Minus Ten Review- 17 & 18

It's not a Wally Kilburg image, but this is the start of T.I.v2

Ten years ago on the blog I was chattering about- what else- Trans Iowa, of course. It was the 2nd version of the event which really made a reputation for the event as a tough, almost unfinishable challenge. Well, that's because it was unfinishable in 2006! 

Looking back at the stories, Dallas Sigudur and Lindsay Gauld only made it 119 miles in before they called it quits in Mallard, Iowa. That's the shortest length for any Trans Iowa, only because of Greg Gleason's efforts in v11 when he was the only man to make it through CP#1 and clocked off 128 miles of T.I.v11's course before pulling the plug due to time constraints. That's what happens when the weather plays its hand in a heavy way. There is nothing anyone can do. I often think v2 and v11 are related events in Trans Iowa history.

Well, the thought that no one would make it had never been conceived in our brains before T.I.v2, although we had committed to the idea of running an event that maybe no one would finish. The reality of it was amazing to us. I figured riders would be angry, but we found out it was just the opposite. People were very complimentary and asked if we were going to do this deal again.

The other thing about T.I.v2 was that it was the first to be started at 4:00am in the morning on Saturday. This was a suggestion we had gotten from Mike Curiak, but we did not implement it until the second version. This was ultimately done so we could end the event at 2:00pm in the afternoon on Sunday instead of 4:00pm, and it allowed for a longer course to be devised. Neither were reasons that Curiak said we should start then.  T.I.v2 was supposed to be about 340 miles, but obviously, that didn't happen. That length wasn't accomplished until this year's Trans Iowa. 

I made this image of the 1X1 when Jeff Kerkove still owned it.

After Trans Iowa v2 there was an immediate shift towards looking at the Dirty Kanza 200, their first edition, and my first race since 1997. Almost ten years prior to that first DK200. I used to race XC mountain bike events, but I became disenchanted with the format and the price I had to pay to ride an hour, maybe an hour and a half, and feel terrible because I hadn't won. That began to not make sense, so I cut my 1997 campaign short after only one event. So, really, I hadn't raced much since 1996, and I had no idea what I was in for at the Dirty  Kanza 200.

My ride was shown back then, and it was a single speed 29"er. I knew that previous Kansas Flint Hills Death Rides were pretty much mountain bike affairs through a couple guys I had spoken with that used to ride in that event. The Dirty Kanza was to be held in similar terrain, so I figured the new inbred 29"er was the way to go. I hadn't started using tubeless tire set ups yet back then, so I was running Nanoraptors with tubes for that event.

There was a little bit of 29"er news back then. A 29"er Race FS design was unveiled for the Fisher Race Team, and a new model was introduced from Salsa Cycles. The El Mariachi, a bike that is still in their line up all these years later.