melting butter...

T.I.V.6. Did it rain, yep. We're the roads a mess, oh yeah. Am I feeling like there's unfinished business, undoubtedly. Bottom line...my wife asked me if I had fun, absolutely!

Friday night we tried something a little different for a bike trip, bed & breakfast Grinnell style. The Carriage House was a quiet pleasant change-o-pace, thanks Dorothy. She gave us access to her garage which we used to prepare our bikes for the next days activities. Below: JB & M-dub enjoying the evening & attending to last minute preparations.

Butchie & Nathan were our support crew. Knowing you were available & there for us is a great feeling! Many, many thanks!
Alarm went off @ 2:15 am, breakfast in the dining room shortly thereafter. That's EB along for this adventure...
3:30 am, people start to gather at the downtown Grinnell start line...
random...
MC G-Ted & Dave Pals put on a great event...
So we roll out at 4:ooish heading for gravel in a light fog, right turn onto the gravel & "bam" the mud begins. My glasses are already wet from the fog, & withing a few 100 yards they are splattered with mud from all the stuff being kicked up from bikes around me plowing through the 1-2 inch deep mud. I quickly abandoned the glasses realizing I would be spending most of the day out of focus because eyeware was useless. I can see w/o my glasses but not perfect, lets put it this way...good enough.

The pace was high right from the start & the lead group was sorted out pretty quick with 10 of us making the final cut all the way to the first checkpoint. Fortunately myself & Cornbread were part of this group. As we tore through the dark on sloppy roads a storm moved in with heavy rain, lightning popping all around us. Some of the strikes were so close that all of our surroundings were lit up like a giant flashbulb going off. As dawn approached we made it to our first unridable MMR where we had to jump off the bikes & start walking. We managed to ride a short portion of the mile section on a grassy hill running along the side of the road.

First checkpoint had seven of our group grabbing new cuesheets & heading back out on course, C-bread, myself, & Matt Braun from Wisconsin opted for a quick refuel at the convenience store before we pushed on. Matt is a really strong rider but the combo of the hills, the mud, the fact that he was pushing a pretty big gear on his SS, & a slipping belt drive all were slowing him down. He told us to go on & we did, any other conditions & he would have been right there with us. Below: Hey Matt! Good riding with you!
Exiting the 2nd MMR section, if you notice the sun did come out for awhile & it was pretty darn nice. Made walking a mile in the mud tolerable, well maybe not...
the white shoes took a beating...
Looking back at the exit of the 2nd MMR, again we were able to ride a very short bit in the grass, but then had to dismount to trudge up a greasy hill to the exit...
We found ourselves in Pella, up until this point I had no idea where we were. When we rolled in, 5 of the 7 that had left checkpoint 1 before us were refuling there. We chatted briefly before they packed up & carried on...
messy...
C-bread & I lingered at the convenience store getting some food in us & filling bottles, as we exited town we stumbled on Dennis at another store. We joined forces & headed back out on course. Below: had to get a picture of Dennis's cargo, checkout the big bag of Peanut M&M's...
Entrance to Section 3, double track MMR. I guess this is really section 4, but g-ted re-routed a section right after Pella & we skipped the real #3. We did ride by the exit & it looked nasty like all the others so far. This one was about 90% rideable, either down the center of the double track, the grass on the sides or through the edge of the adjacent corn field. The sun has left us now & the dark clouds are forming...
C-bread approaches the double track...
It started to get a bit ugly after this. An 8 mile head wind section & as we finally closed in on about 10 miles to go to checkpoint 2 the rain returned. The roads which had tried to dry out during the day with wind and a bit of sun really struggled with the addition of more moisture. Dennis dropped off to ride his own pace & we pushed on. Probably the sloppiest stretch we encountered all day was the last 8 or so miles into checkpoint 2. We hit checkpoint 2 @ about 4:00 pm, we had been out on course for 12 hours & had only ridden 133 miles. The time cutoff was 5:00pm, I never could have imagined we would be cutting it that close. The days grind through the soft roads had put us way behind schedule, & worked over.

We rolled up to the checkpoint to find the entire lead group huddled under the tent. Everyone's fear was that making the next checkpoint probably wasn't even possible before the 1:00am cutoff. Meanwhile the steady light rain turned into a downpour as we debated our next move. I was pretty certain that I, personally, would not be able to make the 1:00am cut off let alone push on to ride the last 107 miles after checkpoint 3 to the finish. I would have to avg. at least 10mph (including stops) & based on what we had just "accomplished" it just wasn't going to work for me. The idea of riding through the night soaking wet with the likelihood of not making the cutoff's made my decision fairly easy, well sort of easy.

Some more folks trickled in to the checkpoint & a small group of us decided rather than just call it quits here we would ride paved roads back to Grinnell. We estimated it to be 50 miles with about 1/2 tailwind & 1/2 headwind...in the rain. So Dennis, Salsa Sean, Joe Mann, & myself set off just after 5:00 pm for Grinnell. The rain gave us a break for the first part of the journey but as we approached Montazuma it returned lightly at first but quickly intensified. Dennis finally pulled the plug in Montazuma & used his lifeline. Big day dude, strong ride, well done man.

The remaining three of us rolled out in a heavy rain with a nice cross tailwind which allowed us to keep a really quick pace. I knew this first 9 mile push would be short lived because we would have to turn due North eventually & ride right into the teeth of the wind & rain. We left Montazuma at 7:30 & it was getting dark fast. We made the turn North & the rain got heavier & the the wind got stronger but a beautiful thing happened...we had the most fluid rotation going over that 9 miles into the worst rain that I've ever ridden in with a 30 mph cross headwind that the miles just flew by. Perfection, steady & methodical, all 3 of us single-minded in our mission. It was one of those cycling moments when something works just like its supposed to without any discussion, each person doing exactly what is expected of them because they know how its done. It was soooo sweet.

Ended my long day with a victory. Arrived in Grinnell around 8:30pm, 16 & 1/2 hours after I left, 177 miles for the day.

For those 7 that pushed on from checkpoint 2, the race was called off about 20-25 miles later due to the insane wind & rain. Could they have made the cutoff's? Maybe, got to give them credit for pushing on. Cornbread & EB were two of them, well done boys.

what was left of my race number, #182...

MMR memory this morning...
Thanks Grinnell...
Thanks to everyone that made this happen. Looking forward to next year.

Later,

TK