This will be of limited interest to most and also reflects the extremely warm temps we experienced so isn't necessarily that helpful if you are thinking of doing this event. I do like to keep track of what I carry on these jaunts however....
Bike:-
Surly Ice Cream Truck with 1x10 (26/11-46), Raceface aeffect cranks and sunrace sproks, Nukeproof electron pedals, Thomson seat pin and WTB speed saddle, DT swiss rims, Hope hubs, Bud and Lou tyres ghetto tubeless, Deore hydo brakes, Mondraker stoic stem and Stooge moto bars.
This was largely the same set up as when I used this thing for the Highland Trail in 2015 barring a few component details and flat pedals. The flat pedals were right for the conditions as spds would have been constantly icing up. In fact even the flats were icing thanks to the overflow on the first lake. Others were riding lots of carbon bling but I'm not convinced the weight benefit would have been significant and my heavy steel frame would be far more resistant to inept baggage handlers. The ace handling of the ICT also helped to add to the fun factor on the numerous descents. Bud and Lou tyres were the business, I was noticeably riding stuff others couldn't, not to any huge degree but it got me through a few sections others walked. My philosophy for riding on snow is that too much is never enough tyre wise, unless the trails are frozen solid. If I'd dropped the pressures to 1 and 2psi I'd have been able to ride all but the untracked sections and overflow but the resulting faff and extra rolling resistance would not have gained any time and may have knackered me completely. The only mechanical problem I had was due to the rear mech being bolted on wrong by me when I threw the bike together post flight.
Bike bags and other stuff:-
Revelate frame bag (originally for a fargo but works fine in the ICT frame), Revelate terrapin seat pack, sweet roll, gas tank and fuel cell. 45nrth pogies.
My usual set up and it worked very well. I mounted the sweet roll onto one of those cheap light bars you can get from Amazon, which I spaced out from the steerer with a bit of plastic pipe. This keeps the bar roll away from the head tube and lights. The pogies were overkill for the temps until the last few K when a sudden drop made them ideal. The pockets in them were handy for stashing snacks and my mascot pink rubber rat.
Kit carried:-
Alpkit Arctic dream 1200 as specified in the approved bag list. Not the lightest -30 bag available but it was such a bargain I'm not complaining. Not sure what the lightest bag available is but it only saves a couple of hundred grams. I managed to force this into the terrapin dry bag and I do favour this rear weight bias. Up front was a Thermorest neoair regular length - I could have used my 2/3rds one but I figured if I did want to sleep I needed to keep my bag of the snow as it would be wet. Paramo Quito jacket - my usual waterproof and not used. Rab pertex over-trousers - also not used but would have been useful if the wind got up given my non windproof tights. Buffalo teclite gillet - a spare extra layer not needed.
Lights:-
Exposure maxxd, exposure joystick. Overkill as I had both on mimimum and both only used about 25% of their battery power but nice to know you had plenty in reserve. Required rear light was a cheapo planet x thing. I also carried a head torch "just in case".
Other kit:-
Topeak multitool, leathermen squirt, full puncture repair kit with tub thread, superglue and various tubeless hole fixers, 2 spare tubes. Lezyne micro floor drive XL pump, used at the start line only. Garmin Dakota 20 GPS with a map lifted from OSM. This was very reassuring on some sections as going off route is possible, particularly when its dark and you're knackered. I carried heat packs for hands and feet and I used them after my feet got cold at CP7.
Worn kit:-
Pearl izumi Select bib tights, Assos shorts, HH merino top, DHB thermal jacket, Bear Bones Bikepacking lightweight gillet, lightweight fleece gloves, buff, Smart wool extra thick socks, Columbia Bugaboot -35's. TLD lid, shades.
I'd bought a pair of Pearl Izumi Am fib thermal tights which would have been far too warm given the temps so got left at home. The select tights aren't windproof but were more than warm enough. A couple of descents chilled me but only for a very short length of time. The bugaboots were OK but seem to have contributed to my knee issues which appeared two weeks before the race. They weren't as warm as I'd hoped but will at least be OK for UK conditions. If I did the race again in low temps I'd go for an spd boot with yeti gaitors. Light fleece gloves in the pogies were too warm until the last couple of K when my hands did get cold, likely due to the gloves being damp and the air temp dropping on the river. I'd say I was on a reasonable safe limit of kit worn and carried given the conditions.
Food:-
Carried in the frame bag, up front and the fuel cell - Various energy bars, several snickers, kit-kats and haribo, two freeze dried meals and one freeze dried porridge. Ti pan, foldable cup, BB lightweight meths stove and a small bottle of meths. I'd intended on carrying water in a camel back under my top but due to the warmer temps thought I'd bung the bladder in the frame bag which is my usual place for it. The pipe froze twice but I was still able to drink straight from the bladder.
I got food fairly badly wrong. I didn't know what to take that would survive sub-zeros so went with energy bars as I figured these would be edible when frozen. I normally avoid these like the plague as they give me an upset stomach and that's exactly what happened. The freeze dried meals were a good idea as every check point had hot water. The stove and pan were superfluous but the folding cup was a good idea for making brews and measuring water into dried meals.
Final thoughts
Although the warm(ish) weather did effect the snow conditions, in some ways I was glad of it as if it had been as cold as it had been before the race, my feet would have frozen, even with the heat packs. This seems to be my main problem for cold temps and the only solution I can think of is to have warmer boots (which I'm not sure are available) and or yeti gaitors. My socks did get a bit damp from all the snow going into my boots so if I'd worn normal gaitors (which I'd took with me but decided not to take on the day due to the temps) this wouldn't have been an issue.
I was riding along a compacted snowy trail, the sun was shining and there wasn't a cloud or a breath of wind. Endless trees stretched out in all directions as far as you could see, but spaced out in a way that no longer seems to exist in Britain. Suddenly I was in heaven. This is why I'd spent all that money, spent all that time riding my bike and spent all that time fettling kit, stressing over logistics and travel. A few hundred meters later the trail cut through a clearing and blown in snow stopped me dead. I jumped off and started pushing for the first but definitely not the last time....
Every year in Rovaniemi, Finland there is a human powered winter race over three distances, 66, 150 and 300k. You can bike it, run / walk it or ski it. It had been on my radar for a number of years but I was unwilling to commit to the considerable expense and preparation time until I was sure my body was up to it. Various injuries over the last three years put this off until entries opened in August 2018. I was fit, everything more or less worked so I sent the entry interest email quickly before either of these conditions changed. Thereafter it was a question of finance. Entry fee, 315 Euros, Flights and baggage, £500, digs £600. Then there was kit. Pogies £100, extra warm bib tights, £100, medium weight down jacket £175..... You are required to carry a sleeping bag rated to -30 and these things aren't cheap. Fortunately I got a bargain on an Alpkit bag thanks to Richard Seipp, one of their sponsored riders and a regular on the bikepacking scene in Britain. So it was just a matter of riding the bike.
In some ways my 'training' started in the Winter of 2017/18. Tons of snow over several weeks gave plenty of opportunities for taking myself and the bike to the limits and beyond of what was do-able on a fatbike. Winter 18/19 sadly didn't deliver so snow time was minimal. One long hard ride in melting snow in my local hills was the best I could manage but in the event these conditions proved to be strangely appropriate for what I would have to face in Finland. Typically, two weeks before departure my knees suddenly let go big style. To say I was miffed understates my feelings by several orders of magnitude. I'd spent all this money on something it was now very doubtful I'd be able to start let alone finish. The training was stopped and I spent the two weeks up to the race doing little but stretches and massage.
Travel is a pain when aircraft are involved. It went OK and I got a taste of what we were in for as we flew over Sweden and Finland - endless snow, frozen rivers and lakes and sea ice. A land of winter indeed. Rovaniemi airport is the first one I've been too with sastrugi on the grass between the runway and the taxi way.....
Handy having an apartment to build up and store your bike!
Temps were very low; -18 to -25. The forecast for Saturday was for a rapid rise so I had to experience these conditions for at least a short while. A leisurely ride up to check point one enabled me to suss out the trail and get that ice coated beard which is an integral part of arctic bike riding.
Friday was kit check day and pre race meeting. I caught up with Bob and Cath Wightman in race control as well as Mike who was also doing the 150. Simon and Lisa Marie were running the 66k route and there were a number of other Brits present. The race briefing focussed rather heavily on overflow. This is something experienced on frozen water bodies whereby the ice cracks allowing water to force its way up under the over lying snow. The snow can insulate this water preventing it from freezing straight away so you end up with a bizarre scenario of splodging through slushy snow even at serious sub zero temps. This then freezes jamming drive trains solid.... In the temps forecasted there was no danger of this but also no chance that any over flow would re-freeze. I felt a distinct churning in my stomach hearing all of this but there was nothing we could do other than to ride (or walk) through it all and hope for the best
Friday evening was spent eating and doing final kit checks. The forecast was for temps to rise above freezing the following day but with freezing rain over night beforehand. Great. I'd come all this way to ride my bike in typical Scottish winter conditions....
Saturday dawned clear and cold. I headed down to the start and met up with Bob, Cath, Mike, Simon and Lisa Marie. After signing on it was down to the start line and that horrible nervous wait for the go. That said I was actually feeling fairly relaxed. I'd no idea how long my knees would last so had absolutely no expectations on how it would go, how fast I would travel and how far I'd get.
The beast, ready to go
The Brits, ready to go
The start line
Bob and Cath ready to go.
Finally we were off. We'd started fairly well back but were soon progressing passed runners, skiers and a fair few bikes as well. The freezing rain had done its job and the soft snow of Thursday now had a firm icy crust that enabled good progress.
Bob pushes on
Our pace increased only interrupted by my chain dropping off a couple of times in the higher gears. Something was wrong but I couldn't face stopping this early so kept in a lower gear and span. We passed numerous riders including Maurizio Doro who I'd last seen at 6.30 am in Tyndrum in 2017 having just completed the Highland Trail. He was doing the 300 so after a brief chat we sped off. At some point I pulled ahead of Bob but I felt my pace was good so kept going.
Riding into CP1
After riding in and out of CP1 there was a few K of road and then that first heavenly section of snow mobile trail. These would form the bulk of the route and provided a range of experiences.....
Blue above, white below - perfection
After my first dismount, my next experience was also typical - the front wheel washed out in the rutted surface and I flew straight over the bars into the soft snow at the side of the trail. This was a full on face plant into about a meter of powder. Getting back up required a mix of flailing, swimming and swearing. At CP2 the snow all over me and the bike told the tail. "You fell off?" says the checker inner. "Yup" says I. "You won't be the only one" Quite.
My one nav error gained a few places as several other missed the start of the first 'pain in the ass' section. This was 700m of stamped out trail between the trees down a steep slope to the first lake.
I exited this in good spirits with a nice long flat section of lake riding stretching out in front of me.
Early indications were good until I noticed the line of bikes a ways in front clearly being pushed. Shortly after my own forward progress ceased with a creaking crunch that would be heard and felt many, many times over the next 12 hours. Pushing your bike on a pan flat surface is not a particularly enlightening experience. Its not like (as an example) the trail from Lochinver to Ledmore via Glen Cansip forest where the bits that will stop you are obvious - a boulder field, a rock step a bog, a river. The snow mobile trail looked uniform and consistent. The snow structure wasn't. Some bits you could ride and some bits you had to push. I didn't complain much as at the end of the day this was what we had signed up for.
Of course there is no chance of getting into any kind of pace or rhythm in these conditions. Any time you felt the tyres starting to dig in you made a frantic effort to keep going before the inevitable dismount and push. I used the footprints and tracks of the other riders to gauge my gear and effort but it still made for very hard going. Then we started hitting the overflow. Some bits had re-frozen and made for a short easy pedal over hard ice. Others gave rise to un-nerving cracks and crunches and a few punch-throughs. Soon these sections were coming up regularly. One section was particularly bad with open water in the snow mobile trail and line of soggy footprints around it. I tip-toed through and luckily the water didn't over top my boots. This was getting a bit horrible and I was dreading getting wet feet as my poor circulation here would likely cause much coldness and either a scratch or a long time in front of a check point fire.
For all my histrionics I was regularly catching up riders and passing them so I must have been doing something right. I also passed a Brit putting a tube in his back tyre (eventual 3rd place in the 66 as it happens). A chap was speaking to him in a Scots accent who I guessed to be Will Robertson, the only other Scot in the race (Actually the only Scot as I just live here). Soon after the 66 route pealed of to the east but we had another few k of this horrible lake to traverse.
Hmm. I was only following two tyre tracks. I had a cold feeling that I was going too fast but figured it wasn't an issue as I would be stopping plenty in the various check points and my initial burst of speed in the opening 30k would have made the best of the conditions before the thaw set in.
Finally the lake ended and there was a blissfully easy couple of k before the next snow mobile trail. Annoyingly my chain dropped a few times on this section so more low gear spinning resulted. Then on the first steep climb (one of the biggest en-route, I couldn't get my low gear. Whilst stopping to faff with this both Will and (eventual 300 winner) Jussi caught up. Will thanked me for leaving a good trail on the lake and assured me he would return the favour (he very much did as I followed his track for many k later on) Near the top I re-passed Will and hit another nice section with the first of several ace descents. I really let rip down here leading to some real moments which I figured were of little concern given the inevitable soft landing. Another road section caused more chain issues so I resolved to set too at the next Check point.
Road riding, Finland style
Bob at CP3
This was a real touch of luxury - a fire in a half oil drum, hot and cold water and a nice pile of wood to sit on. I was indeed in third place here but Jussi appeared and rode straight through. Will turned up next and it turned out he was from Dollar - only a few miles from where I live. After food and coffee I set too on the bike.
Looking at it lying down the problem was immediately obvious. I'd bolted the rear derailleur linkage on pointing down instead of back - entirely due to ineptness on my part. A quick waggle of an allen key and all was well. Alexandra appeared at this point, another of the loose group who would pass and re-pass over the coming K. Bob also appeared just as I was finishing up. He was complaining about how long it had taken him to cross the lake compared to 2017. That year had been fast thanks to consolidated snow and low temps. The lake aside I was fairly relaxed as the icy crust on the snow mobile trails had persisted on many sections despite the rising temps so I felt the going was OK. It certainly was compared to pushing your bike through knee deep windslab which is something I've done an awful lot of over the years.
With a functioning drivetrain the next section was a real hoot. I passed Alex after she had taken a header into the soft snow beside the trail only to do the same shortly after. Another descent followed then more easy road. Alex burned passed me but I was starting to feel the distance so was happy to do some easy pedalling. Cloven hoof prints on the road lead to a group of reindeer stood in the trees. Lots of people travel a long way to see these things. To be fair they are more impressive than the scrawny examples you see in the Cairngorms but too me they are just a more ugly and stupider version of deer. Bah humbug indeed.
Follow the fat white line
The next trail was through 'Wolfland'. Apparently they do get seen here but would be keeping well clear given the traffic on this day. The sky had clouded over and a breeze was blowing in my face. The snow was now definitely wet but it showed no sign of any significant softening thanks to its depth and temperature. In fact I reckon the thaw probably helped as it would consolidate things and when the temps went down again come sunset it would firm up providing easier going.
Alex seemed to be falling off regularly but I couldn't make any ground on her until one particular fall which caused her some difficulty to extricate herself from. Riding this trail took extreme concentration. All of your attention was focussed on keeping in the track of the bike in front, avoiding their front wheel twists as they sunk into soft snow, avoiding going into the snow mobile runner track and avoiding going off the side of the trail. Its both mentally and physically draining as holding a consistent pace is impossible. But I loved it. My entire brain capacity was being absorbed by all of this and the rest of the worlds cares were forgotten.
I rode through CP4 as I was aiming for a food stop on CP5. The next obstacle (after another fun descent) was the bridge of doom. So called because a runner managed to fall off it into the burn a few years ago and then ended up with frostbite and lost toes. I took a deal of care crossing it as an early bath would not be of help at this point. After this the resulting hike a bike was a lot longer than I'd expected. Also the leader revealed his contrariness by pushing with his bike on the left. Of course you have to follow this but I imagined all the howls of protest from all the bike-on-the-right pushers as they went through here. Me, I can push on either side so I was quite happy.
In fact I was very happy. When you sign up for such an event you expect it to be hard so you can brag about it afterwards. Plus my duff knees were working well and overall I felt strong. To celebrate I whistled Sibelius' (Finnish composer of the early 20th century) Karellia march as loud as I could as this seemed an appropriate tune to belt out as I stomped along the trail.
I finally got riding again. Will was just in front but he cracked on. As I'd hoped the trail was firming up as the temps dropped and most of this section was rideable.
Oh oh. I was riding up a steady road climb when I noticed a side trail with bike tracks going up it. Just along it was a marker with a notice attached but there were several other markers continuing up the road. The GPS suggested that the road was the right route so why the bike tracks on this trail?? The notice on the marker had a 300 on it. So far route marking had been impeccable so I figured the GPX was right. Further up the road were more markers so I carried on. Then I realised - the side trail was the 300 return route. The 300 follows the 150 and then does a large loop to the south west of Rovaniemi before cutting back across the 150 route to the river and back.
Soon after the route turned off the road onto another trail. Further paranoia ensued as there were no bike tracks on it. This lead to thoughts of me being in one of two bad situations: 1. I was on the wrong route, my GPX was wrong and I would never be seen again. 2. I was now in the lead, the other riders having taken a wrong turn, meaning I was going too fast and a spectacular blow up was on the cards. Finally option 3 dawned - a snow machine had used the route between me and the leading two riders. Phew.
Sure enough at CP5 were three names, the two 150 leaders and Jussi doing the 300 who was just leaving. I sat by the fire and made up one of my dehydrated meals whilst chatting to one of the chaps manning the check point about Finnish versus Scottish snow conditions. As a further luxury coffee was also on offer. Alex appeared but pushed on and Will appeared just as I was about to leave. It had been his tracks I'd seen turning off route and he'd lost half an hour before he realised his mistake. He disappeared immediately trying to make up lost time.
Dusk falling on the ride to CP7
This section was only 9.5k but ended up being the hardest of the route. The icy trail of earlier wasn't so it was back to ride a bit / push a bit / repeat. Alex had her tyres too hard so she was pushing more than the two leaders. I was sometimes able to ride through her footprints but too often came to a halt as soon as she did. I also took a major energy drop here so the extra pushing was of no concern in all honesty and its not like I was loosing any time. The more people in front the better the trail so I slowed right up.
To this point I'd kept the heid quite happily accepting the continuous off and on again riding / walking needed to make forward progress. Eventually however I lost it with the nth slide of wheels from under me, the nth crushing of groin into the top tube and the nth smashing of pedal into shin. My "for fucks sake!" echoed around the surrounding woods. As with all such outbursts I immediately felt a fool for expressing myself thus. That said it worked as immediately after I was going again in a totally serene state of mind.
Dark was now falling. Eventually the trail improved a bit and suddenly I was at CP6 which at 78k is the notional half way point. It was 6pm and the arctic night beckoned. This was by far the nicest check point of the route. The fire was in a fab wooden hut and best of all there was a loo, something my ailing guts were very glad of. So lightened I felt much better and sat in front of the fire drinking coffee and eating snickers. Will had left after a quick change around of clothes and Alex went soon after. I was happy to sit for a while as I had no urge to chase anyone on this forbidding route. I recalled the advice of Carl Hutchings, several times finisher and once winner of that ultimate of bike races, the Iditarod Trail Invitational - "Survive first, race second" - except I was only going to follow the first bit of his advice.
Eventually I dragged myself out, affixed lights and hit the trail. Apart form one section over a pond conditions improved and riding in the dark added an extra element of adventure to the proceedings. On one section I noted yet another snow angel beside the trail marking someone's misfortune. Lying in the snow was a GPS, obviously a victim of this tumble. I stashed it in my bag hoping that whoever it was wasn't far ahead as I didn't want to hump any more gear than I had to!
Soon after I caught Alex who still had her GPS but was starting to feel the distance. I'd recovered considerably so passed with a wave and pushed on, the trail now largely rideable. A section of track followed which was frustrating in that it had been sort of ploughed but still had a fair bit of soft stuff to catch you out. Eventually this dumped me on the longest road section of the route at 16.5k. Better yet the first 9 of this was largely downhill and it was a major relief to do some easy pedalling whilst still making good speed.
Looking ahead there was a distinct orange glow in the clouds reminiscent of the reflection of city lights. Except there was no city north of my current location. Hmm, was this an aurora?? Possibly but in fact I think it was just the moon rising above the horizon. Still it raised my spirits and a further boost was gained when I punched my GPS and discovered I'd just passed 100k. Knees were grumbling a bit but suddenly a completion seemed achievable.
Streetlighting came as a shock through the urban sprawl of Tapionkyla (a very small village but somewhat spread out) but was soon left behind on a long and steady rolling climb back into the wilderness. There is an option to bale back down the road to Rovaniemi at this point but its still 30k and I gave it only the briefest of thoughts. One of the benefits of doing a properly organised event is that they have rescue services all laid on. All it would take would be a phone call and then someone would appear in a snow mobile to take you to the nearest road, whereby you'd be bundled into a taxi back to base.
The road was eventually left but the trail was now in good condition with a firm track to ride on. I could have ridden all of it but my feet had started to freeze so I made a point of walking the steeper climbs to try to generate some heat. The sky had now cleared and temps were dropping so I was glad to get to the penultimate checkpoint 7 and its most welcome fire. Will was there and sure enough he was down one GPS. Given his early nav error (and £400 for a replacement) he was extremely grateful to get it back so I was pleased to have spotted it. He left soon after I arrived but I needed to get some heat into my feet. Therein lies one of the challenges of this route. There I was sat by a fire, my boots off, and my feet toasty, eating food and drinking coffee. I could (and sometimes do) happily spend hours in this repose and any thought of racing left me entirely.
Eventually I got my boots back on (with added heat pads) and set off on the final leg. The remainder of the trail was easy going and then I hit the next road section. Various aches and pains were now prevalent, largely related to walking and pushing the bike. I've no idea how much I did this throughout the route (and I don't really want to) but I suspect its the most I've ever done on any one ride by a large margin. I'd recovered substantially from my earlier slump but I kept my pace steady knowing there was plenty still to go. In the distance were two red lights up high, indicating a substantial climb ahead. Except it never came and in fact overall I was steadily descending. This happened twice more until I realised I was actually seeing two red warning lights on a radio aerial....
Eventually the inevitable turn off came. This was over a steep bank onto another snow mobile trail. Over confident I lined up to blast it, only to dump the front wheel up to the down tube in the soft snow beside the compacted line. Fortunately I stepped off onto trail and not up to my neck so quickly got going again.
This was a gem with many a twist and turn and up and down. Coming up was the last lake and this was something that was giving me many butterflies. Given that it had been in the sun all day I was somewhat nervous about the likely amount of overflow. In the event it was actually good. The compacted line was now firm having frozen solid since the last snow mobile passed. So the 7k or so passed very quickly with only a couple of small bits of largely frozen overflow to barely hinder progress.
Darkness on the lake
In contrast the last bit of trail ended up being a drag as a snow mobile had been up recently destroying the icy firm surface. A long push followed until the snow mobile turned off and then it was an easy descent to another bit of road. This too was mainly downhill and I was now starting to grin a lot.
The river and the last checkpoint was near with only 11k to go. I'd seen no sign of Will since he left CP7 but as I rode in, he was leaving. I'd thought of having a good stop here but as I signed in, I thought "stuff this lets get this done" and signed straight back out, said cheerio to the staff and jumped back on the bike. 11k to go and I was going to hammer it. I caught Will after 10 minutes but he said he was done so would take it easy. Of course just after I passed him I felt the beginnings of a bonk so crammed down one last horrible energy bar, waited for it to kick in and then hit the gas.
I've no idea how long it took but it didn't seem long before the lights of Rovaniemi hove into view. I made one last nav error missing the turn across the river back to the start but I'd done this bit on my recce ride so I knew that a trail cut across back to the right line. I also passed Jossi along here who I'd not seen since CP5 which put me 3rd on the trail as well as 3rd place in the 150.
Wow. 3rd. Racing had been so far away from my conscious in both the build up and the actuality of this event that such a place seemed wrong. I recall reading Steve Bates account of his winning ride last year and being somewhat appalled about his racer attitude and his statement early on that he was there to win. This attitude may be fine on the track or a road race but just seems bizarre to me on such a route in such an environment as the challenge will always be the terrain, weather and snow conditions. I had ridden at a pace which seemed right to cash in on the good conditions early on, and to avoid having too many people in front that may have destroyed the trail. Whilst this apparently put me right up front I felt no particular exhilaration at being in this position, just a general feeling of well being and a little smugness.
Soon enough the end came, I rode up to the race control and staggered in through the door at just passed 1am, 16hrs and 2 minutes after the start. I was received with genuine and heartfelt congratulations from Alex the race organiser and the staff manning the race control. Suddenly I did feel absurdly pleased that I'd done what I'd done, and with a degree of style. I chatted to Alex for a while about the trail, the conditions and the weather and then finally departed home for a well earned sleep.
The aftermath
Sunday was spent eating and sleeping. I caught up with Bob and Cath later. Bob had finished in 19hrs 54 and Michael Collins finished in 18hrs 48 mins. Will Robertson finished about an hour after me for 4th. Cath added to the Brit podium places with second women at 29hrs and 9 mins. Alexandra got first Women and as she is resident in the UK this makes a total of 6 Brits in the top ten or on the podium. In the 66 race a Brit got third fat bike and another got fastest on foot. Simon and Lisa Marie picked up a fine lantern rouge placing! Not bad considering our countries lame winters.....
There was much discussion about whether we'd do it again. Mike was fairly clear that this would be a one off. Me, Bob and Cath talked about the 300. My notional plan had been to do the 150 one year and the 300 the next. If the snow conditions were poor the 300 would be an unrelenting slog to no real gain in terms of scenery and terrain covered so that plan is currently on hold. My other thought would be to just go to Finland and spend some time bikepacking. As long as you could suss out good routes to follow, the large number of Lavu huts would make accommodation a cinch. So not next year but the year after, we'll see.
