Iceman 2010 Lives Up To Its Name

The Start at 10º Below Freezing
Yes, the 2010 edition of Iceman could have been a sled race. Snow filled the woods between Kalkaska and Timber Ridge in Traverse. Bitter temps at 8am, an hour before the start, made "warming up" an impossible dream.

Nick and Angela of Mighty Good Coffee warming the racers pre-start.

I spent more time in the breakfast building than I did on the bike. Wind chill, even pedaling at 10 or 15mph, was numb inducing. Far better to sip a warm cup of Mighty Good coffee and/or eat the hearty breakfast provided by the local Kiwanis Club.

The Reflections. Not sure how you pulled off moving those fingers, but thanks.

There was a jazz combo setting up in this finger locking catatonia and though I never did hear them play, (rude as it was, I had to race), I can only imagine it was challenging enough just to get the instruments out of their cases in this cold air, much less move the fingers to play them.

The skydiver. He probably agreed to do this on a warm July day.

To think that the bikers were the only idiots out there was dead wrong. As the racers lined up, the festivities included a skydiver dropping from a hundred feet or so in the crystalline blue sky. I noticed that he opened the 'chute immediately upon exiting the plane. Otherwise his yanking arm would have frozen in place and the cord would have sat listless in his hand.

Brain numb racers gave him little opportunity for error as they pedaled around the open parking lot he was to land in. He overshot the designated mark by a few degrees and nearly became one with an unsuspecting tandem.

Minutes later the first wave of racers were off. Finally getting out on the snow lined course was a welcome gift of warming momentum. My wave was hauling hard from the start and didn't let up anywhere along the course that I could see.

The course itself was one large layer of white base with a dense relief of stark leafless trees reaching into the blue sky. It was possibly the clearest route I've ever followed in a race. Except for some interesting icy two-track roads, the trail was one long brown line nearly the entire way.

Snow a few inches deep was everywhere the racers weren't. I'd gotten lost the night before warming up in the Timber Ridge area, but getting lost was the least of my worries during the race.

The trail itself was, even in the bitter cold, oddly damp in many places. Mud, though only really prominent in the latter part of the course, was still present throughout.

Bombing down the ice covered hills was great for those of us with fewer brain cells and probably sheer panic for those with their cells still numbering in the higher percentiles. I nearly joined forces with a BikeWorks rider as we both almost shared the same track side-by-side down one of those crusty hills halfway through the race. My bellowing "on your right" scream kept his wheel on the other track. Mighty exhilarating moment for sure.

Notice the direction of the arrow and the direction the riders are going. This was actually the night before where most of us were hopelessly lost on the last part of the course as the sun slowly set.

Once past Williamsburg Road my legs finally felt like they were warming up and at the 8 mile to go marker I felt the finish line within reach. It's in reassuring moments like these that we need to heed the signal from the gods of catastrophe. My signal appeared a short time later on single-track after a long downhill and an arching left hand sweep. In an instant I went from hard charger to pedal spinner with no connection to the rear wheel.

I knew immediately that the chain that kept me driving forward was not cooperating. I looked down to see a slack line trolling listlessly off the back of my derailleur. No panic. (I was freaking out!) I pulled over and laid the bike down in a pristine white snowbank. Out of the saddle bag came a spare link and my multi-tool with the chain breaker.

I'm not the most skilled at breaking links and replacing them. I first stared at the broken part of the chain and made sure that I was correct in thinking I had to break off one link to get my connector to work. A geometry problem in the middle of a race. Not my forte, but I broke the link off and fumbled around with the connector, realizing that I'd thankfully guessed right. That little link is not easy to handle with rapidly chilling fingers losing facility with each passing second.

Then something plopped off a link I was connecting to. It was one of the spacers. Oh, great! No way could I find it in a few inches of snow. I proceeded to connect things up without it and hoped for the best. (I figured I was toast, actually, at this point.)
Notice the missing spacer. Gulp! It still worked fine.

With chain in place, I put things away as dozens, tens of dozens, hundreds, of riders swept past me. The numbers on their plates were rising considerably. My friendly pack of 400s were far closer to the finish than I now was.

If you look closely, you'll see two connecting links on this chain. The first is directly below the one used in the race.

I took a breath, put my glove back on, and made sure everything was zipped up and I had everything. I did--except for my sunglasses. I'd apparently ripped them off to see better at the beginning of the repair job and had no idea where they now were. I looked all about on the ground, but I'd made a mess of kicking the snow and leaves all about. I furiously padded over my pockets. Nothing. Another scan of the ground. Nothing. I ripped off the gloves and felt in every pocket. Yes! There they were. On they went and I joined the ever increasing line of racers.

From there it was on to some of the tougher uphill climbs of the race. I kept waiting for my chain to snap once more as I labored up and over each one. I even figured it would skip without that crucial spacer. But no, it worked great.

My legs were struggling for a while. The long repair time and the squatting position had nearly locked them up, but after a mile or so they came back to form and the rest of the race was back to that joyful realization that I'd made it. The finish line was closing in and nothing could hold me back now.

The humpy little rise at the finish was sheer joy to bash over and I even did a small skipping dance over the timing pads. Another Iceman in the bag.

What a great race. With nearly 4000 racers, the stories are endless and the weather made this one live pleasantly up to its name. Years back, back in the real ice age, I rode my trail bike (motorized--we didn't have mountain bikes back then, unfortunately) on many of these same trails. It was beautiful then and it's beautiful now. I think I stopped panting hard to notice the beauty every now and then during the race.

Thanks Steve Brown and everyone else who puts this together. It really is an amazing experience.

Photos by Connie (except for the chain shots--they're all mine and I'm proud of them).