24 Hours of Kincaid 2017 - Top Gun edition

15th -16th July 2017 saw the running of this years 24 hours of Kincaid. This is the fourth time I have  taken part in the event and this year I was on a duo team for 24hours. My teammate for the event Nico is a friend and also teammate on Revolution Racing.

The event this year was a little quieter than it has been previously but still a lot of fun to take part in. We were based out of the Jodphur trail head which was new however the event definitely has room to expand at this location.  The self timing worked great and the wildlife encounters seemed lower than previous 24HOK that I have taken part in.

The course

The course was a mixture of ski trails, singletrack trails and social trails. The lap was around 9 miles long and took in some singletrack favourites including L-Train, Good Greeff, Change of pace, and kitchen sink. This year there was the addition of Bolling alley, this complicates things a little as it is a directional trail based on odd and even days. The solution was to reroute the course on Sunday morning before a lot of other traffic hit the trails. The other thing to note is the jungle trail has had a bunch of the roots cut down, although this makes it much easier to climb as the laps increase it does take away from the character of the trail.

The course was far and away my favourite 24HOK course I have ridden, mostly due to the lower wildlife interactions that occurred when riding. 

Odd day course

Even day course

How did it go?

Very well. Team Nick-Nico took both the win and last place :) Full results

I took the first lap, then Nico after this we switched to start doubling up on laps. I ran into a moose on my lap 5, we (Clint, Brad and I) backtracked almost 0.5 miles to hit a ski trail, only to ride down the trail and bump into the moose again. This cost me around 9 min of waiting and back tracking. The next lap I did, we (Danielle had caught up with me whilst I waited for a moose) bumped into a different moose and had to reroute onto a ski trail then we ran into a bear and cub further around the lap. Those were my only wildlife encounters during the race, if you ignore the billion mosquitos that thought I was clearly a good all you can eat buffet.

Nico and I took the executive decision to not really race through the dark part of the race 01:00 to 04:30, It was nice to hang out with people and get a little sleep watch a movie whilst some of the more hardcore teams pushed on through the wee hours. 

I woke at 5am headed out for my lap and took this opportunity to reflag the course so that we were riding the correct direction on bolling alley for the remainder of the race. This seemed to work out pretty well and actually made the race a little more interesting as the course changed part way through the race.

Stats from the ride

I completed 12 laps with a total riding distance of 108 miles, though only 11 laps counted towards team Nick-Nico as my final lap was with my teammate Nico and other revolution racing team mates (Clint, Laura and Ryan) to collect flags.

Final musing re the race and everything else

This years course was fantastic and I would quite happily race that course every year for the 24HOK, perhaps the addition of a 3 hour race Sunday morning from 9-12 could keep more people around on the Sunday. Self timing was great, as was the not finishing before the time was up like previous years.

I can't stress this enough but I really couldn't have done the race without all the help from Amanda, Fiona and friends. 

Fiona was a little superstar and kept herself occupied whilst I raced my laps. Later in the day friends turned up with their kids and Fiona had some company, aside from Harry Potter. 

hammock time

Playing in the sand, PC Stefanie

Amanda was on nights and looking after a sick dog (his own doing) yet she still managed to keep everything under control at home. Thanks a million baby.

All my teammates and friends at the event who helped entertain Fiona, or at least keep track of her when I was racing thank you so much. 

Post 24 hour photo

Arctic MTB Trifecta AKA Climb, Climb and Climb

The Arctic MTB (Local Mountain bike race club) who run the summer race series also put on an end of series race. This was formally known as the State Champs but this year they changed things up a little and put on an event called the Trifecta.
The Trifecta consisted of three races, a hill climb in town on the Hillside trails on Thursday evening, a XC race on Saturday morning in Girdwood (local DH Ski resort) and a dirt crit on Saturday afternoon in Girdwood again.
The hill climb was a similar course to previous years with an added flat sprint to the timing area in the trail head at the top of the climb.  This caught a few people out who were expecting the finish line in a different place.

Once again I was playing with the big boys and girls and racing in Expert class, luckily someone has to finish last and for the first round I can say it was not me :)
Results Trifecta Race #1
Normally I would put up a GPS track of the event however this time my GPS had a little I don't want to work situation so I will just put up the comments from a friend who raced and did much better than me. This is pretty much how I felt

"It's been a while since I've done a short race hard enough to taste blood and feel like my lungs were bleeding!! Kinda awesome to be to that point again!!" - Andy Duenow

Saturday rolled around quickly and I didn't feel that great for the first ride in the morning.  The course they picked had a mixture of single track, paved trails, ski trails both wood chip and gravel and then a really primitive section of single track which was rooty and not so much fun to ride on.  Although the course was a great lap at times it did feel like all we did was climb. 
The lap was 4.6 miles long with 917ft of elevation change. 

This was my race tracking, as can be seen in my activity title I came in last place, I guess someone has to :D.  My speed really suffered throughout the race, I think the problem was I didn't fuel well throughout the event.  On the plus side I didn't get lapped, though it was close.  I did get passed by some of the riders in the category below me though which is never good for moral.
Results Trifecta Race #2



After the first race I got some food at the excellent bake shop then relaxed with some fellow racers, then got more food.  We were offered the opportunity to use the chair lifts at a discount but I really didn't feel up to riding DH and then racing in the evening.
At 6pm the racing kicked off again, this time it was a dirt crit.  This event was a short course event where we rode for 40min plus 1 lap.
The lap was up a DH trail, along a ski trail then descend via another DH trail back through the start and repeat.
The lap was 0.8miles long with 303ft of climbing, and we thought we had climbed a lot in the XC race in the morning!

Dirt Crit, waiting to start - Photo Credit Amber Stull 

If you look at the Strava file we basically climbed for 2/3 of the lap time then tried to recover on the descent. It was a fun ride but definitely type two fun.  I managed 7 laps, the winner of the race lapped me twice as did one other rider I think and managed 9 laps I guess a few other riders also managed 9 laps as I was passed by a couple of riders, on the plus side I didn't finish last.
Results Trifecta Race #3



I am very glad I was able to race and although I finished last (Results last of people who completed all three events) in Expert category overall I would still race expert again.  I had a lot of time riding on my own but when I was near people it was fun racing them/trying to keep up.
I am looking forward to seeing if I can improve my performances during the winter season and on into next season.  But for now my MTB racing is over for this year, time to service my bike and focus on Cyclo cross which is rapidly approaching.
Thanks again to Amanda and Fiona for all the support throughout this year, I really couldn't have ridden/raced as much as I have managed without Amanda's tremendous support with looking after Fiona.   

Sometimes whilst riding you just get lucky

Recently I have been fortunate enough to find time to fit some longer rides into my schedule mainly due to Amanda taking care of Fiona.  My first big ride was the Anchorage Palmer Anchorage ride (See here)

Then we had family in town, we did a lot of sight seeing however we were able to get out and ride some of the local trails to a lunch stop, Fiona completed 15miles on the trail a bike, her longest ride to date and our guests got to experience some of the local trails, although we didn't see any big wildlife whilst riding we did have a nice lunch and the riding was good.

The following weekend I got the chance to ride with the Alaska Randonneurs again.  The ride this time took us down to Seward, this particular ride starts early, 4am I guess the thinking is lower traffic, less wind and the chance to take the train on the return if you are only riding the 200km route.
For the first 7miles the route was very windy, so windy that some of the riders decided it was more sensible to turn around and abandon the ride, the next 83miles we were mostly riding in the rain with only occasional periods of wind.  The last 40ish miles were completed in the sunshine albeit with a fairly strong head wind, on these long rides I'm still working on my nutrition, though I am getting better.  I completed the ride in less than 10hours again (mostly due to Brant letting me draft him for the last 20+miles).  Once in Seward I  got to hang out in Subway (where the ride finished) with some experienced long distance riders before my train ride home, all in all a great day out on the bike!

Photo bombing Brant in the rain at the first checkpoint

Fresh snow on the hills, top of Turnagain pass

Swollen rivers and great mud guards

And then the sun came out

Tuesday 3rd of June was first round of the XC series at Kincaid, it was fun to be back racing on dirt. The event had over 150 participants, which is their biggest turn out ever.  This year I have decided to ride in the single speed category, due to being busy I ended up racing my bike with the fat wheels rather than the 29+ setup I intended to ride originally (29+ wheels are lighter).  My race was going pretty well and I managed to pass a number of people, when I finished the race I thought I'd possibly got a top 3 place, it seems luck was on my side though.  The last person I passed on the penultimate section of Singletrack (who had dropped his chain),  ensured I got a 1st place in single speed category, this is the first time I have ever won a race, I think a number of people were surprised to see a singlespeed fat bike with pink tyres passing them, next time I will ride 29+ as i'm sure this will not shock as many people when/if I pass them....... Probably!

The bike rolls well but has the aerodynamic properties of a brick

Kicking up dust

Finishing

The 4th June was Anchorage bike to work day,  on this day there is a significant increase in the number of people who bike to work, the weather was fantastic for this years event which saw a real swell in numbers (From BCA facebook page "Bike to Work Day counts are in. We saw an increase of about 20% from 2012 (the last Bike to Work Day that was sunny - last year was a wet, snowy day that lead to lower numbers).").  

I took a 26mile ride with a couple of colleagues to visit some of the bike to work stations before heading to work, we had, sticky buns thanks to the Trek store,  bacon donuts with the police,   Blueberry muffins at the blueberry station and bacon at the BCA(Bike Commuters Anchorage) station.

Quiet part of the coastal trail.

Morning commute with friends

That is all from me for the time being, hope everyone is well and take care until next time.
Nick

My longest ride to date, probably.....

Due to family commitments I normally only work one day at the weekends so I get to spend some time with Amanda and Fiona. Saturday the 17th was different.
Up here in Alaska there are many options to enjoy the outdoors with numerous clubs and groups to help get you out enjoying the outside.  I have been doing quite a lot of racing on bikes with the different divisions of the Arctic Bike Club, a couple of weeks ago I even managed to fluke a 3rd place in one of the races,  a combination of right place right time.  One of the groups I've been meaning to ride more with is called the Alaska Randonneurs. They organise rides which vary in length from 100km right upto their 1200km big wild ride.
These rides are not races although there is a time element and the courses are not premarked, they give you a set of controls and a time range to be at the controls.  At each of the controls you need to get your Brevet card filled out, this might be as simple as answering a question or just getting someone to sign the card, once this task is complete it's onto the next control.
I can safely say I was lucky with the weather on this ride, we had a blue sky day and low winds for all of the day, temperatures ranged from 40F to 68F and most of the car drivers were pretty good with giving bikes space.
The route took us from Anchorage out to Palmer and back, including riding to and from the event I clocked up 138miles, total time on the course 9 hours 57min, total moving time 8.5hours.  I am looking forward to trying another one of these events out.

There is a link to a couple of snap shots from the ride on my book of faces page, I 'll try and put a a link here when I'm next on a computer, although I forgot to take photos for most of the return leg :-/

Until next time
Be safe Nick

Racing Racing Racing......

Since the 24 hours of Kincaid see previous post here the road and mtb seasons have been in full swing here.

MTB Series

I have been enjoying the MTB racing, its been fast, fun and hard work.  The final race of the series was on the 14th August and I managed to finish in 7th place in this round.  Of the six rounds I have managed to get myself to five events, by my calculations this means I have finished in either 6th or 7th place in the series.  Overall I am happy with my performances and certainly for the last round I couldn't have ridden any harder.

enjoying the trails round #6

  GPS track of the last round.

Road Series

I also raced the tour of Anchorage which is a five race four day event put on every year by the Arctic Bike Club road division.  Although my performance in this tour was perhaps a little below par I had a blast and really feel that the last stage was my best performance.

Here is the GPS plot

and some photos of stage 5

trying to keep up with Jason

working hard

working together

team riding, tactics dictated we were at the back ;-)

using my tongue to balance :)

Finally I will be competing in the last round of the hill climb series on Sunday the 18th August.  I am sitting in 4th place in the series, although I believe it is mathematically impossible for me to get 3rd place I could loose 4th.  Hopefully I will have changed my cassette to a 12-27 as I hadn't realised all season I have been riding 11-23 and its really hard work on the climbs.  (I'm riding 53-39 up front) for anyone who doesn't understand those numbers I am riding gears that are designed for riding on the flat and completing in 2000ft climbs...

Until next time take care all

Nick

PS Our kit finally came in as can be seen in the above pictures.  It has been really fun riding with team mates this year.  All having the same kit means its nice and easy to spot you guys at the races.