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Wow. The concept of something so mind-bogglingly hard leaves little space to even appreciate the Ti bike porn! His fortitude and motivation are awe-inspiring. That head-tube picture is put in stark perspective on the blog:
"The dynamics of 40 below make things that much more interesting on a bicycle. For starters, even grease with a lower freezing point starts to thicken, which makes everything from the crank to derailleurs to the hub turn that much slower. Headsets freeze, making it hard to turn handlebars. The rubber in tires hardens and cracks. Tubes start to lose air, and if the temperature drops much more, they begin to come apart at the seams"
I'll never bitch about a windy, wet commute again!
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The man is a legend! Been following the blog since he kicked off this attempt, looked a bit grim to start with but he is monstering it now.
A friend of mine from Alaska has done the iditabike and has a selection of snow bikes he built himself. There is a standing offer to go out there some year to give it a go with him. I'm seriously tempted to take him up on it but rarely experiencing temperatures below freezing here makes those conditions on the trail very imposing indeed... -
Jill Homer did the invitational and that seemed hard enough (her second attempt ended after frostbite).
She wrote a good book about it as well.
Shall be spending some time reading this blog as well.
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Jill Homer did the invitational and that seemed hard enough (her second attempt ended after frostbite).
She wrote a good book about it as well.
Shall be spending some time reading this blog as well.
Jill Homer is rapidly becoming the stuff of legend too.
She's been writing a lot of the blog updates for Mike while he's away. -
I've been a bit short of time recently to keep up with her blog. I usually end up spend a night every couple of months catching up on everything she's written. Bloody journalist, can't do one line updates like any normal blogger.
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He's done!
Huge congratulations to Mike...completely unsupported.
Hugely inspiring! -
walking / existing in that sort of terrain is a pretty serious undertaking. I've been in big mountains, but nothing that cold compared to Alaska. -40 freezing the grease in your hubs is pretty nuts.
A great big chapeau to him.
+1 to never moaning about chilly fingers in a +4C spring commute.
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Mike has posted a really interesting report on his ride...great pics too.
http://lacemine29.blogspot.com/2010/03/random-re-entry-ramblings.html
Seeds
Sammy_Dodger
tis
The_Seldom_Killer
mattty
Soul
dicki
villa-ru
deleted
hippy
overdrive
Wannabe
somebody
sLimJim
EEI
Balki-
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About
Mike Curiak... Unsupported Iditarod Trail attempt
Posted by
I've spoken about Mike Curiak a few times on here. He's a cycling hero of mine, being a legend in the often overlooked endurance cycling field.
He holds records for the Great Divide mtb route and Iditarod trail amongst others, both seen as some of the longest and hardest bike events on the planet.
He's been hinting for a few years about his plans for an unsupported epic ride and has been testing various equipment, food plans, as well as his own mental strength on various rides.
This year he has once again been riding the Iditarod trail invitational route, though not as a competitor.
It's over a thousand miles through Alaska.
Competitors normally stop at checkpoints along the way and can shelter and get warmth and food and resupply at various places.
Mike is completely unsupported however. He is carrying everything he needs himself, which brought his total bike weight to approx one hundred and fifty pounds.
I've been following his progress on his blog which is being updated by friends of his and shows spot points of his route. The last update shows that he's just ridden a section that isn't even on land, but is actually part of the frozen bay.
Having followed his blog it shows that despite being about 2 days behind his pace from his last attempt he managed to claw that back and has now gone further than any of his previous unsupported attempts, having covered over eight hundred miles so far.
He's managed to resist all temptations when riding past checkpoints and through towns, which must be one of the hardest things ever when you've spent nearly three weeks away from real warmth and shelter, not to mention people.
He's losing between one and two pounds of bodyweight per day and will have been riding for approx 3 weeks by the time he finishes.
It looks like barring anything serious he should make it all the way to Nome which will be an incredible achievment.
For anyone interested it makes great reading following his journey on his blog. There are some amazing pictures and videos.
I hope you enjoy reading it and gain as much inspiration from it as i have.