Fat Bike State Champs - 4th March 2017 - Fast, firm and fun at Kincaid

Saturday the 4th March 2017 was the Abominable Snow Series Fatbike State Championship.
It was the final round of the series for winter 2016/17 and we were treated to a fast, firm and fun course.
The course consisted of 1.4 miles of mulituse trail followed by 3.4 miles of sweet singletrack before rejoining the multiuse to either complete the race or continue for a second or third lap.
Beginners raced 1 lap, sport 2 laps and experts 3 laps.
Revolution racing was fielding riders in both sport and expert categories, congratulations team mates you all did great.
Thanks to the organisers for putting on a fun series, it must be tough getting permits and worrying about the snow conditions when you plan these events months in advance. We all appreciate all that goes into these events.

Team Results

Sport Men

Bruce - 5th Place

Alex - 7th Place

Sport Women

Mara - 1st Place

Expert Men

Nick - 3rd Place

Oliver - 9th Place

Photos

Here are a few snapshots of the team, all take by Nathaniel Bannish.

Nick lap 1 - PC Nathaniel Bannish

Oliver lap 1 - PC Nathaniel Bannish

Bruce lap 1 singletrack - PC Nathaniel Bannish

Mara finishing singletrack end lap 2 - PC Nathaniel Bannish

Alex finishing singletrack end lap 2 - PC Nathaniel Bannish

Team photo post race. 

Mara Podium shot - PC Nathaniel Bannish

Nick Podium shot - PC Nathaniel Bannish

2017 Susitna 100 -18th February 2017 - Soft trail edition

The Susitna 100 and Little Susitna 50K didn't disappoint this year. With warmer temps, soft conditions and recent snowfall the course really kicked our butts. But that didn't stop Nico, Laura and Stew from heading out onto the lakes, swamps and river beds of the Susitna valley for the Susitna 100.
Alex, Brant, Mike, Oliver, Danielle and Clinton all put in a hard afternoon ride in the Little Su 50k.

The Su100 and Little Su50k start from Martin Buser's Happy Trails Kennel where you even get to meet the legend Buser himself!
For the Su100 you head out to Pt. McKenzie road, over to Flathorn Lake via the Gasline trail. After Flathorn you cross the Dismal Swamp and drop on down to the river. Up, up, up the river until you get to Corral Hill near Deshka Landing. From there you drop down the east leg of the Willow Swamp Loop to Old Hunter Trail. After that, the Big Swamp to Cow Lake, across the many Butterfly Lakes and cross the Little Susitna River one final time to Hunter Camp tent. Then it's a solid 9-11 miles to the finish back at the Kennel around 100 miles later.
The Little Su50k starts at the same location two hours after the Su100 and heads out along the same route to start before turning right instead of left to complete a roughly 30mile loop hitting the far side of Cow Lake before heading back to the start via the hunter camp tent. 

Check out this article. Our teammate Laura Fox and some of our favorite cyclists Christina Grande and Superal Mitchell were featured.

ADN Article: Susitna 100 delivers major winter challenge for cyclists, skiers, runners

ADN Article: After 31 miles of tough pedaling, a fierce finishing sprint settles Little Su 50

Little Su 50km Results

Clinton Hodges:  3rd Place

Danielle Dalton:  10th Place (Second Place Women)

Oliver Sternicki:  22nd Place

Brant Grifka: 25th Place
Alex Ippoliti:  36th Place

Mike Schechter:  Participant

Su 100 Results 

Nico Baudin:  4th Place

Laura Fox:  5th Place (First Place Woman)

Mark Stewart:  46th Place

Nico, Stew and Laura all look happy to be lining up for the start.

Look at all those crazies. Little did they know they were riding off into a big fluffy pile of snow!

Danielle really enjoys soft snow!

Oliver is asking himself why he keeps doing this to himself. 

Brant looked happy to finish up!

Alex at the finish of the 50k

Nico and Laura close in on Eagle Quest Lodge which is approx. 60 miles into the race looking fresh!

These two really don't like riding in the snow. After 14 some hours they decided they had enough and finished in 4th and 5th place overall. Laura was the first woman to finish.

Super D - Duze Downhill - 11th February 2017 - Soft and unconsolidated when off line.

Saturday saw the running of the Super D - Duze Downhill put on by Chain Reaction Cycles. This year the course started at Prospect heights and ended at the Ball Fields at Elmore, taking in regularly used singletrack like the hive and baseball boogie and some not so used trails like Gas line as well as the multiuse trails in between.

The course was around 5.7 miles long and lost roughly 1000ft of elevation, some of which was fairly gentle and other parts were steep and loose. The whole course punished you if you made a slightly off line choice. 

I was out supporting for this race and watched a number of riders wipe out on the first descent towards me. 

Revolution racing had one team member racing and he did great.

Congratulations Oliver on your 5th place finish on what was a tough course. You looked fast, smooth and in control when you passed me.

Oliver at the first corner

Full results

Icy River Rampage - 4th February 2017 - Some Icy sections on the river and a very bumpy return.

Saturday the 4th February 2017 was the 5th edition of the Icy River Rampage held at Eagle River Nature Centre. This year we were back at the ERNC again due to favourable conditions on the river after a year absence. This years event was also a sell out for the first time with 100 riders turning up for the event.
The course started at the nature centre and works its way downhill to the river via the nature center trails, we are not allowed to ride on these trails outside of this race so its a real treat to ride them. Once on the river we were on a meandering snow machine track which had a couple of two way sections. The course had a couple of icy spots on the river and although rideable without studs having them was a real advantage.
After around 7 miles on the river headed up a steep incline back onto the ERNC trails before turning right and hitting the moose (single) track section of the course which provided both a technical climb and a rough descent.
At around 10.4 miles we hit the smoother ERNC trails again and cruised along before either finishing the lap around 11 miles or heading out for another lap.

Once again the ERNC team had put together an interesting and challenging course for all the racers.
A huge thanks to the organisers for putting on a great event, the BBQ post race is a really great way to end the ride.

Results

11 mile

John - 14th Place

22 mile 

Nico - 5th Place

Clint - 7th Place

Nick - 8th  Place

Laura - 11th Place (2nd Women)
Oliver - 12th Place
Stew - 18th Place
Bob - 29th Place
Brant - 30th Place

Oscar - 32nd Place

Full results can be found at the following link

Photographs

Colin was out taking photos of the racers. 

From his facebook post "If you comment or message me your bib # I will see if I have any photos of you. I will also set up a link on my site to purchase a full-res digital copy or print."

Cheers,

Colin

www.colintyler.com

http://www.colintyler.com/news/2017/2/4/icy-river-rampage-2017

Here is a great one of Bob to tempt you to get in touch with him.

Frosty Bottom - 14th January 2017 - Riding the rail edition

Saturday the 14th January 2017 was the 11th edition of the Frosty Bottom For this years race there were a couple of minor changes. Gone was the one way version of the Frosty 25 being replaced with an out and back to goose lake from the chalet. The event was also a bike only event rather than a bike, ski or run event as it has been in previous editions. Finally we had short uphill start which ensured open racing down the final climb on the coastal trail rather than a neutral start. 

The Frosty has become a very fast race for many riders with hard packed conditions the previous couple of years a pace line forms and it is effectively a road race on snow bikes. This year there was a different kind of pace line.... With 4" to 8" of fresh snow falling the night before the event conditions were soft to say the least. How soft? Well for the 50 event the lead pack reached the 1/2 way point around the same time that they had completed the course last year. Many riders had to walk/run sections which they previously roll through at high speed. 

To say it was a race of attrition would be an understatement with many riders cramping up or struggling to get the correct nutrition down whilst riding a rut for the whole 26/43 miles. 

Congratulations to all the riders who even started the event with the fresh snow on the ground. You all rock!

Thanks to the organisers for putting on a great event and the addition of the aid station at goose lake was very beneficial for this rider on the return :-)

Results

Full results can be found here

Frosty 25 Men 

Oliver - 3rd Place

Frosty 25 Women

Mara - 3rd Place

Frosty 50 Men

Nico - 7th Place

Clint - 13th Place

Brad - 15th Place

Nick - 21st  Place

Brant - 29th  Place

Frosty 50 Women

Laura - 2nd Place

Frosty Sweep

Bruce

Awards Photos 

Photo credit Janus Reyes

Frosty 25 Men
1st James, 2nd David, 3rd Oliver

Frosty 25 Women
1st Amber, 2nd Shannon, 3rd Mara

Frosty 50 Women
1st Megan, 2nd Laura, 3rd Jill

Arctic Cross #7 - 8th October 2016 - Jodhpur with the dune

Saturday the 8th October was the final race of the 2016 Arctic Cross season. This year we revisited Kincaid for the Jodhpur race. The team had 14 people out racing plus Bruce doing his race director thing and Kelsey out cheering on the racers. Great turnout teammates.

The weather has finally started cooling off at least overnight here in Anchorage and we were treated to another blue sky day race. For the beginner men the race started with the temperatures hovering around 30F, this was good for the course as it meant lots of frozen mud however it was chilly during the warm up. As the day warmed up the course became a little slower as the mud defrosted. The course is a mixture of ski trails, sandy singletrack and a little bit of a sand dune.  The usual cross course features of  barriers were out as well as the mini barriers.

Danielle powering away after the mini barriers

We also had some natural barriers to deal with.

Tom with the log hop
- Photo Credit Patrick McGownd

Carry or push the bike not sure which was faster.

Part of the dune with Danielle
- Photo Credit Patrick McGownd

After the climb there were a couple of line choices to descend off the dune.
 

Nick, Ryan and Clint riding off the dune
- Photo Credit Patrick McGownd

For a lot of people on the team the series points were already sorted out going into this round however the racing was just as fast and furious as it has been all season.

A huge thanks to our sponsor Steamdot Coffee who provided us with some coffee to share with our fellow racers and team mates.  

Pre or post ride coffee thanks #Steamdot

Finally thanks to the Arctic Cross team for putting on another great event and planning a super fun course. 

Race #7

Full results can be found here, with laps splits here

Beginner Men

Ethan - 8th Place

Brant - 30th Place
Mark - 31st Place
Mike -  45th Place

Beginner Women

Kristie -18th Place

Open Men

Nico - 6th Place

Clint - 8th Place

Nick - 10th Place
Ryan - 11th Place

Brad - 16th Place

Oscar - 17th Place
Tom - 21st Place

Open Women

Laura - 2nd Place
Danielle - 5th Place

Arctic Cross # 6 - 1st October 2016 - Kulis Air Park the race with mini barriers

Saturday was round 6 of the Arctic Cross series.  The course was a great cross course with a mixture of pavement, gravel, mud, and grass. One new feature on the course was as set of four mini barriers which with enough speed were rideable.

Mini barriers - (battle for 7th place lap 3 I think)
- Photo Credit Amanda Blades

There was also a runup/ride up depending on how tired your legs were. For me it was a run up every time.

Run up - Photo Credit Rob Christenson

The team had 13 members racing and we all finished with smiles/grimaces of determination on our faces.

Once again a huge thanks out to the Arctic Cross team for putting together another fantastic race.  This could well become another team favourite. See you all next week for round 7 at Jodhpur which is also the final round of the series.

Race #6

Full results can be found here, with laps splits here

Beginner Men

Ethan - 14th Place

Travis - 15th Place

Brant - 30th Place 

Beginner Women

Kristie - 16th Place

Open Men

Nico - 5th Place

Nick - 11th Place

Clint - 12th Place
Ryan - 14th Place

Shannon- 15th Place

Oscar - 17th Place
Brad - 18th Place

Tom - 20th Place

Open Women

Laura - 3rd Place