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

XC race series is upon us

Wednesday 7th June 2017 is the first round of the XC race series in town. This is a 6 race series put on by the Arctic Bike Club MTB division.

As mentioned in previous blogs I have been "training" with a group of really quick riders and steadily seeing my speed increase which is nice. Although I haven't been out with them for the last couple of weeks due to scheduling conflicts, I think (hope), I will have enough carry through from the earlier training to perform better than last season.

Speaking of which. Today I did a little testing and I am still unsure of  the choice ahead of me.
My dilema is do I ride my trusty 5" travel 29er bike which is a little overkill for most of the XC races in all honesty but a lot of fun. Or do I ride my rigid fat bike with the 27.5+ wheels where I will get pretty beaten up by the end of the course especially through the rooty sections.

Using the wonderful Strava I was able to compare my times through a couple of rooty sections of the course. We did one hotter lap on Saturday when we had got to know the course and this was the times I was comparing to.

Both bikes came out around the same time for all the sections I compared to. Unfortunately I couldn't do a full lap test as one section of the course is one way on odd vs even days.

Oh well, I guess I will sleep on it and make a decision tomorrow. 

July already and we are in full summer mode

Late Spring and early Summer in 2016 has brought plenty of warm dry weather to south central Alaska. For me it has meant lots of riding and running and trying to get to bed at a sensible time with the seemingly everlasting light.

Anchorage Seward Anchorage

Once again I rode the Denali Randonneurs 400km event to Seward and back. This year the weather was not quite as nice as last years, it was sunny at times but we also had a fair amount of rain and headwinds in what felt like both directions.  Fortunately I was riding with a good buddy of mine Oscar, its always nice when you have someone to suffer with :)
We both would class the ride as type two fun, however the tail wind for the last 30 miles certainly made that part of the ride type one fun. Definition of types of fun

climbing to turnagain pass

kenai lake

The answer

soft peddling and 20mph I'll take it

almost home

Drinking like a hobo

24 hours of Kincaid

Returning for 2016 was the 24HOK. This year there was a pretty low turnout compared to last time it was run in 2014 however, the course was fantastic and a real credit to the ArcticMTB club who organised the event.

LeMans style start

This year I raced on a quad team for the 12hour event. Our team (Glenn and the bear pissers) came second in our class (aka last) however we did have a lot of fun.
The team I ride for, Revolution racing had a fantastic turnout and with the addition of margaritas (thanks Chuck) and some beer from our sponsor Anchorage Brewing Co we seemed to nail the ride and social side of the event IMHO.
We also tried camping as a family first time. It was really windy throughout the weekend and the tent barely stayed upright however, Fiona did manage to sleep eventually even with the tent flexing so much it was hitting her face.

Camping for one night only :-/

Finally asleep this was at 00:20 it didn't get much darker

Hiking flattop mountain

We have been in Anchorage a little over 3.5 years and have never hiked flattop mountain. This is partially because we are more cyclists than hikers and partially because when we tried we were turned around due to conditions.

Amanda's job had a complication which meant that we had the opportunity to have a bonus family day. We decided a short hike was in order and planned to do the blueberry loop and maybe up to the saddle. When we reached the saddle, we assessed the situation and threw caution to the wind and headed up to the top. From the saddle up to the top is where the hike becomes a little more strenuous however both Amanda and Fiona did great at the scramble section both up and down.  I believe part of this was due to the low visibility. Although we were not treated to the spectacular views for our hike equally for the scramble part we didn't have to deal with vertigo so swings and roundabouts really.
Not having grand vistas ensures you take notice of the littler things like the alpine flowers, the pretty rocks and of course the purple pinecones.

touching the clouds

at the top....

a brief view

tundra flower

heading back down

nearing the bottom of the scramble

one of the last switch backs

more flowers

and more 

and more

berries

looking back at the top which had now cleared

even more flowers

purple pine cones 

still more flowers

When will this hike be over? Where has the summit gone?

As summer rolls on

That is most of what we have been up to this early summer, well aside from work, the wedding we went to some midweek races and Fiona at football.... how is the rest of our summer looking? Busy would be the best way to describe it with more racing and events and being away. It's good to be busy right?

There is also something called independance day to look forward to, although no fireworks here in Anchorage where we will be as they are not allowed, not that you can see them anyway as it's still light until way into the night... 

Here comes Cross season

As mentioned in my previous blog post (Arctic MTB Trifecta AKA climb, climb and climb) marked the end of the MTB racing season here in Anchorage, Alaska.  This can only mean one thing; here comes the cyclo cross season...

In Anchorage the cross season is put on by ArcticCross who organise a 7 race series throughout Anchorage, the venues change around from year to year but the racing is always fun and turnouts usually great and have been getting better and better in previous years.  Although they allow people to race on any bike the courses normally favour a cyclocross bike.  I have never had a cyclocross bike but this year that changed when I ordered one through work.

I built up the bike (a Giant TCX Advanced Pro 2 ) on the 21st August.  The bike is a carbon fibre cyclocross bike that comes with hydraulic disc brakes, Shimano 105 components (although I got Ultegra shifters lucky free upgrade) and through axles front and rear to stiffen up the frame.

Building the bike up

Building up bikes is a fairly routine task, however the joy of being a foreigner, and the oddity that I ride all my bikes with the brakes reversed compared to countries who drive on the "other" side of the road (compared to the UK) means I have to switch my brakes around.

In this instance it means I have to remove the perfectly wrapped bar tape and disconnect a perfectly functioning brake just to switch hoses over.  Hopefully if you are super lucky you won't have to bleed the brakes.... I only had to bleed the front brake so I'm happy with that :D

swapping over the brakes

All done except the pedals

Since getting the bike built up I have taken it riding a couple of times to #CoffeeOutside, a get together with friends before work where we visit a local park and have coffee outside. 

Coffee outside

I have also been out on the bike to practice some of the more specific aspects to riding a skinny tyred bike with drop bars off road, this includes cornering, run ups, dismounts, remounts and jumping barriers. 

informal cross practice

Link to some technique videos for cyclocross

The season kicks off next Friday and I will be there.  Although me racing the first race may not happen, its a little late for Fiona to be staying up and making race two on the Saturday, yes she races too.  I will make my decision later on during the week, once we see how Fiona is coping with no Amanda.
Until next time, ride on all :D
Finally this is what a pro can do on a bike very similar to mine... FYI this is a Downhill course

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.