It was another 10 miles to a gas station. After eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich that I had been saving and a pep-talk phone call to a friend at home, I was ready to continue on.
I rode another hour. My shoulder screamed. My grip was getting bad, and my head was fuzzy. I still had 120 miles to go.
There, on a dark spot on the course, I called it quits. It was 1a.m., and I’d ridden for 21 straight hours. After 208 miles, Trans Iowa had me beat.
I was hardly alone. This year, 91 riders started and 36 riders finished. It’s a brutal course and a long, long haul to get to the end. Said Monika Sattler, the top female finisher this year, “I just kept asking myself, ‘do I want to be out here alone in the dark, or [do I] toughen up and stay on a wheel’” of the racer ahead and finish the course? (She indeed finished, in 26 hours and 40 minutes.)
Next year I’ll be there. I’ve got to address my shoulder injury and take a bit more weight off my bike. But those 320 miles of gravel are going down next year, for sure!
—Amy Oberbroeckling is assistant editor of GearJunkie.
