Four Wheels, Gravel, Dirt, and Craziness

 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! 

Today and tomorrow will feature things from Trans Iowa and how those things were featured on the blog. Then next week I'll delve into my reportage of the events here, and then we'll be done with Trans Iowa related subjects in this series, so if your are getting a little 'T.I. fatigue', I get it, but there is no denying the fact of Trans Iowa being a 'big deal' here on this blog.

Trans Iowa v2 recon was done partly with a 1996 Toyota Camry

Over the years of doing Trans Iowa I must have driven or ridden in a car for around 15,000 miles, or probably more. Most of that being on gravel roads and some Level B dirt. To do all of the recon and day-of event driving we had to use cars and trucks. This post will detail some of the vehicles which made an appearance on the blog.

A few were only referred to and never really shown fully here, like Jeff  Kerkove's Mazda 3, which did two complete passes of the first Trans Iowa course. That vehicle also was used for Trans Iowa v2 course recon. I did a bit of recon in a 1996 Toyota Camry for this version of Trans Iowa as well. Let me say here that compact cars do not make a good gravel recon vehicle! We had this confirmed later as David Pals and I used his Volkswagon Beetle on a sub-zero recon for Trans Iowa v4.

Trans Iowa v3 saw the debut of my 1991 Honda Civic hatchback wagon which I referred to as "The Dirty Blue Box". This vehicle was used for recon and the event for v3, some recon duties for v4, recon and the event for v5, and was then retired due to a failed distributor and struts which needed replacement. Those repairs being more expensive than the car was worth.

The Dirty Blue Box after getting stuck in a muddy Level B road during v4 recon.

I remember after v5 and having driven the entire weekend in that Honda. I was sooo beaten up due to the non-existent suspension and the poor ride quality of that car on gravel. Otherwise it was a nimble vehicle and amazingly adept off-pavement. I was able to push it out solo when I got stuck in a muddy Level B road once due to the lightweight nature of its construction.

I then used a 1999 Lexus as a recon and event day vehicle, one year overlapping with the Honda's service. During v4 it was the vehicle we stuck finishers in to warm them up. David Pals also used a couple of his vehicles for Trans Iowa, with the aforementioned Beetle and another Volkswagon SUV for v6.

After the Honda failed I purchased the "Truck With No Name" which had the longest run with Trans Iowa. From doing v6 recon all the way to recons for the last Trans Iowas, the "TWNN" was there. This truck was purchased with gravel travel in mind.

Although this truck was two-wheel drive, it got me through some dirt roads which I was amazed we were able to get through. Probably the most memorable moment for me in the TWNN was the half-mile drift on a muddy Level B road during T.I.v8 when I somehow managed to keep out of the ditches and thread the needle between passing cars while crossing a county blacktop.

While the TWNN served through the rest of Trans Iowa's run, we used several other vehicles through the last seven Trans Iowas which deserve mentioning, along with their owners. Most notably, Wally Kilburg and George Keslin, who used George's Ford F-150 4X4 several years in a row for recons and photography duties during several Trans Iowas.

George Keslin's F-150 immediately after fording a muddy Level B Road I thought we'd get stuck in!

Tony McGrane assessing his situation during T.I.v12

Tony McGrane always had a Ford F-150 4X4 at the ready to assist with event day at Trans Iowa also. His getting stuck in T.I.v12, and his subsequent spectacular unstucking of himself will always stand out as a chief memory for me at Trans Iowa. Tony probably used at least a couple different trucks during his volunteering days for Trans Iowa as he routinely upgraded vehicles. One note a lot of folks may not know, but Tony did the final recon to check cues for Trans Iowa v14 solo in his Ford. I'll always be grateful for that!

Matt Gersib's Subaru Forester was invaluable during the last few Trans Iowa events.

 The last vehicle and owner I will mention here is Matt Gersib's Subaru Forrester. If there ever was a chase vehicle suited for Trans Iowa, it was this one. Economical, nimble, but totally off-road capable, as evidenced when Matt drove Tama County's 270th Street Level B road. Yes! He drove through that section!

If you know this road, you will understand what a feat this was. It is something that scared the crap out of me when Matt decided to traverse this difficult, and most of the time, impassable road. But he made it and it remains as one of the best Trans Iowa ,moments I ever shared with anyone.

Of course, there are so many other vehicles and memories I could share, but these were the chief ones. I know I probably forgot someone or some cars or trucks, so if you have any chief memories which align with this post, let me know in the comments. 

Rocks And Dirt

 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!

 One of the things I used to write about here was my occasional trips to Texas which happened over the course of the first half of the 20 years of this blog. These were to see my wife's family and to let them spend time with my two kids. The side benefit was that I was able to ride in the Franklin Mountains which are right in the city of El Paso where my folks lived.

The "Tin Cowboy" of Conlen, Texas.

 We used to travel by car down I-35. We used Highway 54 starting in Wichita Kansas and then we'd go all the way across Kansas, diagonally through the Panhandle of Oklahoma, and the Panhandle of Texas, then diagonally, more or less, across New Mexico, and finally to El Paso on the very Western tip of the state of Texas. 

Along the way I kept seeing this tall, goofy looking statue in the Panhandle of Texas standing in a lawn in a tiny "spot-in-the-road" village. I kept trying to get an image of it, but I was either driving, it was at night, or I would miss getting the shot because we were doing 65 -70mph while I was trying to take the shot. After several missed opportunities, I finally got him in 2010. I know that is an odd story, but I think the "Tin Cowboy of Conlen, Texas" is a treasure from times gone by, and I doubt many know about this oddity. Sometimes I wonder if it is even still there....

The trail runs down the center of this image and off to the left.

Now on to things that actually were important to the blog here!

I never was successful in telling you dear readers about the difficulty in riding trails in the Franklin Mountains. It is hard to convey how different this type of riding is. The terrain is unforgiving, the heat is devastatingly hot and dry, and riding ten miles is akin to riding three times that much single track here. Oh, and if you are a flatlander, like myself, the elevation will kick your butt as well.

I did find one image, posted here, that might help portray the difficulty of riding in the Franklin Mountains. There is a trail running right down from the center of the image which sweeps off to the lower left as you look at it there. Notice the size of the rocks? They are mostly all loose, shifty, and if you go even a tiny bit off the tread of the trail you are met with nasty, pokey things called "plant life".

It was always fun, but always brutal and hard. Then near the end of my days riding there I discovered the West side of Franklin Mountain is where the fall out from the smelting plant had occurred and had altered the environment. ("Asarco - Look it up some time. It is a really sad story) It was then I realized why I never saw wildlife, much for plant life, and hardly anyone riding that side. It was all due to the decades of contamination. The one time I rode the East side was a revelation. People, flowers, animals.... Just crazy.

From the recon of Trans Iowa v6 in March, 2010

Those El Paso trips were generally taken during Spring Break. When I arrived back home, it was Trans Iowa time! I had loose ends to tie up, courses to check, and cue sheet production to take care of. It was always a busy, stressful month, month and a half, which led up to the event. 

I chose to show an image for this post which came from March 2010. It may look somewhat unremarkable to you, but this image represents a few things which were important to me for several years.

First, this recon was for our first Trans Iowa out of Grinnell, Iowa, and the city could not have been better to us. Grinnell had a special place in my heart then, and it still does to this day. We pulled out from in front of Bikes To You, the bike shop on Broad Street in downtown Grinnell,  a total of nine times before I put Trans Iowa to bed in 2018.

The second thing this image reminds me of is that it was the first Trans Iowa which I used the "Truck With No Name". The previous year was the swan song for the "Dirty Blue Box", my 1991 Honda Civic hatchback/wagon. That Toyota truck saw some really bad roads, and despite it being a two wheel drive vehicle, it always pulled me through. It was featured here on the blog several times.

I spent hours and hours plying Iowa's gravel roads in that truck. I finally let it go last year when I allowed my son to trade it in on a vehicle for himself. I'll tell ya, I got all the goody out of that truck! The dealer told me several weeks later they had to scrap the truck out because a frame rail on it was so rusted it was about to fall apart, which would have broken the truck in half! 

Goodbye TWNN!

Back when I needed this....

On Saturday I left the "Truck With No Name" at a dealer's lot. It wasn't mine anymore. It isn't a huge deal, as I am not emotionally attached to that vehicle, although maybe I should be? I mean, I only had it for the bulk of Trans Iowa's run and used it for the purpose of putting on that event. 

And it isn't important to most of you except perhaps maybe to a few of you who had done Trans Iowa and remember that truck leading you out to the gravel, or whatever. 

Of course, I'll have my memories. Like the time during T.I.v8 when I suddenly found myself in the midst of a Level B road after cresting a hill. It was muddy, of course, and I was going about 40-45mph and the back end came around. I had to stand on the accelerator, counter steer  holding the wheel at the limit, and I went about a half mile like that. Mud flinging everywhere, and when I came to the end of the mile I got it straightened out without it whipping to the other way, and there was a crossing at a county road. I had to hold it wide open to get up the incline to the intersection just to make it and so there would be no stopping. Fortunately I had split two crossing vehicles and there was no crashing. Yeah.... that was close!

I put in many miles of this sort of driving in the TWNN.

There were a lot of Level B Roads traversed in that two-wheel drive truck. I also had many other Trans Iowa related memories with recons, driving to and from recon starting points, and just hauling the stuff for a Trans Iowa to Grinnell and back again. 

But there were also the times that my son, Jacob, would play in the bed of that truck when he was young. Once I was looking for him all over the house. He would have been about ten or eleven then. I finally found him standing in the back of the truck. I asked him what the heck he was doing out there, and he said to me in a calm, assured tone of voice, "Someday this is going to be my truck, Dad."

I laughed then, but you know what? It really did pretty much become his truck this last couple of years. He needed it to finish college, to do his part time job as a security guard at a casino, and then as he transitioned into his full-time job as a CNC machinist. I pretty much have not had a vehicle, in all honesty, since February of this year, but since Jacob needed a vehicle with four wheel drive for Winter driving, we decided to trade the TWNN off and now I really do not have a vehicle since the 4Runner Jacob got is in his name. 

47 years ago I did not have a vehicle either, and now I don't again! Some might try to read into that, but all it means is that I chose to sacrifice my driving my own vehicle so that my son can get his career off the ground and so he did not have to spend more than his means to get this vehicle. I have a bicycle and I know how to use it, so I am fine. 

Anyway, good bye old truck! You were a good one.

Randomonium

 NOTE: Okay folks, if you haven't been around long enough here to know what a "Randomonium" post is, then here is the deal. I ramble on about all things cycling (usually, but not necessarily) in one, incohesive, bizarre post. "Randomonium", okay?

Volunteer Day:

The second round of volunteers went through the Cedar Valley Bicycle Collective on Tuesday. I hosted five fellows from the engineering groups at the Collective for four hours. 

The mission was to tear down bicycles which were not viable candidates for refurbishing and sale to collect any parts we might be able to use on rebuilds and for people looking for used parts cheap. I also had the gentlemen tearing apart wheels for bearings and bearing "cones".  We routinely use old bearing cones up for rebuilding wheels with pitted out cone races. 

Even the bearings themselves get re-used and so we keep those and sort through them later. Hopefully the nearly three dozen wheels we went through Tuesday will garner some good, usable parts, but I have to sort through all of that yet.   

Meanwhile these engineers got to use their hands on tools, (they are not allowed to due to Union rules at work), and they learned a bit about bicycle repair in the process of tearing things apart. I guess I did alright in leading them because none of them took the opportunity to complain when given the chance! They even said that they had fun!

Calling Up Old Skills:

Well, I had to dig deep, but I recalled some old repair skills I learned over twenty years ago. My car interior repair skills!

The "Truck With No Name", (2003 Toyota Tundra) had a broken inner door handle. So I got one of those off Amazon, (!!!) and watched a You Tube video, (cheating?), and then I got the door handle swapped out in about an hour. 

The worst part? Getting the circlip off the window crank with a special flattened steel tool blindly, while trying not to tear up or mar the soft, "faux leather" material that the door panel is upholstered in. Actually, that part took longer than everything else combined. 

For those familiar with this, I need not tell you more. If you are only familiar with biccyles, this is akin to internally routed cables. I know bicycle mechanics like to moan on about the difficulties of doing internally routed cables, internally routed handle bars, and pushing brake hoses around bottom brackets, but you have no idea how bad it can get. Doing car work reminded me instantly of this fact. 

Working on these crazy electrified bicycles is a close second. Yeah..... Bike mechanics have it easy in comparison. Much easier.

Source: People For Bikes. Chart seen in a "Bicycle Retailer and Industry News" article.

Big Inventory - Little Sales:

By this time of the year it was hoped that the seasonal higher sales of Summer would eat into the over-stuffed warehouses of suppliers and bicycle brands, but according to an article just published in "Bicycle Reetailer and Industry News" by Rick Vosper, this is not the case at all. 

Recent lay-offs in the industry and bankruptcy filings by various brands have indicated that the industry is in for more turmoil going into 2024. Without a surge in sales volumes, you can plainly see by the chart shown above that something has to give, and it likely won't be pretty when it does. 

What does it all mean for the average cyclist? Well, if you have the money, now and for the foreseeable future, prices will be discounted to crazy levels on many bicycles and cycling gear. But even if that sells some stuff, at the levels which are being reported now, it doesn't seem that it will be enough to even have "decent sales" volumes. 

That's because inventory levels are at a place no one has seen in their lifetimes. Record breaking levels. Crazy levels. That means that we will likely see some bad news about some companies in the future. Which companies and to what extent is anyone's guess at this point. But I think we will all be surprised at some points.

Randomonium

 NOTE: Okay folks, if you haven't been around long enough here to know what a "Randomonium" post is, then here is the deal. I ramble on about all things cycling (usually, but not necessarily) in one, incohesive, bizarre post. "Randomonium", okay?

Volunteer Day:

The second round of volunteers went through the Cedar Valley Bicycle Collective on Tuesday. I hosted five fellows from the engineering groups at the Collective for four hours. 

The mission was to tear down bicycles which were not viable candidates for refurbishing and sale to collect any parts we might be able to use on rebuilds and for people looking for used parts cheap. I also had the gentlemen tearing apart wheels for bearings and bearing "cones".  We routinely use old bearing cones up for rebuilding wheels with pitted out cone races. 

Even the bearings themselves get re-used and so we keep those and sort through them later. Hopefully the nearly three dozen wheels we went through Tuesday will garner some good, usable parts, but I have to sort through all of that yet.   

Meanwhile these engineers got to use their hands on tools, (they are not allowed to due to Union rules at work), and they learned a bit about bicycle repair in the process of tearing things apart. I guess I did alright in leading them because none of them took the opportunity to complain when given the chance! They even said that they had fun!

Calling Up Old Skills:

Well, I had to dig deep, but I recalled some old repair skills I learned over twenty years ago. My car interior repair skills!

The "Truck With No Name", (2003 Toyota Tundra) had a broken inner door handle. So I got one of those off Amazon, (!!!) and watched a You Tube video, (cheating?), and then I got the door handle swapped out in about an hour. 

The worst part? Getting the circlip off the window crank with a special flattened steel tool blindly, while trying not to tear up or mar the soft, "faux leather" material that the door panel is upholstered in. Actually, that part took longer than everything else combined. 

For those familiar with this, I need not tell you more. If you are only familiar with biccyles, this is akin to internally routed cables. I know bicycle mechanics like to moan on about the difficulties of doing internally routed cables, internally routed handle bars, and pushing brake hoses around bottom brackets, but you have no idea how bad it can get. Doing car work reminded me instantly of this fact. 

Working on these crazy electrified bicycles is a close second. Yeah..... Bike mechanics have it easy in comparison. Much easier.

Source: People For Bikes. Chart seen in a "Bicycle Retailer and Industry News" article.

Big Inventory - Little Sales:

By this time of the year it was hoped that the seasonal higher sales of Summer would eat into the over-stuffed warehouses of suppliers and bicycle brands, but according to an article just published in "Bicycle Reetailer and Industry News" by Rick Vosper, this is not the case at all. 

Recent lay-offs in the industry and bankruptcy filings by various brands have indicated that the industry is in for more turmoil going into 2024. Without a surge in sales volumes, you can plainly see by the chart shown above that something has to give, and it likely won't be pretty when it does. 

What does it all mean for the average cyclist? Well, if you have the money, now and for the foreseeable future, prices will be discounted to crazy levels on many bicycles and cycling gear. But even if that sells some stuff, at the levels which are being reported now, it doesn't seem that it will be enough to even have "decent sales" volumes. 

That's because inventory levels are at a place no one has seen in their lifetimes. Record breaking levels. Crazy levels. That means that we will likely see some bad news about some companies in the future. Which companies and to what extent is anyone's guess at this point. But I think we will all be surprised at some points.

Mending Fences

A challenging day for the family started with this.

Well.....that wasn't what I expected to do on a Friday afternoon!

It all started with a Winter storm that arrived on Thursday here. We were told for a day or two ahead of Thursday that we would get a lot of snow, but by 11:00am on Thursday nothing had fallen from the sky. Now here was my dilemma. 

My son uses the "Truck With No Name" these days as his way to get back and forth to community college classes. He's a new driver, with barely any experience, and he's maybe driven on freshly fallen snow once, maybe twice so far this Winter. Compound that with the truck, which if you know a two wheel drive truck at all, is a handful on slick surfaces. Well, then it could be understandable that a driver with a developing sense of throttle control and senses for what the wheels are doing might be at a disadvantage.  

And I thought we'd escape with a dusting,as the weather forecast was saying the snow would end soon after he left. But it didn't. It got worse and we ended up with a couple of inches, maybe more, of slick snow. Maybe I should have driven him to school.....

But maybe he needed a lesson. Well.....he got one! And he cleared out 16 feet of a woman's fencing made out of solid lumber. He knocked the bumper hard enough to loosen it up, (haven't fully diagnosed that, but it is derivable), so he didn't mess the truck up badly. But he did cause a significant amount of property damage. We had to call a tow truck to pull the vehicle off the fence and out of the ditch. Two wheel drive with no positraction, ya know? 

The end of a hard day.

The landowner was distraught as they have a dog that they like to let loose in the fenced in area, which now was not so fenced in, and they wanted a solution now. So...

Mrs. Guitar Ted, my son, and I had to buy some snow fencing, some wire, zip ties, and a wire cutter and attempt to patch the opening in 25-30mph gusting winds. This all with sub-zero wind chill. 

Now, I'm not complaining, my son had caused this property owner undue concerns and damages, so I was fine with helping out. It was just not what I had expected to have to do on a Thursday afternoon. And let's face it- I am a bicycle mechanic, not so much a fence mender! 

I'm not sure we made any difference in the situation with the fence in the moment, but we did begin to mend another fence. That being the one between two parties that maybe saw each other as adversaries in the beginning. Afterward? I cannot speak to what the landowner was feeling, but we came home and had a good discussion about how to deal with a situation like this, and to have compassion on a stranger. We learned that owning up to your responsibilities is the right thing to do, and that sometimes that can lead to better outcomes. (For one thing, the police did not issue a ticket to my son.) 

There will be consequences to come that must be dealt with. Insurance, fixing the bumper on the truck, and maybe some unforeseen issues. But I am happy and grateful it wasn't worse, and in the end, if there were lessons learned and (hopefully) remembered by my son? 

It was all worth it then.

Mending Fences

A challenging day for the family started with this.

Well.....that wasn't what I expected to do on a Friday afternoon!

It all started with a Winter storm that arrived on Thursday here. We were told for a day or two ahead of Thursday that we would get a lot of snow, but by 11:00am on Thursday nothing had fallen from the sky. Now here was my dilemma. 

My son uses the "Truck With No Name" these days as his way to get back and forth to community college classes. He's a new driver, with barely any experience, and he's maybe driven on freshly fallen snow once, maybe twice so far this Winter. Compound that with the truck, which if you know a two wheel drive truck at all, is a handful on slick surfaces. Well, then it could be understandable that a driver with a developing sense of throttle control and senses for what the wheels are doing might be at a disadvantage.  

And I thought we'd escape with a dusting,as the weather forecast was saying the snow would end soon after he left. But it didn't. It got worse and we ended up with a couple of inches, maybe more, of slick snow. Maybe I should have driven him to school.....

But maybe he needed a lesson. Well.....he got one! And he cleared out 16 feet of a woman's fencing made out of solid lumber. He knocked the bumper hard enough to loosen it up, (haven't fully diagnosed that, but it is derivable), so he didn't mess the truck up badly. But he did cause a significant amount of property damage. We had to call a tow truck to pull the vehicle off the fence and out of the ditch. Two wheel drive with no positraction, ya know? 

The end of a hard day.

The landowner was distraught as they have a dog that they like to let loose in the fenced in area, which now was not so fenced in, and they wanted a solution now. So...

Mrs. Guitar Ted, my son, and I had to buy some snow fencing, some wire, zip ties, and a wire cutter and attempt to patch the opening in 25-30mph gusting winds. This all with sub-zero wind chill. 

Now, I'm not complaining, my son had caused this property owner undue concerns and damages, so I was fine with helping out. It was just not what I had expected to have to do on a Thursday afternoon. And let's face it- I am a bicycle mechanic, not so much a fence mender! 

I'm not sure we made any difference in the situation with the fence in the moment, but we did begin to mend another fence. That being the one between two parties that maybe saw each other as adversaries in the beginning. Afterward? I cannot speak to what the landowner was feeling, but we came home and had a good discussion about how to deal with a situation like this, and to have compassion on a stranger. We learned that owning up to your responsibilities is the right thing to do, and that sometimes that can lead to better outcomes. (For one thing, the police did not issue a ticket to my son.) 

There will be consequences to come that must be dealt with. Insurance, fixing the bumper on the truck, and maybe some unforeseen issues. But I am happy and grateful it wasn't worse, and in the end, if there were lessons learned and (hopefully) remembered by my son? 

It was all worth it then.

Jacked Up

I used to get into some pretty 'out-there' situations with the ol' truck!

Just this past Sunday, another "Trans Iowa Stories" post went up. In that post, I wrote the following statement in regard to my 2003 Toyota Tundra truck:

""I have to get my truck looked over for the long day into night into day. Which reminds me. I need to find a jack for that dang thing!"

Ironically, to this day I still do not have a complete working jack for my truck! "

Apparently, one of you dear readers took particular note of that statement in red, and got busy! I know this because on Tuesday morning the UPS driver hobbled into Andy's Bike Shop where I was working as he wrestled with an odd shaped, heavy box. When I had a minute to investigate, I realized the big box was for me! What the.........!! 

Generally speaking, I am almost 100% on top of what is coming to me for reviews and whatnot in regard to RidingGravel.com. But this didn't fit anything I was expecting, in terms of size, from anyone that had promised to send me something to check out. No......this was odd. It had a strange address, and it was heavy. Not like a bicycle part would be. A rack? Maybe. But I had no one contact me about anything like this. 

Well, of course I opened it and what I found inside blew me away. Yep! You guessed it already, I am sure. Someone sent me a complete working jack for a 2003 Toyota Tundra! 

It is all there- right down to the hardware to hold it behind the front seat!

Just like it was meant to be!

So, there ya go! I even tried to unscrew and let down the original equipment spare tire and it actually came down! Now, I recall from my car mechanic days that this sort of cable/screw spare tire retention/access system would sometimes get so rusted up on vehicles we would be working on that it would not let a spare tire down. This was my greatest fear about the jack and having to make it work. But no worries! It worked like it was brand new. Amazing! Even the spare, quite dusty as you might imagine, looked fine and had air in it yet. I'll have to get it all the way out and check the pressure and inspect it for weather checking later, but for now...... Whoopee! I have a jack and my spare tire is accessible! 

My thanks are simply not enough. To whomever jumped on this and blessed me out of my socks- THANK YOU! I am humbled and amazed by this gesture of kindness. Especially in times such as they are now.

Jacked Up

I used to get into some pretty 'out-there' situations with the ol' truck!

Just this past Sunday, another "Trans Iowa Stories" post went up. In that post, I wrote the following statement in regard to my 2003 Toyota Tundra truck:

""I have to get my truck looked over for the long day into night into day. Which reminds me. I need to find a jack for that dang thing!"

Ironically, to this day I still do not have a complete working jack for my truck! "

Apparently, one of you dear readers took particular note of that statement in red, and got busy! I know this because on Tuesday morning the UPS driver hobbled into Andy's Bike Shop where I was working as he wrestled with an odd shaped, heavy box. When I had a minute to investigate, I realized the big box was for me! What the.........!! 

Generally speaking, I am almost 100% on top of what is coming to me for reviews and whatnot in regard to RidingGravel.com. But this didn't fit anything I was expecting, in terms of size, from anyone that had promised to send me something to check out. No......this was odd. It had a strange address, and it was heavy. Not like a bicycle part would be. A rack? Maybe. But I had no one contact me about anything like this. 

Well, of course I opened it and what I found inside blew me away. Yep! You guessed it already, I am sure. Someone sent me a complete working jack for a 2003 Toyota Tundra! 

It is all there- right down to the hardware to hold it behind the front seat!

Just like it was meant to be!

So, there ya go! I even tried to unscrew and let down the original equipment spare tire and it actually came down! Now, I recall from my car mechanic days that this sort of cable/screw spare tire retention/access system would sometimes get so rusted up on vehicles we would be working on that it would not let a spare tire down. This was my greatest fear about the jack and having to make it work. But no worries! It worked like it was brand new. Amazing! Even the spare, quite dusty as you might imagine, looked fine and had air in it yet. I'll have to get it all the way out and check the pressure and inspect it for weather checking later, but for now...... Whoopee! I have a jack and my spare tire is accessible! 

My thanks are simply not enough. To whomever jumped on this and blessed me out of my socks- THANK YOU! I am humbled and amazed by this gesture of kindness. Especially in times such as they are now.

Trans Iowa Stories: Here I Am Again On My Own

I've spent a LOT of time alone out in rural Iowa.

"Trans Iowa Stories" is an every Sunday post which helps tell the stories behind the event. You can check out other posts about this subject by going back to earlier Sunday posts on this blog. Thanks and enjoy!

This deal was always about relationships with people and having fun. Part of the 'fun', for me at least, was being alone. Getting away from it all is something I have to do more so than most folks. I admire any of you that can navigate living in big, metropolitan areas, because there is no way I'd make it living in places like that. In fact, I try to avoid such places. That's me. I don't take anything away from anyone else that digs being in the big city life. If you get on with that, like I said, I admire your abilities to do so.

Anyway, the point is that I relished being alone in "The Truck With No Name" doing recon and adventuring out in the rural areas of Iowa. Trans Iowa v8 probably was one of the most remote, unexplored bits of Iowa countryside I ever experienced, besides some bits of T.I.v11's course recon which no one else but Jeremy Fry experienced with me. That'll be spoken of here in upcoming "Trans Iowa Stories".

Of course, I didn't really have a choice in the matter, since David Pals had quit being the co-director, and I was determined to do this all in my way, which meant that recon and route planning were on my shoulders. I guess this made me take stock in a lot of things in my life. This time alone- hours upon hours of it- left me no choice but to think about many things in my life. Things outside of Trans Iowa, like my family, my website work, and my job as a mechanic at a bicycle shop. I did a LOT of deep thinking and what is more, I never listened to music or the radio. I watched nature as the miles rolled by, and I saw a lot of things. This led to one strange practice of mine which was in regard to how I verified a "good route".

I have given special significance to birds of prey if I see them during recon. This eagle was seen during recon for T.I.v12.

I usually mapped out a route at home using various sources like the "Iowa Sportsman's Atlas", Google Earth, and the county PDF files on the State of Iowa's Department of Transportation site. But nothing really tells you about how a course flows, how a rider might see it, or how scenic the route is unless you get out there and either ride it on a bike or drive it. Of course, the possibilities for changing a route present themselves as well. You might, for instance, see a better road choice and go with that, but a map may not show you any reasons to make that sort of change.

Sometimes as I rode along I found myself second guessing my choices, and with no one else in the truck to bounce any ideas off of, I was left to wonder. Now I have to kind of take you back to my youth for a minute to help explain what helped me in route finding over the years.

See, when I grew up, it was during the height of the use of  the chemical DDT. They used it to get rid of mosquitoes, and as a general insecticide on farms, but it was found to be environmentally dangerous to birds of prey and humans. So eventually it was banned. That's when I started seeing hawks again. Then Bald Eagles, which I never saw as a youth, started appearing while I was in my 20's. Now they are a fairly common site in Iowa, but that didn't used to be the case.

So I always took it as a good omen, a sign I was doing things right, when I saw a hawk soaring, and especially if I saw an Eagle on the proposed route. Many times, in fact I cannot recall a time this didn't pan out, the direction a hawk was flying almost always coincided with my course choices. It was as if I was getting a 'second opinion' on what I was doing. Crazy? Well......many of you will think so. I found it to be of great comfort and it seemed to work out in the end. Make of that what you will. I have my deep beliefs on the matter and I am not changing them. The point is, that is what I did, and maybe it was just too much time alone, but hawks and Eagles were a welcomed sight on those recon trips for T.I.v8 and others where I saw these birds.

From the T.I.v8 course.

It was likely during the recon for T.I.v8 where I was solidifying my plans for getting out of the website "Twentynine Inches" and plotting my escape from Trans Iowa with T.I.v10 as the endgame there. It would be 2012 when T.I.v8 would be run, and by the end of 2014 I was looking for freedom from the tyranny of all these stressors in my life, and those two things were at the top of my list.

I guess the previous Trans Iowas were to blame. From T.I.v3 and v4 to the craziness of v6 and the messy T.I.v7 cue sheet/bridge out debacle which culminated in a very personal trial with two friends. Only T.I.v5 went without much issue. I guess I figured most any Trans Iowa would be leading my emotions through a painful knothole. I didn't know how many more I could take. But I figured getting through to ten of these events would be a goal to shoot for. So, if that was the case, why not make 2014 a really big year and retire from TNI too. Sounded like a plan to me.

And I would be able to get three more chances to get Trans Iowa 'right"- v8, v9, and v10. I figured that if I couldn't get it right by then, well I'd quit anyway. But that wasn't an option, really. I mean, I was going to get it right. That's just how it was going to be. Besides having all this time alone planning Trans Iowa v8, I was also constantly bearing down on myself. I was going to do this! It was a LOT of self-induced pressure.

Next: The Story Behind "300 Miles Of Gravel".

Trans Iowa Stories: Here I Am Again On My Own

I've spent a LOT of time alone out in rural Iowa.

"Trans Iowa Stories" is an every Sunday post which helps tell the stories behind the event. You can check out other posts about this subject by going back to earlier Sunday posts on this blog. Thanks and enjoy!

This deal was always about relationships with people and having fun. Part of the 'fun', for me at least, was being alone. Getting away from it all is something I have to do more so than most folks. I admire any of you that can navigate living in big, metropolitan areas, because there is no way I'd make it living in places like that. In fact, I try to avoid such places. That's me. I don't take anything away from anyone else that digs being in the big city life. If you get on with that, like I said, I admire your abilities to do so.

Anyway, the point is that I relished being alone in "The Truck With No Name" doing recon and adventuring out in the rural areas of Iowa. Trans Iowa v8 probably was one of the most remote, unexplored bits of Iowa countryside I ever experienced, besides some bits of T.I.v11's course recon which no one else but Jeremy Fry experienced with me. That'll be spoken of here in upcoming "Trans Iowa Stories".

Of course, I didn't really have a choice in the matter, since David Pals had quit being the co-director, and I was determined to do this all in my way, which meant that recon and route planning were on my shoulders. I guess this made me take stock in a lot of things in my life. This time alone- hours upon hours of it- left me no choice but to think about many things in my life. Things outside of Trans Iowa, like my family, my website work, and my job as a mechanic at a bicycle shop. I did a LOT of deep thinking and what is more, I never listened to music or the radio. I watched nature as the miles rolled by, and I saw a lot of things. This led to one strange practice of mine which was in regard to how I verified a "good route".

I have given special significance to birds of prey if I see them during recon. This eagle was seen during recon for T.I.v12.

I usually mapped out a route at home using various sources like the "Iowa Sportsman's Atlas", Google Earth, and the county PDF files on the State of Iowa's Department of Transportation site. But nothing really tells you about how a course flows, how a rider might see it, or how scenic the route is unless you get out there and either ride it on a bike or drive it. Of course, the possibilities for changing a route present themselves as well. You might, for instance, see a better road choice and go with that, but a map may not show you any reasons to make that sort of change.

Sometimes as I rode along I found myself second guessing my choices, and with no one else in the truck to bounce any ideas off of, I was left to wonder. Now I have to kind of take you back to my youth for a minute to help explain what helped me in route finding over the years.

See, when I grew up, it was during the height of the use of  the chemical DDT. They used it to get rid of mosquitoes, and as a general insecticide on farms, but it was found to be environmentally dangerous to birds of prey and humans. So eventually it was banned. That's when I started seeing hawks again. Then Bald Eagles, which I never saw as a youth, started appearing while I was in my 20's. Now they are a fairly common site in Iowa, but that didn't used to be the case.

So I always took it as a good omen, a sign I was doing things right, when I saw a hawk soaring, and especially if I saw an Eagle on the proposed route. Many times, in fact I cannot recall a time this didn't pan out, the direction a hawk was flying almost always coincided with my course choices. It was as if I was getting a 'second opinion' on what I was doing. Crazy? Well......many of you will think so. I found it to be of great comfort and it seemed to work out in the end. Make of that what you will. I have my deep beliefs on the matter and I am not changing them. The point is, that is what I did, and maybe it was just too much time alone, but hawks and Eagles were a welcomed sight on those recon trips for T.I.v8 and others where I saw these birds.

From the T.I.v8 course.

It was likely during the recon for T.I.v8 where I was solidifying my plans for getting out of the website "Twentynine Inches" and plotting my escape from Trans Iowa with T.I.v10 as the endgame there. It would be 2012 when T.I.v8 would be run, and by the end of 2014 I was looking for freedom from the tyranny of all these stressors in my life, and those two things were at the top of my list.

I guess the previous Trans Iowas were to blame. From T.I.v3 and v4 to the craziness of v6 and the messy T.I.v7 cue sheet/bridge out debacle which culminated in a very personal trial with two friends. Only T.I.v5 went without much issue. I guess I figured most any Trans Iowa would be leading my emotions through a painful knothole. I didn't know how many more I could take. But I figured getting through to ten of these events would be a goal to shoot for. So, if that was the case, why not make 2014 a really big year and retire from TNI too. Sounded like a plan to me.

And I would be able to get three more chances to get Trans Iowa 'right"- v8, v9, and v10. I figured that if I couldn't get it right by then, well I'd quit anyway. But that wasn't an option, really. I mean, I was going to get it right. That's just how it was going to be. Besides having all this time alone planning Trans Iowa v8, I was also constantly bearing down on myself. I was going to do this! It was a LOT of self-induced pressure.

Next: The Story Behind "300 Miles Of Gravel".

C.O.G. 100 (Not Final) Recon Report

Lots of glum looking skies and dun colored landscapes during recon.

I was going to do a final recon of the C.O.G.100 course over the weekend, but the weather was too nice, and Monday it was supposed to rain. So, I figured, "Why waste a perfectly good riding day on recon when it is supposed to be ugly Monday?" In some ways, I wish I had been all wrong about this. I was right, unfortunately, and boy! Did it ever get ugly!

Rain started in before the Sun got up Monday and it stayed raining all day long. The clouds were low and with the brown vegetation everywhere, it was really quite the depressing scene out in the country.

I headed out around 8:00am and went South toward Grinnell, but I never went to the city proper, choosing instead to contact the course outside of town and then head on toward the "lollipop" section which will bring riders into the convenience store opportunity and back out again. The way I have it figured the course will overlap at one point for about a mile and a half, but it shouldn't be difficult to figure out for riders. By the way, you won't be able to short-cut the course because we will have observers at a point on the lollipop watching you. If you don't go by, you will be DQ'ed. Pretty simple. That way we will know everyone did the prescribed course.

So, anyway, I got around the lollipop part okay, but it was messy! The frost is starting to get drawn up out of the ground now and the rain was starting to make a mire out of the roads but not quite bad enough to impede my progress. It was still sketchy out there though. With about three inches of unfrozen clay on top of a harder surface of frozen, or semi-frozen road, there were times I felt out of control in the truck going 25mph.

Here you can see how the truck was pushing the gravel down into the melted road surface, but I wasn't sinking in.

The county hasn't been idle, by the way. There was a lot of evidence of fresh gravel on the roads, probably laid down over a week ago, by my estimation. Some few patches were fresher than that. With the frost coming up, it will give the roads time to recover from Winter before the end of March and I am betting on lots of fresh gravel by the time the event rolls around.

Due to a bridge reconstruction, this long climb will not be part of the C.O.G.100 after all. 

Of course, by now you've all realized that things did not go totally as planned. We had news of a bridge repair which necessitated a reroute, and that was done weeks ago here without any sight of the course down there. Well, upon laying eyes on it, what was listed as unpaved has been paved. Again ANOTHER reason that event directors and ride promoters ALWAYS should go look at the courses they come up with to verify them. So, I diddled around looking for a quick way around it but I ran into even more pavement. Why do we keep paving things here in Iowa? We can't take care of what we've got paved already. Anyway......

So, instead of wasting a bunch of time trying to figure out a route in worsening road conditions with no map, I decided to come back to G-Ted HQ and redraw the back third of the event. We will have to recon that soon, and then.......maybe......we can wrap this nonsense up and print up some cue sheets!

This steep up will be on course, so prepare your legs and choose an appropriate cog. 

I'll be getting to work here and finalizing things soon. Stay tuned! It's getting to crunch time and opportunities to wrap this up are dwindling. You'll see more on this sooner than later.

C.O.G. 100 (Not Final) Recon Report

Lots of glum looking skies and dun colored landscapes during recon.

I was going to do a final recon of the C.O.G.100 course over the weekend, but the weather was too nice, and Monday it was supposed to rain. So, I figured, "Why waste a perfectly good riding day on recon when it is supposed to be ugly Monday?" In some ways, I wish I had been all wrong about this. I was right, unfortunately, and boy! Did it ever get ugly!

Rain started in before the Sun got up Monday and it stayed raining all day long. The clouds were low and with the brown vegetation everywhere, it was really quite the depressing scene out in the country.

I headed out around 8:00am and went South toward Grinnell, but I never went to the city proper, choosing instead to contact the course outside of town and then head on toward the "lollipop" section which will bring riders into the convenience store opportunity and back out again. The way I have it figured the course will overlap at one point for about a mile and a half, but it shouldn't be difficult to figure out for riders. By the way, you won't be able to short-cut the course because we will have observers at a point on the lollipop watching you. If you don't go by, you will be DQ'ed. Pretty simple. That way we will know everyone did the prescribed course.

So, anyway, I got around the lollipop part okay, but it was messy! The frost is starting to get drawn up out of the ground now and the rain was starting to make a mire out of the roads but not quite bad enough to impede my progress. It was still sketchy out there though. With about three inches of unfrozen clay on top of a harder surface of frozen, or semi-frozen road, there were times I felt out of control in the truck going 25mph.

Here you can see how the truck was pushing the gravel down into the melted road surface, but I wasn't sinking in.

The county hasn't been idle, by the way. There was a lot of evidence of fresh gravel on the roads, probably laid down over a week ago, by my estimation. Some few patches were fresher than that. With the frost coming up, it will give the roads time to recover from Winter before the end of March and I am betting on lots of fresh gravel by the time the event rolls around.

Due to a bridge reconstruction, this long climb will not be part of the C.O.G.100 after all. 

Of course, by now you've all realized that things did not go totally as planned. We had news of a bridge repair which necessitated a reroute, and that was done weeks ago here without any sight of the course down there. Well, upon laying eyes on it, what was listed as unpaved has been paved. Again ANOTHER reason that event directors and ride promoters ALWAYS should go look at the courses they come up with to verify them. So, I diddled around looking for a quick way around it but I ran into even more pavement. Why do we keep paving things here in Iowa? We can't take care of what we've got paved already. Anyway......

So, instead of wasting a bunch of time trying to figure out a route in worsening road conditions with no map, I decided to come back to G-Ted HQ and redraw the back third of the event. We will have to recon that soon, and then.......maybe......we can wrap this nonsense up and print up some cue sheets!

This steep up will be on course, so prepare your legs and choose an appropriate cog. 

I'll be getting to work here and finalizing things soon. Stay tuned! It's getting to crunch time and opportunities to wrap this up are dwindling. You'll see more on this sooner than later.

Minus Ten Review 2009-46

Breaking in the "Truck With No Name" right by doing recon for T.I.v6

Ten years ago this week I was doing recon for Trans Iowa v6 and then it was a meeting with the Grinnell folks, then it was all T.I.v6 registration for the remainder of the week.

I should probably hold off on some of this for the "Trans Iowa Stories" series, (next post will be up tomorrow), but I will say a bit here, since nothing else was really on the blog that week ten years ago but T.I.v6 stuff.

I chose today's image because it represents a bit of skullduggery that I used to pull off whenever I did Trans Iowa related posts on the blog. You must remember that there never were any leaks or even much of any hinting about our courses. The directions and even many features concerning T.I. courses was always kept very close to the vest. I also understood that many folks would be trying to piece together what I was up to based upon my imagery here. So, I was cognizant of many things whenever posting recon images for Trans Iowa. (This goes for C.O.G. 100 pics as well, by the way.)

• I never posted any images with the corner "street signs", as this would give away position and may lead to folks guessing the course direction, and/or allowing for cheating, or for folks to camp out at those spots hoping to be spectators, ( or aiding in cheating). 
• I tried to be cagey with images of bridges, or identifiable structures. (See above for reasons why)
• I never posted village images for obvious reasons. 
• I would sprinkle in images from places not on the T.I. course. (See today's image, ostensibly from T.I.v6, but not actually on the course)
• I would post images out of order to throw off folks thinking they could tell which direction I was going in from shadows and the position of the Sun in imagery. 

And y'all probably thought I was just blithely posting images from my recon, and as well you should have. But I was always trying to think about the cheaters.

Minus Ten Review 2009-46

Breaking in the "Truck With No Name" right by doing recon for T.I.v6

Ten years ago this week I was doing recon for Trans Iowa v6 and then it was a meeting with the Grinnell folks, then it was all T.I.v6 registration for the remainder of the week.

I should probably hold off on some of this for the "Trans Iowa Stories" series, (next post will be up tomorrow), but I will say a bit here, since nothing else was really on the blog that week ten years ago but T.I.v6 stuff.

I chose today's image because it represents a bit of skullduggery that I used to pull off whenever I did Trans Iowa related posts on the blog. You must remember that there never were any leaks or even much of any hinting about our courses. The directions and even many features concerning T.I. courses was always kept very close to the vest. I also understood that many folks would be trying to piece together what I was up to based upon my imagery here. So, I was cognizant of many things whenever posting recon images for Trans Iowa. (This goes for C.O.G. 100 pics as well, by the way.)

• I never posted any images with the corner "street signs", as this would give away position and may lead to folks guessing the course direction, and/or allowing for cheating, or for folks to camp out at those spots hoping to be spectators, ( or aiding in cheating). 
• I tried to be cagey with images of bridges, or identifiable structures. (See above for reasons why)
• I never posted village images for obvious reasons. 
• I would sprinkle in images from places not on the T.I. course. (See today's image, ostensibly from T.I.v6, but not actually on the course)
• I would post images out of order to throw off folks thinking they could tell which direction I was going in from shadows and the position of the Sun in imagery. 

And y'all probably thought I was just blithely posting images from my recon, and as well you should have. But I was always trying to think about the cheaters.