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| My 330 mile setup |
On the
drive out to Iowa we had some pretty bad rainstorms, and I was pretty concerned
about my setup as far as clothing goes.
15 miles from Grinnell I decided to pull over and ride to town while
Christina drove, this way I could check out my rain gear in the rain and see
how the gravel was holding up.
Turns out the roads were bad,
really bad in fact. Bad enough that I
really didn’t feel like riding them anymore, and decided to hop on the black
top instead. About 30 yards into the
black top, while all the mud was flying off the tires, something went wrong
with my drivetrain. The chain got sucked
into the spokes, causing a predictable trend of bad things. Ruined drive side spokes, pretzeled chain and pieces of derailleur were all that was left. So I called Christina told her to cancel the
hotel and come get me, she said she would come get me and we can decide about
the hotel later. She knows I get really
antsy in the time before races, especially this one, so she didn’t take my
upset throw in the towel attitude too seriously.
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| My Pouty Face |
While
waiting for my ride, I quickly realized how much I underestimated the
cold. 38 degrees and rain is no joke. I
wish I hadn’t broken all those parts, but I am still thankful I went for that
little ride; it showed me I needed to pack some extra layers for the race. I hid from the wind behind a hay bale.
We
drove straight to the bike shop and hoped for the best, and thankfully Bikes to You was able to save my day. The All
City does not have a replaceable dropout so I was worried we wouldn’t be able
to bend it back without breaking it, but everything worked out. He straightened the hanger, put on a new
chain and derailleur, and trued the wheel.
I will still need to get those spokes replaced, but at least I was back
on the road. I would also like to mention that he set everything in the stand
and I didn’t have to make a single adjustment since. Now that’s impressive.
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| Photo from http://bikestoyou.com/ |
With that all figured out, it was
time to head to the Meat Up and get signed in. We met up with Chris Schotz and
Polly for dinner. It is nice to gather everyone up like that so we can all hang
out in a somewhat relaxed setting, even though none of us are really
relaxed. Especially when we saw what was
forecasted in the weather. After the pre-race meeting we headed back to the
hotel to get everything settled for the next morning.
Usually I don’t have a problem
sleeping before races, but hearing the rain coming down made for a pretty
restless night. I was so relieved to
open the window in the morning and see the parking lot dry. Forecast said 35%
chance of rain at 5am, so at least we would have a dry start. The wind was coming from the East and since
we had been given our cue sheets (directions) the night before, we knew the first
50 miles would be primarily head winds.
We left
town with a lead off from Guitar Ted in his truck, once we hit the gravel it
wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. We formed a lead group that was about
15 guys, then that group started to get smaller as guys dropped off. It started to rain a bit so on one of the
short tail wind sections I cranked it up and got out front a ways, then pulled
over to put on my jacket. I got back in
with group, roughly 5 guys at this point, and we headed into the wind and rain
for a particularly hard long stretch. We could see lightning around us and at
that point I basically shut the brain off and just went with it. It was a pretty horrible experience but there
was nothing to do about it other than just go.
We stayed as a group for the whole
stretch, but once we turned right and had a cross wind, the group fell apart
completely. That was about mile 25; from there it was some hills, rain, wind, and
quickly deteriorating roads.
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| Photo by Jason Boucher |
I never
bothered to find out what time the cutoffs were for each checkpoint, because
honestly I never thought I would need to know. I never would have guessed that
I wouldn’t make it to the first checkpoint in time. I assumed that if I maintained better than a
10 mph average, I would be fine. I was
wrong; to get to checkpoint 1 on time I would need a 12 mph average. I am sure
you are thinking “you couldn’t keep a 12 mph average? What kinda bike rider are
you?” The truth is though that on the good roads I could do 12-14 mph into the
wind, but on the bad roads I had to walk.
Spend an hour walking at 2 mph and all of the sudden you are not
averaging a very good speed anymore.
Riding on the bad roads was even slower than walking, the mud packs on
so thick that your tire just stops turning.
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| Photo by Jason Boucher |
I got
to the checkpoint with better than a 10 mph average, but it was not enough. I
was cut off, along with every other rider, except for one. The one rider that
made it through checkpoint 1 continued on toward checkpoint 2, but pulled the
plug later in the day when he realized he would not make it in time. No
finishers and the shortest Trans Iowa to date.
So at
least I am in shape for the rest of the season!
