Had a great ride at Icebike 12 today at The Forks. I did the usual Abominable class race which this year was 3 laps for ~15km. Turnout was lighter that usual. Not sure if it was the snowy conditionsor the Super Bowl or what. Lots of years it’s been much colder.
I was surprised that even after road riding late into the fall, and doing some workouts on the trainer, the 1st 1/2 lap was a killer. My legs were burning and I seemed to be sucking wind a bit. After that, I settled in and felt pretty good for most of the race.
The St. Boniface hospital side was the main challenge with all the fresh loose snow on the slope of the river bank. This section of the course required a little off the bike running which was just as fast as trying to ride it.
The other interesting spot was dropping down to the lower part of the trail after crossing the Provencher Bridge. The drop wasn’t too bad inspite of the loose show, it was that big rock half way down that was ready to greet anybody who lost control.
A good day all in all especially with Scott, Mandy, Shirley & friends cheering me on. It always helps the keep you pushing hard when you’re feeling like easing up. The results will be up later in the week, so we’ll see how I finished up them.
However, this was yet another year where I didn’t win a door prize! Dozens of prizes each year, 8 or 9 years of being in the race, and so far they have yet to pull my number. What’s up with that?
The results are in and I placed 22nd out of 29 with a time of 45:22, or 22nd out of 32 if you could the DNFs. This is within my parameters of a) finish the race, and b) don’t be last!
FYI, winning time was 35:27, way to go Daniel N.