Trans Iowa in a Nutshell

A quick thought or two after the race.

For me, it was the toughest I have worked to go so little.

Going in, I knew if it was windy I would be screwed. And that's exactly what happened. For me, I'm more of a participant than a competitor and boy did that show. Friday night's prerace meeting, I was really questioning my decision on even being there, considering all the racer types in the room. But I pretty much figured, hey, starting the event is half the battle. And I was most definitely going to start the event.

It was in the mid 30's at the start, with wind chills probably in the 20's. Light snow falling. 20 mph winds with gusts probably up to 30 or more. I figured I would be warmed up after the first hill, I was wrong. I froze for the first hour. I thought it would get better, but it didn't. By the end of the third hour, I had put on all the gear that I had and I was slightly better. At hour 4 in the pelting snow, I called it quits and phoned my wife to get me in the next town. It took 2 more hours to get there. I missed two turns along the way. I rode for about 45 miles in those 6 hours. It was very tough mentally for me. Besides being really cold, the body felt well. I just need to train harder so that I have more power so that I can put out when the wind is like that. I also need to rethink my bike choice. I rode what I had, a mountain bike. I put a frame bag on that and it pretty much ended up being a sail in that strong wind. I was really lucky not to have gone down a few times with the gusts.

In the end, 55 people started, with only 5 completing. The race was shorten to 240 miles because of bad road conditions. There were trees down, water over the road and a mud slide.

I took pictures over the 6 hours that I was out and drove the course afterwards to show my wife and kids where I was, taking more photos. I will have those up in the next few days along with a longer write up.