Trans Iowa is a race. A bicycle endurance race which has run now for some eleven years. The original intent was to ride across Iowa using only gravel and dirt roads, or as many as possible excluding pavement when possible. The race was conceived as a self supported event where the riders have to carry all their water and supplies with them, using sparsely located convenience stores to resupply. It wasn’t meant to be easy.

Starting on one side of Iowa and ending on the other sounds cool, but it did pose a few problems. Like getting back to your car at the finish or if you got a ride to the start, having to have your DNF crew (only a handful of starters usually finish, sometimes no one does) hope to find you as you wait for them somewhere across the state. So the idea to make it a loop course was born and that has worked well. The race is always at least 300 miles, and this year’s was 331miles. There is a time limit too, you start at 4am Saturday and the race is called at 2 pm the following Sunday. Thirty four hours to ride 331 miles. Rider against Iowa. Iowa has wind, and its not a “nice” wind most days. And Iowa has weather too. Once in a while its good, mostly its not. Last year, tornado like conditions smothered the course for several hours in the early AM hours. Riders had to seek shelter where they could. In barns with cows, in old corn cribs, under bridges - you get the idea. But the roads remained rideable and many did finish. This year, the weather was awesome leading to the event, but the Friday before conditions worsened. A soaking rain swept in and stayed for much of the evening and into early morning, quitting for a few hours. It returned early Saturday morning, after the start of the race. A steady, wind driven soaking rain.

The race starts with a meeting Friday night, registration is part of it along with race rules, doling out the cue sheets - oh yeah, you get a set of cue sheets with navigation instructions to start but you have to get to a checkpoint to get the course’s next set of cues. There are two checkpoints, so you ride the first 54 miles to get the next cue sheets to the next checkpoint and then get the final set of cues at the second checkpoint to the finish. Pretty devious, eh? So everyone meets up. Some of us only see each other once a year during this event so there is some catching up, a few beers and lots o’ food. Volunteers (they man the checkpoints, start, and support the race in a number of ways) chat it up with the riders and the evening is filled with merriment. This year there was much talk about the rain. Also about the cool temps that moved in with the front and of course about the course condition over the next few days. Speculation was rampant.

I do ride a bicycle. I own nine of them and I have ridden 350+ miles on tours but never more than 80 or so in a day. I understand the mechanics of what these crazy riders do, I just can’t come close to doing it. I have a lot of respect for these folks. I’ve worked Trans Iowa as a volunteer for a few years and as the course photographer for a few more. I’ve worked the last checkpoint, the far one where you curl the loop to start the journey back to the finish line. I’ve seen riders exhausted. I’ve seen them press on too, pulling up some reserve energy and will to keep going. You see the riders in the most raw state that exists. Good and bad. It can choke you up. I admire everyone I have met and talked to in the years I have been a part of this race.

Saturday’s start was almost atypical. Riders were late, usually they are all there ready to rock. Early. This time, it was like they meandered on over when they got around to it. A few were truly late getting there well after the starting line took off. It was not raining, the wind wasn’t evident but we were in town, it was 4 am so the weather hadn’t woken up yet. As the photographer, I’m always nursing a nervous stomach. I know the course, the whole course since I help recon it with Mark Stevenson, the deviate that puts this thing together along with Jeremy Fry, a fellow deviate. My partner in crime, George Keslin, does the recon too but he also drives the “media” truck around the course, shuttling my butt to points where I think I will find the best shots. My nervousness stems from wondering how fast the riders will be, trying to judge where can I intercept them on the course where good photo conditions are. I’m constantly scanning my laptop which has the map on it, waypointing possible places. I usually have some “artistic” ideas in my head too, shots I would like to get if conditions allow. I work as a photographer full time, I don’t get paid anything for covering Trans Iowa unless someone buys a picture here and there. Last year a few magazines were interested in my photos so I shot that race with their needs in mind. This year it was all for me. I shoot the event because I love being part of it. I donate my time basically and try to deduct what I can off taxes at the end of the year. The ends of what you spend and what you make never meet, but thats ok. When I work at paid gigs where things are staged, its easy to do many takes to get a shot right. In a race, you have to take what you get. You can’t ask a rider to go back and do it again a few times, they are on the clock after all. So the worry about getting the shot feeds my nerves. Honest, its like this with me for any gig.

So Saturday, the race is on. I’m in the truck with George and my good friend and fellow shooter, Jason Boucher. He’s a bicycle big shot for a leading bicycle company but he is also a pretty decent shooter or photographer. If he ever learns to use a flash, he could be real good! Anyway, he knows riders and bicycles. He’s a great asset to have in the truck since I can bounce ideas off him and George. Its around 5:00 am-ish when we see the light of the riders. We are parked some 16 or so miles down course, on the side of the road and it has started to rain. I have walked the road and its mushy. More than I can remember at any time. Like walking on a big pizza with tons of cheese. We try and get shots of the first riders, but the rain kicks up, the wind is blowing real good and its darker than a coal mine. The riders wave though, they are all in good spirits somehow. They flash by. We take off and head up course to another spot and man, things get nasty fast. Mark texts that the roads are total crap. He’s way out ahead of us, scouting conditions. We go to 4WD and George has his hands full keeping us on the roads and from sliding in the ditch when we stop to shoot. Often, we have to stay in the middle of the road with flashers on. Jason and I get out often. We are in rain slickers but they don’t do much. I’m soaked after a few minutes. A few more minutes and the cold has robbed my fingers of feeling. I can barely work the shutter button. And this continues well into daylight. I get a few shots here and there and I’m mostly amazed at the stamina of the riders. They are as a bunch, pressing on. I’m in a truck and it sucks.

We get to the first B road, which is an un-maintained road in Iowa speak, and its a true mess. It can’t be ridden. I sink about 2 inches in the muck of a road just trying to stand in it and take photos. Riders come screaming in only to have to use their feet as outriggers to steady themselves enough to get off the bike and start a mile long hike-a-bike to the end of the B road. This takes a toll on the time limit and as I learn later, it takes a huge physical tool on the riders as many admitted that they used all they had to get through that an on into the first checkpoint. Back in the truck, we realize that not many if any are going to make it to the first checkpoint before the time cutoff of 8:30am. We decided to go there and wait. We wanted to head around to the other end of the B road but the roads were so bad and we were not helping with our truck sort of tearing things up pretty good. If we drove that road we were concerned how it might affect the riders efforts. So we stayed off what we could and made for the checkpoint in the splat on the map called, Guernsey. The checkpoint was under a tin roofed shelter in a town park. We pulled up and there were many folks huddled under that roof. Speculation about the race ending there was on and clock watching became the thing to do. We watched and watched and finally, with only 4-5 minutes to spare I spotted a rider coming in! Holy shit! It’s Greg Gleason! He pulled in, soaked, wrang a few cups of water from his gloves and asked for the next cues. He was told there were no more riders in, he was it but he wanted to press on and thats his right. We stay as long as there are riders. Greg left with a thrust of his arm in the air. He is the man.

We got in the truck and headed up the road backtracking to find riders. In a few short minutes we found one more, then two more heading into the checkpoint, several minutes late but they made it. We soon passed more riders. I do not know at this point how many more riders made it into the checkpoint. I believe somewhere around 30. Thats unreal. Greg Gleason got credit for winning, the team caught up to him at 123 miles into the race and he probably would have kept going except he knew then he would never make checkpoint 2 in time and the race would be called. So he downed a celebration beer, loaded his bike into the truck and returned to town. Game over. Trans Iowa Eleven had no finishers. Still, what an event. I write this some weeks later and I’m still in awe of what the riders put up with to ride this race. This race has no purse. You get nothing for riding or winning. You train for months to do it. You endure weather and terrain for 34 hours straight, you are physically and emotionally wrecked. I don’t know how to put why someone does this in words. Well, I might but it would take a long time and be a long read. I’ll just sum it up as best I can.

I’m a older, former Marine. Boot camp to me was difficult back then. It went for almost 4 months. We were pushed hard, in all weather, on flat land, mountains, and in oceans. You can quit, its allowed and you start with over 100 people in your platoon. You graduate maybe 45 or 50 so many do quit. I learned then there is something within that keeps you going. You pull deep and push hard, and when you run out, you find more strength and push even harder. You finish. Thats what Trans Iowa reminds me of. I think thats why I love being a small part of it. These riders, any rider, of Trans Iowa will always have my respect.

Thanks for reading my take on Trans Iowa, I hope it lent something to the event. Enjoy the few decent photos I have of that day. It was the longest, shortest day I can remember, if that makes any sense. Ciao…..

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