Badasses All

This was the weekend of the Susitna 100, which meant I went to a fun party, took a little trail ride, and frequently went online to look for updates on my much tougher friends.

I’m not sure what makes someone want to endure that many hard hours on a bike, but I admire the endurance of those who can do it. So here’s to all the finishers, especially those with whom I’ve shared rides over the past year or so, resulting their pictures residing in my laptop. They're all tough buggers.

Carl Battreall: 16 hours, 9 minutes

Sean Grady: 17 hours, 6 minutes

Next Saturday, Sean will start riding to Nome
in the Iditarod Trail Invitational.

Leonard Fancher: 21 hours, 8 minutes

Mike Morganson: 25 hours, 7 minutes

This was Mike's 14th Susitna 100 finish.

Julie Perilla: 28 hours, 7 minutes

Julie Malingowski: 34 hours, 29 minutes

They've all earned a cold beer and a good night's sleep.

Game? What game?

Luce's Lodge on a fat-bike kind of morning.

Here’s what I saw of the Super Bowl: Seven seconds left, the clock running, and Packers starting to celebrate. Game over.

There was still some pizza on the table, so I didn’t miss anything important by arriving home late Sunday afternoon. Besides, the “big game” seemed to reduce snowmachine traffic on the frozen Yentna and Susitna rivers, so the trail was firmer much faster than it had been during Saturday’s 25-mile ride to Luce’s Lodge on the Yentna, where we spent the night before riding back to Deshka Landing.

Rush hour on the Susitna River.

For my money, a sunny day riding with friends will always beat anything on TV, especially when there’s a clear view of Denali and a four-time Iditarod champion says, “Amazing!” when I pedal by him as he adjusts the load on the trailer behind his snowmachine. (I always knew Martin Buser was the nicest guy in the Iditarod.)

Luce’s was the site of a virtual fat-biker’s convention on Saturday night after our group of five riders encountered friends in a three-person group near the confluence of both rivers, then found four other local riders at the lodge. It was the last big weekend for training before the Susitna 100, and I was probably the only rider out there who wasn’t preparing for either that race or the White Mountains 100. I was the lone slob, training for nothing but fun.

Julie M. and Carl, with Denali on the horizon.

Like I told Queen Bee as we pedaled upriver, the only thing I do to prepare for a 100-mile winter ride is a 50-mile winter ride. That’s always enough to remind me I don’t want to do a 100-mile winter ride.

Speaking of fat bikes, this trip might have been the Pugsley’s swan song. New bike plans is in the works. If all goes well, I should soon be posting pics of a new fattie. Anybody want to buy a nice, sturdy Pugs?

Susitna carnage

80 racers signed up for this year's Susitna 100.

72 started.

52 scratched.

20 finished.

Congratulations to Pete Basinger (right), the first bicyclist across the finish line. His time was 1 day, 1 hour, and 30 minutes, putting him in second place overall, behind skier Chet Fehrmann with a time of 20 hours.

Sounds like it was a death march for most folks, with a lot of pushing. Everyone who tried deserves some respect. (I was perfectly happy to be warm and relaxed somewhere else.)

Things weren't much better in the Little Su 50k. If I counted right, the shorter race had 34 DNS entrants, 24 scratches and only 37 finishers.

Something tells me there's gonna be a lot of ibuprofen consumed over the next couple of days.