a couple of years later when a weary Joe Meiser called me in the dead of night with a question about this same intersection.  

Later when we had arrived at Marengo most of us retired to David's home and had pizza and beers. This would be not an uncommon theme for early gravel events where "hosts" of the rides would either provide breakfast for pre-ride or post-ride meals and beverages. I can think of several events that did this back then. 

While the route had to be shortened and we had miserable conditions, I think this was one of the most fun gravel rides I had done up to that point and it remains one of the most memorable ones I have been on.

Next: Things Change

The GTDRI Stories: The Second One

  "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!

When it came to doing the second GTDRI, it was an exciting time to be in the gravel scene, such as it was. Mid-Westerners were excited about this new thing, and any new event was highly anticipated. There was a buzz around the Death Ride, but it never really manifested itself in numbers. That would be the case with this version. I had a lot of interest in the ride, but in the end, we had only six riders attend the ride. 

Again, I think the entire vibe and perception about this ride was misconstrued in so many ways. But whatever. I was excited, and I remember going down to Marengo with a lot of anticipation and concern about the weather. It was forecast to be rainy with occasional thundershowers. I ran into some pretty heavy rain coming down that morning. The plan was to meet at Doose's Cafe at 6:00am and get riding by 7:00am. 

With no sign-up or registration, I never knew who might show up. I knew David Pals would be there, and he had word that Matt Maxwell, a Trans Iowa v3 rider, would also attend. Matt was the "model" for the GTDRI webpage header that year. Jeff Kerkove took a photo from the suite of images that David Story had taken for Trans Iowa v3 and modified it to what you see above. By the way, for anyone that cares, it's P Avenue South of Traer, Iowa where that image was taken.

Rolling out under grey skies from Marengo on GTDRI 2. From L-R: Matt Maxwell, Emily Broderson, and Paul Metermann.

It was, as I have mentioned before, always a ride that had surprise visitors and a late addition. This time the surprise was Emily Broderson. She was the lone woman rider in the first Trans Iowa event. There are certain women who impress me for different reasons and Emily was a woman that left a big impression on me that day. First of all, she showed up alone to a ride where she probably was going to be the only female, and she knew that. That she had a flask of Wild Turkey that she shared with all of us was another reason why, but it is hard to put into words what it was about her. I do know she didn't shy away from tough conditions and an adventure, that's for certain! 

Paul Meyermann was the late rider addition, but honestly, he was a surprise to me as well. Paul was a quiet, industrious fellow who had been instrumental in clearing trails at Camp Ingawanis for mountain biking. He was primarily all about mountain biking and racing MTB. So when he showed up for a gravel grinder, I was a bit taken aback, But perhaps this was an influence of Jeff Kerkove, who trained for MTB endurance racing on gravel, which Paul would have been familiar with. That may be what he had in mind by showing up for this. 

Paul would later on succumb to an illness and die. He left a mark in trail clearing and creation that many in our local area have no idea about to this day, and to my mind, that is a shame. So, a shout out to Paul Meyermann here for his work to make MTB better in the Cedar Valley. 

Up at the top of the hill is David Pals, then Paul Meyermann, Matt Maxwell, and GT in the foreground here. Image by Corey Heintz.

Oh....and it rained. Hard. We were a bit concerned about how much time was being eaten up by traversing clay-mire on Level B Roads which were very steep and really slick. I went down as did Emily, as I recall. Our bicycles were jammed with mud, and had to be hoisted up or pushed along with wheels locked up from all the mud caked on the wheels. 

As David and I continued to be concerned that we wouldn't have time for the full 120 mile route, the rain did not let up. Plus, it was thundering all around us, although we never saw any lightning. This made us uneasy. So, we both knew that there was a shelter at the end of  a stretch of three nasty Level B Roads at Columbia Wildlife Refuge just a bit Southeast of Tama, Iowa. It was there that we stopped to wait out the storm.

(L-R) GT, Emily Broderson, Matt Maxwell. Image by Corey Heintz

Once we arrived at the refuge site we were so soaked that seeking shelter was not a big concern, plus the lightning and thunder seemed to have moved on by this point. Only a light rain had continued to fall. 

So, we cleaned up the bikes as best we could, rested, ate a bit, drank some of Emily's Wild Turkey, and contemplated our next move. David was pretty set on cutting a big part of the Western end of his course off to allow us to make it back to Marengo before dark. At this juncture I was just a rider. This was David's course and I didn't mind what he decided. We'd already had quite the adventurous ride up to that point anyway! 

I think it is worth noting the bicycles in the image above here as they represent the varied takes on what to ride on gravel with. First you have my Salsa Dos Niner. 29"ers were a big deal on the early gravel scene. David's Fisher Ferrous 29"er, (not pictured) was another representative of this from the time. Then you have, again what I call the most popular gravel rig of the 2000's, the Surly Cross Check which, in this case, was Matt Maxwell's choice. Emily chose a Surly Long Haul Trucker set up 1X, a unique choice which I don't recall seeing much of back in those days as a gravel bicycling choice. Another oddball choice was Corey Heintz's Surly 1X1 set up with Gazzolodi DH tires on Large Marge rims. His bike ended up being "the right bike" for the back half of the ride due to the 1X1's ability to float on the mushy gravel. Not pictured is Paul Meyermann's Specialized FS 26"er. Full suspension 26"ers were used at times and we used to see them back in the day on gravel as a choice for riding.

Emily (L) and Matt Maxwell at an old Casey's in Toledo, Iowa.

We finally decided to cut off about 30 or so miles and then we left for Tama-Toledo to find a convenience store. The image above shows the stop which was at an "original Casey's Convenience Store". For anyone not familiar, Casey's is a big chain of convenience stores which are spread across the Mid-West. Based in Iowa, we had the older stores in the chain, which were all about the size of a double-car garage and were covered in a corrugated steel painted this drab beige color. 

They were phased out in favor of larger stores right about at this time, but we did use the original Toledo location for this ride. Shortly afterward, by the next year, I think, this was shuttered and it remains an empty building along HWY 63 to this day. 

Another brief mention here about bikes. Note Corey's big tires on his green 1X1. Also, notice that Emily is using a mustache bar on her Surly. That's Paul's FS Specialized in the background. 

(L-R) Paul, David Matt, and Corey. Emily is obscured here behind Matt.

Leaving Toledo going West it became apparent that were would be fighting mushy, wet conditions all the way back to Marengo. It also got very hot and humid about this time. That hit me hard and there were some stragglers as well. This made for frequent stops to gather the group up. That slowed our progress down and then I flatted.

I was running an early tubeless set up using Bontrager's new- at the time- TLR stuff. My valve failed and I ended up sticking in a tube. This took quite a while more. The shot above is one I took as I rested from my labors a second. As I recall, Corey, on the right there, was pontificating on some subject for several minutes at that point. David later dubbed it the "Ditchweed Sermonette". If ever I do a recorded music album that name is finding its way onto a song or as the title to the project! 

It was at about that point when we were scrambling around the twisted roads Southeast of Belle Plaine that we had a check and were a bit confused by the route David had planned out. Ironically, this exact same confusion with roads had a big part in a future Trans Iowa only a couple of years later when a weary Joe Meiser called me in the dead of night with a question about this same intersection.  

Later when we had arrived at Marengo most of us retired to David's home and had pizza and beers. This would be not an uncommon theme for early gravel events where "hosts" of the rides would either provide breakfast for pre-ride or post-ride meals and beverages. I can think of several events that did this back then. 

While the route had to be shortened and we had miserable conditions, I think this was one of the most fun gravel rides I had done up to that point and it remains one of the most memorable ones I have been on.

Next: Things Change