Dan Buettner's Blog

We had perfect weather for the race, in the sense that it did not rain much in the days leading up to the race and not at all during.

However, the day was warmer and windier than forecast, and the night was colder by quite a bit – it dipped to a low of about 33° F.  I’d made my decisions based on a forecast in the mid-40s, so I was ill-prepared for freezing dips into river valleys.

That is probably the most important lesson to take away from my experience – look carefully at the forecast, but realize it is quite possible the actual temperatures you experience will be 10 degrees on the outsides of the high/low that are forecast.  If you plan for that you’ll be happier than if you match your gear to the forecast precisely.

I wore regular shorts and a short-sleeved jersey, with SmartWool socks and light full-finger gloves.  Shoes were regular Shimano SPDs.

Also in my collection were two different beanies (one light, one heavy & wind-proof), a set of full winter gloves, a second pair of socks, light arm and leg warmers, and a light, compact plastic vest.

While that’s a long list of items, all the extras stuffed nicely into a small 2-liter stuffsack, which itself tucked nicely into my Revelate Tangle bag.

I also had a Mylar blanket, which I ended up wrapping around my torso under the vest to hold in some heat.

My beanies, gloves, and two pairs of socks all did the job for my extremities.

For the overnight, I wish my collection had included a base layer shirt (this, perhaps) and a sleeved jacket instead of a vest (this, perhaps) – then I don’t think I’d have needed to break out the Mylar.

The most useful observation I can make is to take things which can all be combined in various ways as conditions change … and to actually use those items so you are familiar with what each one does to warm you up or cool you down.  I’d had all of my items for some time and was very confident knowing how each one would make me feel on race day.

When I first began contemplating a Trans Iowa attempt 3 years ago, I spent a fair bit of time poking about online to see what other people were riding. I finished V9 a couple of weeks ago; this post documents my setup for those of you wondering what works.

Note that I finished but was never in any danger of winning; if winning is your goal, you might look elsewhere for more suitable advice.

It can be difficult to know where to start in terms of picking gear for an event like this – I certainly didn’t know what to do, and people’s needs vary.  The best advice I can give you is to choose gear that fits you and the bike comfortably, and to practice using what you choose so that you a) know how it works, b) are confident it’s not going to shake off, and c) can choose something else if it isn’t right.

Bike and Drivetrain

My bike is a “parts bin” cyclocross-style bike.  Aluminum frame, stem, and seatpost; carbon fork; Salsa Woodchipper bars; Brooks B17 saddle; Avid BB7 disc brakes; 700c wheels ; size 35 tires.

I used a 1×10 drivetrain: 40 tooth chainring, 11-36 cassette.  This gave me enough range to go fast when I could yet still climb well, though I did walk several hills late in the race due to fatigue and/or loose gravel.  (Let’s go with loose gravel; no way was I fatigued after only 280 miles)

I’m normally a strong hill climber, so with a 36-tooth maximum in the rear, some riders will want something smaller than a 40 in the front.

Bags and Water

I did not wear a backpack; instead, I put 4 water bottles on the bike – 2 in the main triangle and 2 on the fork legs.  88 ounces water total, which was mostly enough.

I used a Revelate Designs Tangle bag to carry gear and some food; I used their Mountain Feedbag on my bars for easy access to food while riding.

Lighting

Lighting choices vary a lot on the event; I used a Planet Bike Superflash on the rear, and combined a Petzl headlamp on my helmet with two Planet Bike Blaze 2-watt headlamps in the front.  At the pre-race “Meat-up”, describing my lighting setup to a tablemate, he winced … but I had trained with it and was confident, and in the race it worked very well.  I never felt like I couldn’t see plenty of road.  I’m sure brighter lights would have been even better, but then I’d have needed more batteries or a dynamo hub – more weight, more complexity, more $.

The Petzl provided a bit of extra light on the road and also light to read cue sheets and cyclocomputer mileage.  You absolutely need some type of headlamp – without a way to read those two things in complete darkness, or to light up your work while fixing a flat,  you won’t be able to make much progress overnight.

I used a single set of lithium AAA’s in the headlamp, and it lasted fine.  I did have to swap the AA’s in the Blazes in the wee hours of the morning.  I used lithiums for those, too.  I was happy with both the brightness and the runtime.  The only thing that surprised me was how quickly the lithiums went from “fine” to “I should change the batteries soon” to “wow, one light just went out completely.”

To clarify: for this event I needed two complete sets of AAs for each of the Blazes – one set in the light at the start of the race, one set in the bag to change overnight.  (your mileage may vary)

I mounted one headlight on my bars, and another on a fork fender eyelet with an Origin 8 adapter.  This worked well; frankly, putting both lights on the bars would have been fine too.

I would have thought this went without saying, but since I observed more than one rider with a non-functioning tail light: start the race with fresh batteries in everything.

Cuesheets

I used a small Ziploc bag and two of these mounting straps on my bars.  This was perfect.  Just make sure to put the zipper of the Ziploc into the jaws of the straps – the bag otherwise has a tendency to slide out.

Mudguard

I trained all winter with an SKS mudguard on the rear.  I debated the night before the race whether to remove it … but I had made a rule that I would not make any last-minute equipment changes in the days leading up to the race, so I left it on.  It never got in the way but given the beautiful weather we had, it was unnecessary.  That said, it’s a great piece of equipment.

Cables

I ran a full-length rear derailleur cable housing.  Even in the best of conditions, gravel roads kick a lot of grit up onto the bottom of the bike, and this is a way to avoid what is likely to be a trouble area.  Retrofitting such a setup onto a frame not designed for it can present challenges, but it can be done and in my opinion is worth it – even if it’s done with zipties and only for this event.

Brakes

I read a post about a Trans Iowa rider who claimed that disc brakes were a terrible choice, and that he or she had ground down the pads to the metal after 40 miles.  I’ve been running discs for about 4 years now, in all conditions, and feel confident saying that if that happened, the pads only had 40 miles left on them anyway.  There’s nothing super-abusive about Trans Iowa conditions as far as disc brakes are concerned.  In my first attempt and again this year I found discs to work perfectly; they are a great choice.

Tires

You’ll find at least as many opinions about tires as there are cyclists in any given event; my own preference for tires is to push a bit more weight in exchange for not less flatting. I’m perfectly proficient at fixing flats, but hate doing so during an event, and I knew that a flat during the overnight might be more than I could bear.

I chose to run with my commuter tire – the humble (and heavy) Schwalbe Marathon Plus 700x35c.  890 grams (each!) of flat-resistant goodness.  I’ve been running variations of this tire for about five years on multiple different bikes, and my first-ever flat with one occurred during this Trans Iowa.  (Thankfully not during the overnight)

No discussion of tires is complete without discussing pressure: I ran about 40 psi in the front and 45 in the rear.  A bit lower than I would have a few years ago – in fact I think I tried 70 in in TIv7.  This choice was good overall.

Cyclocomputer / GPS

Most riders had a Garmin GPS device; some had a Garmin in addition to a regular cyclocomputer.  I ran with a basic and dependable cyclocomputer on the bars to compare against cue sheet mileages, and then tracked my ride using Strava with an iPhone in my jersey pocket.

Even with Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and cellular data turned off, and brightness way down, the iPhone battery will not last the duration of the event with GPS active.  In my training, I found it would use about 6% of the battery per hour even with those miserly settings.  I carried a small battery pack and a USB cable, together with the phone, inside a Ziploc.  I had not noticed this during my training, but I found once I pushed the button to charge the phone (early Saturday afternoon), that the battery pack charged the phone and then stayed active for the duration of the event – effectively making the iPhone think it was running off wall power.  It worked great.

Saddle

I rode a Brooks B17 Standard.  I own several B17s, and can divide them into two categories: hard and soft.  This one is a hard one, and took a good two years to start to break in despite being on my daily commuter.  I’ve been riding it about 6 years now, and will describe it as the most comfortable one I own.

Overall the saddle was a fine choice, I think, though I did have some numbness right after the race.  A Brooks with a cutout might be a better choice for an event of this duration.

I also had some saddlesore discomfort, which I attribute to the edges of the chamois in my shorts.  I trained all winter in chamois-less tights with no hint of a saddlesore … I may try some shorts or bibs without a chamois in the future.

Thoughts On What Does NOT Work

Two years ago I attempted TIv7 with fenders on the bike – big mistake.  Mud gets up in there and you can’t get it out.  That’s weight and friction both.

I also attempted TIv7 with a seatpost-attached rear rack with a small bag on top of it; this was a lot of weight added without a lot of space added, and accessing anything while riding was impossible.  A frame bag or handlebar bag is a much better choice.

Finally, while Trans Iowa is a race, “race” tires are not (in my opinion) a good choice to try to eat up 320 miles of gravel.  You want something with some meaningful flat protection.  My Schwalbes are at the other extreme from full race tires, and aren’t the right choice for everyone – but do give some thought to how important a chance at winning is vs. finishing, and choose accordingly.  A guy had to quit TIv9 around mile 70 because he flatted a tubular tire and had no way to repair that on the course.

My race bib

This past weekend, I completed the Trans Iowa, a 320-mile, 34-hour bicycle race on gravel roads in rural Iowa.  It starts and ends in Grinnell, but the exact route is unknown until you are in the race.

I attempted it once previously, in 2011, and gave up at mile 97.  I wasn’t ready mentally or physically.  Mostly mentally.  In the end, if you are a strong, experienced cyclist, I think completing the Trans Iowa comes down to mental fortitude.  More on that in a bit.

This year was different.  The weather was better, I made a number of small changes to my equipment, I made different and better nutrition choices, and I spent a lot more time riding over the winter leading up to the event.  Multiple 3, 4 and 5-hour rides, on gravel whenever possible, and in every kind of weather.  It became routine, to the point where the only thing I disliked about riding in bad weather was knowing I was going to have to clean & lube my bike.

Equipment:

I rode my black cyclocross bike, which is a Bike Nashbar frame & fork and a mishmash of parts I’ve selected based mostly on ruggedness and cost.  It’s got a 1×10 drivetrain with a 40 tooth chainring, Microshift brifters, disc brakes, wide Salsa Woodchipper bars, bomb-proof Mavic wheels, and a Brooks B17.

I upgraded to an 11-36 tooth cassette for better hill climbing early this Spring.  I ran a derailleur cable with full-length housing a few weeks ago for better shifting in adverse conditions.  I stayed with tried-and-true Schwalbe Marathon tires, and didn’t regret that for a minute – they’re heavy, but tough.  I had just one flat during the event, a nail through the tread and out the sidewall.  Two years ago, I had sweated my choice of minimalist cyclocross race tires, and I didn’t want to do that again.

I added a set of Revelate Designs bags: a Tangle frame bag and a Mountain feed bag.  Both are really nice, and served me well – though one of the zippers on the Tangle broke during the event.

I re-visited an idea I’d had early on in TIv7 prep and mounted two water bottle cages on the fork so I could not wear a Camelbak and still have enough water.  I was really happy both with how the setup worked and with my decision to avoid the backpack.

This bike, set up this way, will never win a beauty contest – but it is as tough as nails.

Clothing:

I took a full-zip short-sleeve jersey, a thin windproof vest, arm warmers, leg warmers, 2 pairs wool socks, a light fleece beanie, a windproof beanie, regular full-finger gloves, and my lobster claw winter gloves.  Regular SPD mountain shoes and a helmet rounded out the cyclist look.  I crammed everything I wasn’t wearing into a stuff sack that I kept in the Tangle bag.

What I went with worked, in the sense that I finished the event, but it left something to be desired overnight.  My gear was perfect for the start of the race, and for what ended up being a really warm afternoon.  No complaints for the day portion.  However, what I was not prepared for was an overnight low in the 33 degree range.  This was much colder than the mid-40s on the forecasts I’d been watching.  MUCH. COLDER.

I had a warm cap, double socks, and my winter gloves with me, so my extremities were OK, but my windbreaker vest and arm & leg warmers were completely inadequate for the conditions.  I shivered a lot overnight and was pretty miserable.  As my friend Mike noted in the Twitterspace for me to see later, that part is supposed to suck.

I had taken an emergency Mylar “space” blanket with me at my wife’s insistence, and was glad I had – I used it to stay warm for a 1-hour rest stop at about 12:30am, and then I wrapped it around my neck and torso & put my vest over it before I got back on the bike.  I looked a fright, I am sure, but it worked.  Sunrise brought a huge feeling of relief.

Nutrition:

I made some good choices in this area.  I took Twizzler bites, cashew/almond/raisin/M&M trail mix, chocolate-covered espresso beans, and Outside magazine’s incredible homemade energy bars.  Next time, a way to separate the twizzler bites, trail mix and coffee beans is needed, since you can’t tell what you’re pulling out of the feed bag and they are good separately but not always together.  Aside: a cherry Twizzler bite and an espresso coffee bean eaten together taste exactly like cherry cough syrup.  This is not good.

Overall I carried too much food, but I’d take less of the the same things all over again.

The energy bars were perfect.  I took too many with me, and they were hard to choke down at 3am (anything would have been), but every time I was hungry they took care of me and got my spirits back up.

Preparation:

I did not have a training “plan” per se; I had a schedule – blocks of time worked out with my wife around the rest of our lives where I could go out for 2 to 5 hours a couple of times a week.  I did some lunchtime rides during the week, a short (2-3 hour) ride after work most every Friday, and a longer (3 to 5 hour) ride every Sunday, starting in December.  I share my friend Mike’s training approach: I just go out and ride my bike a lot.  If I were entering these events to try to win, I’d do something differently – but this works for me.

Practicing using all the same equipment was key, as was practicing consuming convenience store pizza and then riding for 3 or 4 hours.

I did my longest “training” day on February 23rd, riding from my house to Cumming, completing the awesome CIRREM race, and then riding home again for an even 100 miles.

Leading into the race, I felt completely ready physically.  I’d logged some 2,500 miles in the months after signing up for the event; not as much as some folks, but a lot, and all I could do given my other life commitments.

The race itself:

We started from downtown Grinnell at 4AM sharp.  A bank sign reported 51 degrees, and it was a gorgeous early morning ride through cold river bottoms and fog.  The moon was nearly full, the land was quiet, and the miles were fast.

I made the first checkpoint easily, at 7:35 AM (cutoff was 9:30 AM), and was elated at that.  Not wanting to repeat a mistake from TIv7, where I dallied at the checkpoint and lost valuable time, I was in and out in just 8 minutes this time. Had a bite to eat, bought a water bottle from a vending machine, reset my cyclocomputer and stopped/started the Strava recording on my iPhone.

Then, I crashed.

I misjudged the road conditions when getting a drink and caught my wheel in loose gravel while leaning over to put the bottle back in its cage, and I had a single-rider crash about 10 miles into leg 2.  It tweaked my derailleur slightly, though a cable adjustment got it working well enough for the rest of the race.  I also skinned up my right side pretty well.  But there was little blood and I wasn’t about to quit the race over it, so on I went.

All through the morning and early afternoon on Saturday I built my lead over the 10 MPH minimum pace, and was feeling really good until late afternoon.  I ran out of water a few miles before Checkpoint 2, and I knew the next source for water was not until 20 miles after the checkpoint … stupid on my part.  Another racer gave me half a bottle, which carried me through.

I made Checkpoint 2 about 6:00 PM, which felt great as cutoff would not be until 9:45 PM – I was almost 3 hours ahead of the time cutoff (which is based, loosely, on a 10 MPH pace).

I went on from there to the Casey’s in Gladbrook, which ended up being a hard place to leave.  A number of racers were congregating there: a few were continuing on the route while a few were calling it quits right there … and a few more were obviously thinking about it.  The sun was beginning to set, and I had 130 miles to go.  One hundred and thirty is a big number, and it was cold in the waning sunlight. I began shivering uncontrollably.  I put on my super-warm beanie, arm & leg warmers, and winter gloves, but was still trembling.

This was the hardest moment in the race for me.  Gladbrook is only an hour’s drive from my home in Des Moines or from my mother-in-law’s home near Cedar Falls, and at that time (8 PM or so) I could have DNF’d, called for help, and been home for dinner and a hot shower before midnight.  That knowledge made it really tough, but I started repeating (in my head only. I think.) some advice I had read from a past Trans Iowa finisher: “always get back on the bike.”  So I did.

It still was not easy after that, but I slowly ticked off miles and was comforted/encouraged by always being well ahead of the cutoff pace.  This is the opposite of my TIv7 experience, where being behind the pace exacted a huge mental toll that caused me to pull the plug on an otherwise decent day of riding.

I was beginning to get loopy, and was feeling really cold, about 12:30 AM, and decided to pull over to rest for an hour.  I picked a spot with a couple of grain bins and a grain truck, wrapped myself up in my space blanket, and rested fitfully while propped up against a tractor trailer tire under the pale bluish glare of a farm light.

I had a wee bit of a scare about half an hour in when another racer popped up out of the grass where he had been resting, unbeknownst to me, about 30 feet away .  He had a wee bit of a scare when he turned around and saw me.  We waved and wished each other good luck and he went on his way.

After my rest, I was still incredibly cold, but the space blanket described above helped, and I knew that riding would make it better overall, even with the cold air in river bottoms.  So I kept moving, and slowly I passed 70, 80, 90 miles, then had breakfast (three cheers for hot coffee!) at the Casey’s in Brooklyn.  I rolled out with 60 miles to go and about 8 hours to do it; not bad.

After that there was really no question I was going to finish.  The sun was out, the temperate was going up quickly, there was no wind to speak of, and it was a clear blue sky.  A picture-perfect day to be on a bike, and I had enough time.  The course at that point was southeast of Grinnell, and it’s really quite hilly there, so this time did not pass without effort – but I knew I would make it, and a feeling of pure satisfaction set in.

The end:

This event was the hardest thing I have ever done.

I ran a 43 mile ultramarathon in 2010; it took me 8.5 hours, I limped/walked the last few miles because I literally could no longer run, and I sat down and cried at the finish line. Running Brew to Brew was harder physically than Trans Iowa (for me; I’m the wrong size and shape for a runner).  Trans Iowa, however, going overnight, was so much tougher mentally – to be honest, I don’t know how I talked myself into leaving the Gladbrook Casey’s.  By most measures, I shouldn’t have.  And yet I am so glad I did.

On a picture-perfect bright Sunday morning, I rolled past the southern edge of Grinnell under a warm, sunny blue sky on a Normal Rockwell gravel road with a smile on my face and a full heart. I turned up a short country lane to the finish line, to the applause of 20 people who were as good as 20,000 strong.  I got a hearty handshake and “Congratulations on finishing Trans Iowa!” from Guitar Ted – and the way he said it, the earnest way he looked me right in the eye, I knew that those words were about the highest compliment he has to give a fellow cyclist.

I didn’t feel like crying; all I could do was smile.

I spent an hour chatting with other racers and support people, enjoying the weather and the company.  My wife & children arrived to pick me up, we had lunch together, and I drifted off to sleep quickly in the car ride home.  Tired, sore, bloodied, filthy, and (according to my kids) stinky — and happy as could be.

Next year?  Don’t ask.  I’m not telling.

Dan at the TIv9 finish

My #TIv9 tweets