mehr infos
Donnerstag, 15. Mai 2014
JO DAVIESS DRIFTER 150
mehr infos
Dienstag, 13. Mai 2014
HamburgXBungsberg am 6.09
nicht nur gravel aber....
ca 200 km auf dem X- Weg
Start 7:00 Uhr
maximal 13 Stunden (dann wird es dunkel)
mehr infos gibts demnächst
ca 200 km auf dem X- Weg
Start 7:00 Uhr
maximal 13 Stunden (dann wird es dunkel)
mehr infos gibts demnächst
Montag, 12. Mai 2014
Renntage in der City Nord- MZF
 |
| Foto: Helmut |
Für einen Podiumsplatz reichte es heute noch nicht...
Ein paar Runden brauchten wir schon, um uns zu sortieren, einzufahren, warmzufahren- doch dann, ca ab Km 20 lief es richtig rund und die Trikots waren bunt.
So etwas machen wir noch mal, war die ungeteilte Meinung am Ende.
Anmajas Bericht
Freitag, 9. Mai 2014
Guitar Ted´s Berichte
Bericht des Veranstalters findet man in seinem blog.
Der Bericht ist mehrteilig und in umgekehrter Reighenfolge zu lesen.
Hier ein Teil, der besonders für mich interessant war:
http://g-tedproductions.blogspot.de/2014/05/trans-iowa-v10-hop-skip-and-jump.html
Now it was a bit chaotic at the re-routing spot as everyone but myself understood that I was driving Gerald, the German rider Ari and the guys found out on the highway, and Ari back to Grinnell. Once I got that straightened out in my head, we stuffed Gerald in between Ari and myself in my standard cab truck and we got out of there just as a few more riders were coming up. It was really starting to rain hard by this time.
The scene was of high winds, heavy rain, and this crazy, colored lightning in red and orange. We surmised it was due to all the low level dust in the air being driven along by the East wind. It was hellish but spectacular and beautiful. I was glad to be doing something now after sitting at that spot in the road for probably two plus hours. So I had hopped into the truck now with a befuddled and very tired German and an amped up Ari. Gerald was telling us how he just needed to sleep, if even for an hour, during these longer events. Ari looked down at him and said, "Sleeping is for babies!". I jumped right in on that. I started in with "Yeah! This is America! We don't sleep here! 24-7!!!", as I pumped my fist in the air.
I am sure that Gerald was a bit concerned with his predicament just then. Stuck between two enormous, amped up, crazy Americans in a pickup truck in a storm of epic proportions in a foreign country in the middle of the night in rural Iowa. Yeah.......I bet that was exactly what he was looking for when he signed up for Trans Iowa!
Well, Ari and I did settle down and Gerald spoke of his cycling experiences in Germany and about perhaps doing a similar backroad event in his homeland. Ari and I encouraged him in this. Then Gerald fell silent for a bit as Ari and I continued our chatter. Ari suddenly pointed to Gerald. His chin was bouncing off his chest in slumber. I remembered that he had spent an entire day on a bicycle in crazy winds on steep hills. It was the middle of the night now, and the rain had stopped, the lightning had moved Northward and Eastward, and the road was.......completely dry!
That's just a testament to how hard the wind was really blowing. Plus, as Ari said, the storm seemed to be all bark and no bite. It really didn't rain all that much. That's not to take away from the wind and lightning part of it, which more than made up for the lack of rain!
By the time we reached Grinnell, Gerald was back awake and talking with Ari about places in Germany they both were familiar with. We pulled up to the motel and Ari opened the door and immediately I hear a crash of breaking glass. It was a bottle of home brewed IPA Mark Johnson had given me. Ari jumped out, let Gerald retrieve his things and he disappeared into the motel. Meanwhile, Ari is picking up bits of broken beer bottle glass ten feet in front of the Comfort Inn & Suites front door at 2:00am Sunday morning. It was kind of funny at the moment.
Weitere Berichte und Bilder gibt es hier : http://www.transiowa.blogspot.de/
Der Bericht ist mehrteilig und in umgekehrter Reighenfolge zu lesen.
Hier ein Teil, der besonders für mich interessant war:
http://g-tedproductions.blogspot.de/2014/05/trans-iowa-v10-hop-skip-and-jump.html
Now it was a bit chaotic at the re-routing spot as everyone but myself understood that I was driving Gerald, the German rider Ari and the guys found out on the highway, and Ari back to Grinnell. Once I got that straightened out in my head, we stuffed Gerald in between Ari and myself in my standard cab truck and we got out of there just as a few more riders were coming up. It was really starting to rain hard by this time.
The scene was of high winds, heavy rain, and this crazy, colored lightning in red and orange. We surmised it was due to all the low level dust in the air being driven along by the East wind. It was hellish but spectacular and beautiful. I was glad to be doing something now after sitting at that spot in the road for probably two plus hours. So I had hopped into the truck now with a befuddled and very tired German and an amped up Ari. Gerald was telling us how he just needed to sleep, if even for an hour, during these longer events. Ari looked down at him and said, "Sleeping is for babies!". I jumped right in on that. I started in with "Yeah! This is America! We don't sleep here! 24-7!!!", as I pumped my fist in the air.
I am sure that Gerald was a bit concerned with his predicament just then. Stuck between two enormous, amped up, crazy Americans in a pickup truck in a storm of epic proportions in a foreign country in the middle of the night in rural Iowa. Yeah.......I bet that was exactly what he was looking for when he signed up for Trans Iowa!
Well, Ari and I did settle down and Gerald spoke of his cycling experiences in Germany and about perhaps doing a similar backroad event in his homeland. Ari and I encouraged him in this. Then Gerald fell silent for a bit as Ari and I continued our chatter. Ari suddenly pointed to Gerald. His chin was bouncing off his chest in slumber. I remembered that he had spent an entire day on a bicycle in crazy winds on steep hills. It was the middle of the night now, and the rain had stopped, the lightning had moved Northward and Eastward, and the road was.......completely dry!
That's just a testament to how hard the wind was really blowing. Plus, as Ari said, the storm seemed to be all bark and no bite. It really didn't rain all that much. That's not to take away from the wind and lightning part of it, which more than made up for the lack of rain!
By the time we reached Grinnell, Gerald was back awake and talking with Ari about places in Germany they both were familiar with. We pulled up to the motel and Ari opened the door and immediately I hear a crash of breaking glass. It was a bottle of home brewed IPA Mark Johnson had given me. Ari jumped out, let Gerald retrieve his things and he disappeared into the motel. Meanwhile, Ari is picking up bits of broken beer bottle glass ten feet in front of the Comfort Inn & Suites front door at 2:00am Sunday morning. It was kind of funny at the moment.
Weitere Berichte und Bilder gibt es hier : http://www.transiowa.blogspot.de/
Mark, Ari and Slender Fungus....
Ari, President der
Slender Fungus Cycling Association
schreibt in seinem blog:
".....On a very, very long stretch of road we spotted what we were sure was a bike light. Indeed it was Gerald, from Germany, throwing in the towel and trying to get back to Grinnell. We took him in and told him a big storm was coming Iowa style. He rode with us and we chatted and cracked jokes. He was cold and tired but was happy to hang out with the American weirdos.
We met up with GT after TJ could not find the right intersection. We went down some steep dirt roads into darkness that I thought would swallow us.
I was relieved to find GT. He was standing on a corner in the middle of God's Country. Lightning was all around him and it was a very surreal image. Lightning bolts were coming down vertically, horizontally and in different colors probably due to the dust in the air. What a crazy freak show! TJ and Bonk King manned the corner and GT, Gerald and I packed into the Truck with no name. WE drove back to Grinnell to drop Gerald off...."
weiterlesen
Slender Fungus Cycling Association
schreibt in seinem blog:
".....On a very, very long stretch of road we spotted what we were sure was a bike light. Indeed it was Gerald, from Germany, throwing in the towel and trying to get back to Grinnell. We took him in and told him a big storm was coming Iowa style. He rode with us and we chatted and cracked jokes. He was cold and tired but was happy to hang out with the American weirdos.
We met up with GT after TJ could not find the right intersection. We went down some steep dirt roads into darkness that I thought would swallow us.
I was relieved to find GT. He was standing on a corner in the middle of God's Country. Lightning was all around him and it was a very surreal image. Lightning bolts were coming down vertically, horizontally and in different colors probably due to the dust in the air. What a crazy freak show! TJ and Bonk King manned the corner and GT, Gerald and I packed into the Truck with no name. WE drove back to Grinnell to drop Gerald off...."
weiterlesen
 |
| GT und Ari im "truck ohne Namen" aber mit bassigem Sound |
Donnerstag, 8. Mai 2014
Gravel Riding
Endlich ist mein Bericht fertig geworden und ich kann mich wieder neuen "Abenteuern" stellen.
Mein Englisch ist nicht so gut; so dass Ralf (der "HFS- Engländer") Korrektur lesen musste.
Und das sah dann so aus: --Let's startme tell you from the beginning.-- sechs setzen!
Ok, aber warum ein Bericht in englisch in einem deutschsprachigem blog?
Nun, der Randonneur Ostholstein versteht sich als Weltbürger, besucht und schreibt Berichte auch über die Grenzen Ostholsteins hinweg. (das ist jetzt nicht politisch - macht einfach nur Spass!)
Und damit auch andere Trans Iowa Teilnehmer den Bericht lesen können....
Es gibt auch eine deutsche Version:
deutscher Text
nun zum Bericht:
Thursday 1. May
Back in germany. A great event and an adventure is over.
After a long time of preparation, in the end I looked forward to go to Iowa.
Each day I checked the weather forecast. It seemed to be not too bad. Guitar Ted has warned us quite often and I thought that he exaggerated a little bit. But now I know....
Let's start from the beginning. Ralf and me came to Chicago on Wednesday, hired a car to go to Grinnell on the same day and checked in at the Comfort Inn & suites. We got a special rate- so everything went fine.
Thursday 24.04.
Had breakfast- lots of coffee in a styrofoam cup. I have to buy one of ceramic later!
We assembled our bikes and our first ride on Iowa's gravel roads took us first to the barn at the finish line and then to Grinnell´s bicycle shop"Bikes to you", where the race should start on Saturday 4 am.
We met Craig, the owner of the shop, preparing his bike for the race. He´s going to take part for the first time, too. So lots of talking about the race, the bike and others started.
We changed the place- the "black alley deli" is not so far next door.
We got a good coffee and cake twice. I bought a coffee mug at the shop for a reasonable price, because I can't drink coffee from a styrofoam cup all week long!
On Thursday it rained a lot and we hoped the sun and the wind would dry the roads until Saturday.
Friday morning,
breakfast with coffee from a proper cup. Afterwards we tried one B- road north of Grinnell and found out that we could not ride them at all. We had a lot of work to get our bike cleaned after that.
The pre race meet up. Shaking hands with Mark- he was busy. 100+ starters are a lot.
The dinner- Upps, we had to grill the meat on our own!? At home I leave to others the job
Much talking about the race, the bikes and other things ... the restaurant was very noisy.
Mark told us about the race- I could not understand much but I guess it was about the race, the bikes....
The Trans Iowa T- shirt is really nice- and I got different one from a sponsor after I was called up.
After that, we went to the hotel ...some last preparations on the bike and I felt asleep soon.
Saturday 2 am.
The hotel offered us a breakfast at that early time. Thank you for that.
We rode our bikes to Grinnell- it was warm in the early morning- stars were twinkling and the American flag at the road showed a light eastern wind.
The wind unfortunately wouldn't stay like that
In front of the bike shop the riders came together for the start.
Each start of a long distance race has its own atmosphere- this was filled with the sound of Mark's “truck with no name”- a real big bass sound.
hear this
I rode in the front, as I do mostly to avoid accidents. Just before we came to the first gravel road, Mark stepped on the gas and let us out into the dark rural gravel roads.
The riders around me did not talk much. You could here the sound of the gravel under the tires. The roads were dry and even the first part of the first B- road was. But then we had to walk. I shouldered my bike.
I hurried up because I wanted to make a good pace up to the first checkpoint.
Iowa is definitely not flat- Mark told us so...
I arrived at checkpoint 1 at 7:30. Fine! I filled up my water bottles- drank a Cola at the convenience store- and payed cash – It took me less than 5 minutes and than I hurried up.
The wind was picking up - headwinds from hell spiced up with many short but steep climbs.
It was hundreds of them, I guess. I was not very happy with my 36/25 gear ratio and I saw that most of the riders had a 32 or 34 teeth sprocket.
The sun was shining, blue sky, and I had a lot of fun riding these gravel roads up- and downhill with the terrible headwind. Living in the northern part of Germany, I am quite familiar with strong winds.
I rode in a small group looking for a good pace.
I stocked up again at the second gas station- drank a coffee and continued on my own. Sometimes it is better to do your own pace to recover but the other riders of the group caught up with me later just before the headwind turned into tailwind for some time to make a speed of 25 m/ph and more. My maximum speed was nearly 40 m/ph one time downhill- Upps! There was loose gravel coming!
Before checkpoint 2 we turned into eastern direction again. A beautiful B- road was easy to ride because it was completely dry. That time I did not think about what the forecast said about tonight!
When I left checkpoint 2 I noticed a puncture in the back wheel. I fixed it in the back of the car, because of the strong wind.
The break at the third gas station took me longer than at the other ones, because I wanted to recover a bit.
I had Coffee, Cola and Energy drink- eat Pizza and so...
I get off at 8 pm with a small group- but we didn´t have the same pace.
My plan was to stop after 30 miles, take a short break and go on up to the 4th gas station- witch would be closed but should give me shelter to sleep a little bit.
While riding these 30 miles it got dark and I got more and more tired - first I tried to ignore this but when I stopped after 30 miles the desire to sleep was on my mind and I couldn´t get that out.
Meanwhile the thunderstorm was coming up! The heaven was illuminated by many lightnings at the same time. I´ve seldom seen something like that. A nice view for sure but also a little bit scary.
Now I remembered the forecast: heavy thunderstorms during the night- and I could not rate or compare this with thunderstorms like in germany.
I looked for a place to shelter and recognized that there was none. I felt like lost in the plains...
....and the hotel was not so far !
I rode on a little bit, looking for a place to sleep and to take shelter from the thunderstorm. The gas station was still about 33 miles to go and I crossed a highway.
Grinnell must be south- west. That's the moment I quit the race.
On the paved roads westwards it was easy to ride at 25 m/ph. At the next crossing I went south to Toledo.
At the gas station I asked for the way to Grinnell- I was on the right way. Tama, further on to the Highway 6 and then again west. Half the way a car with Ari and two other members of the Slender Fungus (sorry, I forgot your name) stopped and asked if they could help me- but they had to go north to assist Mark, because of a bridge was off. The hotel was about 15 miles to go but I thought this would be interesting too.
So they picked me and my Surly up. It was not so windy in the car- they offered me some rum and immediately I felt comfortable. After a while we found Mark- he was redirecting some riders, because a bridge was off..
After a while I changed to the "Truck with no name" meanwhile a heavy rain starts dashing
almost horizontally.
Mark and Ari, with me in the middle of the truck, now drove to Grinnell. We talked and had a good lot to laugh on this way- meanwhile Marks phone rang. More and more riders gave up. At 2am I dropped me into bed. Thanks Mark, Ari and Slender Fungus for the help and the crazy night. I will remember 24/7.
Ralf was already asleep and after a small breakfast in the morning we went to the barn to chat with the people and to see riders coming in.
104 Riders started in the morning- 19 Riders finished. Congratulation to them.
Now here at the barn, talking to people, I was a little bit disappointed about my surrender.
I could have done the race, because I had a lot of time left: 15 hours for 120 Miles...
I heard that the group I was in when we moved away from the 3th gas station found a barn for shelter as the thunderstorm came up. If I would have stayed with this group.... but maybe is a maybe!
And the sleep deprivation….. That’s my weak point, I knew that before.
On the other day we rode our bikes straight eastwards at first for about 10 miles. The gravel was wet because of the rain and there was fog in the air....the weather conditions could have been worse than on Saturday on the first 2/3 and I thought we were lucky with this.
Trans Iowa was a great experience for me. A very special bicycle race and we met so many friendly people...
Back in "black alley deli" later on for some coffee and a chat with Craig, we analyzed the race once again.
And a little flame comes up....I´ll come back....maybe....I have to collect some money....maybe....
The rest of our holiday we spent east of Iowa with further relatives of Ralf.
We did some sightseeing at the river Mississippi, watched birds, visited a big quarry to see more gravel and relaxed.
Mein Englisch ist nicht so gut; so dass Ralf (der "HFS- Engländer") Korrektur lesen musste.
Und das sah dann so aus: --Let's start
 |
| Der Engländer - Image by W. Kilburg |
Nun, der Randonneur Ostholstein versteht sich als Weltbürger, besucht und schreibt Berichte auch über die Grenzen Ostholsteins hinweg. (das ist jetzt nicht politisch - macht einfach nur Spass!)
Und damit auch andere Trans Iowa Teilnehmer den Bericht lesen können....
Es gibt auch eine deutsche Version:
deutscher Text
nun zum Bericht:
Thursday 1. May
Back in germany. A great event and an adventure is over.
After a long time of preparation, in the end I looked forward to go to Iowa.
Each day I checked the weather forecast. It seemed to be not too bad. Guitar Ted has warned us quite often and I thought that he exaggerated a little bit. But now I know....
Let's start from the beginning. Ralf and me came to Chicago on Wednesday, hired a car to go to Grinnell on the same day and checked in at the Comfort Inn & suites. We got a special rate- so everything went fine.
Thursday 24.04.
Had breakfast- lots of coffee in a styrofoam cup. I have to buy one of ceramic later!
We assembled our bikes and our first ride on Iowa's gravel roads took us first to the barn at the finish line and then to Grinnell´s bicycle shop"Bikes to you", where the race should start on Saturday 4 am.
We met Craig, the owner of the shop, preparing his bike for the race. He´s going to take part for the first time, too. So lots of talking about the race, the bike and others started.
We changed the place- the "black alley deli" is not so far next door.
We got a good coffee and cake twice. I bought a coffee mug at the shop for a reasonable price, because I can't drink coffee from a styrofoam cup all week long!
On Thursday it rained a lot and we hoped the sun and the wind would dry the roads until Saturday.
Friday morning,
breakfast with coffee from a proper cup. Afterwards we tried one B- road north of Grinnell and found out that we could not ride them at all. We had a lot of work to get our bike cleaned after that.
The pre race meet up. Shaking hands with Mark- he was busy. 100+ starters are a lot.
The dinner- Upps, we had to grill the meat on our own!? At home I leave to others the job
Much talking about the race, the bikes and other things ... the restaurant was very noisy.
Mark told us about the race- I could not understand much but I guess it was about the race, the bikes....
The Trans Iowa T- shirt is really nice- and I got different one from a sponsor after I was called up.
After that, we went to the hotel ...some last preparations on the bike and I felt asleep soon.
Saturday 2 am.
The hotel offered us a breakfast at that early time. Thank you for that.
We rode our bikes to Grinnell- it was warm in the early morning- stars were twinkling and the American flag at the road showed a light eastern wind.
The wind unfortunately wouldn't stay like that
In front of the bike shop the riders came together for the start.
 |
| Image by W. Kilburg |
hear this
I rode in the front, as I do mostly to avoid accidents. Just before we came to the first gravel road, Mark stepped on the gas and let us out into the dark rural gravel roads.
The riders around me did not talk much. You could here the sound of the gravel under the tires. The roads were dry and even the first part of the first B- road was. But then we had to walk. I shouldered my bike.
I hurried up because I wanted to make a good pace up to the first checkpoint.
Iowa is definitely not flat- Mark told us so...
I arrived at checkpoint 1 at 7:30. Fine! I filled up my water bottles- drank a Cola at the convenience store- and payed cash – It took me less than 5 minutes and than I hurried up.
The wind was picking up - headwinds from hell spiced up with many short but steep climbs.
It was hundreds of them, I guess. I was not very happy with my 36/25 gear ratio and I saw that most of the riders had a 32 or 34 teeth sprocket.
The sun was shining, blue sky, and I had a lot of fun riding these gravel roads up- and downhill with the terrible headwind. Living in the northern part of Germany, I am quite familiar with strong winds.
I rode in a small group looking for a good pace.
I stocked up again at the second gas station- drank a coffee and continued on my own. Sometimes it is better to do your own pace to recover but the other riders of the group caught up with me later just before the headwind turned into tailwind for some time to make a speed of 25 m/ph and more. My maximum speed was nearly 40 m/ph one time downhill- Upps! There was loose gravel coming!
Before checkpoint 2 we turned into eastern direction again. A beautiful B- road was easy to ride because it was completely dry. That time I did not think about what the forecast said about tonight!
When I left checkpoint 2 I noticed a puncture in the back wheel. I fixed it in the back of the car, because of the strong wind.
 |
| B- road |
The break at the third gas station took me longer than at the other ones, because I wanted to recover a bit.
I had Coffee, Cola and Energy drink- eat Pizza and so...
I get off at 8 pm with a small group- but we didn´t have the same pace.
My plan was to stop after 30 miles, take a short break and go on up to the 4th gas station- witch would be closed but should give me shelter to sleep a little bit.
While riding these 30 miles it got dark and I got more and more tired - first I tried to ignore this but when I stopped after 30 miles the desire to sleep was on my mind and I couldn´t get that out.
Meanwhile the thunderstorm was coming up! The heaven was illuminated by many lightnings at the same time. I´ve seldom seen something like that. A nice view for sure but also a little bit scary.
Now I remembered the forecast: heavy thunderstorms during the night- and I could not rate or compare this with thunderstorms like in germany.
I looked for a place to shelter and recognized that there was none. I felt like lost in the plains...
....and the hotel was not so far !
I rode on a little bit, looking for a place to sleep and to take shelter from the thunderstorm. The gas station was still about 33 miles to go and I crossed a highway.
Grinnell must be south- west. That's the moment I quit the race.
On the paved roads westwards it was easy to ride at 25 m/ph. At the next crossing I went south to Toledo.
At the gas station I asked for the way to Grinnell- I was on the right way. Tama, further on to the Highway 6 and then again west. Half the way a car with Ari and two other members of the Slender Fungus (sorry, I forgot your name) stopped and asked if they could help me- but they had to go north to assist Mark, because of a bridge was off. The hotel was about 15 miles to go but I thought this would be interesting too.
So they picked me and my Surly up. It was not so windy in the car- they offered me some rum and immediately I felt comfortable. After a while we found Mark- he was redirecting some riders, because a bridge was off..
After a while I changed to the "Truck with no name" meanwhile a heavy rain starts dashing
almost horizontally.
Mark and Ari, with me in the middle of the truck, now drove to Grinnell. We talked and had a good lot to laugh on this way- meanwhile Marks phone rang. More and more riders gave up. At 2am I dropped me into bed. Thanks Mark, Ari and Slender Fungus for the help and the crazy night. I will remember 24/7.
Ralf was already asleep and after a small breakfast in the morning we went to the barn to chat with the people and to see riders coming in.
104 Riders started in the morning- 19 Riders finished. Congratulation to them.
Now here at the barn, talking to people, I was a little bit disappointed about my surrender.
I could have done the race, because I had a lot of time left: 15 hours for 120 Miles...
I heard that the group I was in when we moved away from the 3th gas station found a barn for shelter as the thunderstorm came up. If I would have stayed with this group.... but maybe is a maybe!
And the sleep deprivation….. That’s my weak point, I knew that before.
On the other day we rode our bikes straight eastwards at first for about 10 miles. The gravel was wet because of the rain and there was fog in the air....the weather conditions could have been worse than on Saturday on the first 2/3 and I thought we were lucky with this.
Trans Iowa was a great experience for me. A very special bicycle race and we met so many friendly people...
Back in "black alley deli" later on for some coffee and a chat with Craig, we analyzed the race once again.
And a little flame comes up....I´ll come back....maybe....I have to collect some money....maybe....
The rest of our holiday we spent east of Iowa with further relatives of Ralf.
We did some sightseeing at the river Mississippi, watched birds, visited a big quarry to see more gravel and relaxed.
Donnerstag, 1. Mai 2014
Trans Iowa V10 is in the books
Zurück in Deutschland. mein Bericht ist in Arbeit.
Guitar Ted ist schneller- klick hier
GT in seinem aktuellem blog:
"The wind was up over 30mph, a light rain was blowing sideways, and the sky was ablaze with the fireworks of lightning to our South-Southwest."
and:
"Hmmm.....a prophetic header, perhaps?"
Guitar Ted ist schneller- klick hier
GT in seinem aktuellem blog:
"The wind was up over 30mph, a light rain was blowing sideways, and the sky was ablaze with the fireworks of lightning to our South-Southwest."
and:
"Hmmm.....a prophetic header, perhaps?"
 |
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