Iditarod Trail Invitational

Alaska, Iditarod, mountain biking, snow bike racing, snow biking | UltraRob | Tuesday, February 26th, 2008 at 10:17 pm

The Iditarod Trail Invitational started on Sunday. It follows the Iditarod sled dog route. Racers choose whether to do it by bike, ski or foot. They also choose whether to go 350 miles to McGrath or 1,100 miles to Nome.

The weather has been good and the snow conditions have been good. Although the trail conditions have been good, there have been several reports of angry moose being on the course. It sounds as thought the leaders are now also running into softer snow.

The good trail conditions had people wondering if Pete Basinger could break his record from last year of 3 days 5 hours 40 minutes. Unfortunately, one of his pedals broke and he had to wait for a new one to be brought in by plane. Amazingly he caught back up to the leaders today. I raced with him at the 2004 Fireweed 400.

A couple weeks ago, I used my cycling and outdoor gear search to raise money for Jill Homer. She is having a great race and is on pace to break the women’s record. Her boyfriend, Geoff Roes was leading the foot division but a bad ankle has forced him to turn back.

Currently the leaders are near Rohn 210 miles into the race. It’s so remote that there aren’t many updates available.

Here are several links to track the race

Also Mike Curiak is again attempting to ride to Nome without using any of the checkpoints along the way. He won’t accept any kind of outside help. He’s carrying a transmitter that allows him to be tracked. Scott is posting regular updates on Mike’s blog.

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