Wednesday, March 29, 2017

White Mountains 100



I got into the WM100 race this year. It is open to about 65 bikers, 10 skiers and 10 runners due to capacity restriction of the checkpoints. So there is a lottery for all the interested racers every year and if you lucky enough you will get in. I was couple places under the cut off, but i got in because some people canceled.

The race is held about 35 miles north of Fairbanks in White Mountains. It is definitely colder up there than here in Anchorage so i was pretty worried what the temperature is going to be like. I mean how cold it is going to get. On the way up to Fairbanks i stop at the Denali viewpoints and snap couple pics.
Denali South Viewpoint
Denali North Viewpoint
The race actually starts on Sunday, but there is a mandatory meeting on Saturday afternoon. The atmosphere of the event was really cool from beginning. Everybody is really talkative and sharing the info from the past races along with some advises.

Preparation for the race

 The Race itself is held on the snow machine trails and there are about 5 checkpoints evenly spread out over the course. You have to climb over the Cache Mountain Pass which everyone call The Divide. The Divide is half point of the way and it is the highest elevation on the course. The first half of the race is all up and down and along with the above mentioned climb to conquer the Divide make up the most of the about 8000 feet of descent of the race. Once you get over the divide you will be flying down until about mile 90 where you hit so called The Wall! The Wall is a very steep climb which I believe gain about 800 feet over 1 mile. You just want to shoot yourself by that time and not to be climbing the Wall!

Start of the Race
Sunrise at the Start of the Race


Anyhow, I really enjoy the bike ride. I mean it was not without the pain, but man it is beautiful up there! The temperature at the start was about 0 Fahrenheit, but it went down to -15 on the first part of the course and that is when i made a fatal mistake and unzipped my jacket! Part of my camel-back tube got exposed and froze. Well,I did not drink a drop of water for the first 39miles (4 hours). So here I'm at mile 30 and cramps are starting taking the fun out of the race. I made it to the second checkpoint and chug a liter of coke and water, recoup and went to conquer the divide. I did not get rid of the cramps for the rest of the race, but it was manageable.

Race map
 Race profile

Race

The Wall was a treat, as i mentioned previously, but other than that the rest of the ride was pretty mellow. I crossed the finish line somewhere under 11h, which i was happy with as my plan was either under the 12 hours or finish before dark. Every finisher got the buckle, which i think is really cool prize. I love my Buckle!!

Finisher Buckle

However, my adventure was not over yet. I crossed the finish line, but i still had a 7hours drive to Anchorage. So I chow down a hotdog chug 3 beers, just kidding i actually chug 3 sparkling waters or whatever that was, and went on my merry way. I was lucky enough that almost entire way home there were norther lights out! Pretty awesome views.

Northern Lights-It is hard to get good pic













Friday, March 24, 2017

Rush to the Knik


There is several glaciers around Anchorage which can be access by fatbike over the winter. The key word is "winter". This is the first year since we arrived to Alaska when we have real winter, which opened up all these possibilities to pedal to and on the glaciers. My crush is on two of the staples around here, Knik and Spencer glaciers. I still have to find a time to go to Spencer, but I went to Knik week ago and it was pretty sweet.

We started our adventure just of the Old Glenn Highway at Jim Creek parking lot. The weather was perfect between 10 to 25 F despite my initial worry when i saw the temperature in my car -4F when we were crossing Knik bridge which is about mile away from the parking lot. Anyhow, the plan was take it easy to the glacier and hammer on the way back with some necessary photo time spent at the face of glacier.

The trail was in the perfect condition, hard packed and wind swept so we were flying about 14 miles per hour. Oh, the distance to the glacier from Jim Creek is about 21 miles. There is couple parts where you are biking on the glare ice and i can tell you that you better have studded tires or you will pay with some bruises as i did. I wiped out about four times, but luckily no injury. So we made it to the glacier in about hour and fifty minutes as the last 7 miles were through the snow drifts which slow you down to crawl.

I don't even need to mention this but the glacier is just spectacular. Blue ice, ice caves, frozen icebergs in the lake and sunshine were the highlights of the day. We took little loop around the lake and headed back by different rout which was more eastward located to connect back to the original path 5 miles down the road. At this point we were flying 15-16 miles per hour and  about 7 miles from the finish i was getting pretty tired, but still had some legs to do extra little 5 mile loop by the parking lot to check out the playground for the local off-roaders.

It is a great way to go see a glacier, if the condition are solid, its pretty smooth riding despite the longer distance. Also it helps that the total elevation gain is under 800 feet so pretty much flat course as it is mostly on the riverbed.