If its a bit chilly over the weekend, just think of these guys

http://iditarodtrailinvitational.com/#
http://trackleaders.com/iditarod

Good luck to Aidan and Sheldon

Starts Sunday 23:00 our time

Good luck to both of them, hope their race goes well.
Going slightly off topic, it's worth looking out for James Cracknells documentary of the Iditarod, it made good viewing (also the year Alan won it)

Thanks for the info, looking forward to seeing how our boys get on

I've got a particular interest in Alan Sheldon and Andy Heading's progress this year as I put the 2 On One Fatty's together that they are riding. Had to wash grease out of headset bearings due to low temperatures. They are using the new carbon fork and a 1x10 gear setup. Alan was very proud of the spiked tyres he has made using self tapping screws. Hope the weather isn't too warm with the jet stream doing odd things this year.
Just a slight correction, the Cracknell documentary was of the Yukon 500 mile race, not Iditarod, Al beat him by 2 days!!

Keeping slightly OT but do you recall the name of that documentary or what channel it was on?
I'd be interested in seeing it. I really enjoyed Paul Howards book Two Wheels on my Wagon about the Tour Divide.

Going back on topic, any book recommendations on Iditarod?

Cheers piston, shows how much attention I pay to moving images!

Solo, it was called The coldest race on Earth and done by the discovery channel

voodoo_simon wrote:Cheers piston, shows how much attention I pay to moving images!

Solo, it was called The coldest race on Earth and done by the discovery channel

Thanks.

Heads off to YouTube ..........

While reading around about this to fire myself up for the blue dot watching I stumbled across Aidan's write ups from 2009.

Part 1
http://iamnotasinglespeeder.blogspot.co ... art-1.html

Part 2
http://iamnotasinglespeeder.blogspot.co ... art-2.html

Part 3
http://iamnotasinglespeeder.blogspot.co ... art-3.html

Part 4
http://iamnotasinglespeeder.blogspot.co ... art-4.html

Part 5
http://iamnotasinglespeeder.blogspot.co ... art-5.html

EDIT:
Some more good stuff.

Precursor to the fat bike.. the 4 wheeler: http://sonic.net/~ckelly/Seekay/1990_iditabike.htm

Half past done's brief history of Iditabike. http://halfpastdone.com/2013/02/20/a-br ... iditabike/

Did I read it wrong or has there been an edit on what the James Cracknell programme was about?

No worries, just checking as my book cooment seemed odd now lol!

I've found the programme on DVD btw.

I haven't edited my post, I did get the Iditarod and the Yukon race mixed up though

No worries. I was thinking of piston broke's post.

Just ordered the DVD anyway, it is all bikes at the end of the day!

Aidan has put a nice pre race blog post up

http://www.aidanharding.com/2014/02/pre-iditarod/

Not that long ago I bought the 29er, now I want a fatbike!

Solo wrote:Not that long ago I bought the 29er, now I want a fatbike!

Snap

Looks like Aidan is currently leading the "bikes to Nome". https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub ... TZ1E&singl

Doesn't look like there is anything on trackleaders sadly.

Spots aren't used for Iditarod, so Aidan told me. If someone pushed the SOS button the cost of rescue could be enormous.

When it says "invitational" does this mean that you have to be invited to do it, or something else?

Ben98 wrote:When it says "invitational" does this mean that you have to be invited to do it, or something else?

Yeah it means exactly that how ever there are ways of qualifying for an "invite". It's basically a way of vetting who takes part so that there's less chance of people dieing.

More info here: http://iditarodtrailinvitational.com/ta ... qualifiers

Not quite Ben, it's more of qualifying for the event. You have to do one of 4 smaller races (think arrowhead 135 or rovaniemi 150) to then qualify for the smaller iditabike (350 miles) and if you complete that, you then qualify to enter the longer distance event of 1000 miles.

Looks like I've got lots of races to do in the future then :D

So the winners have reached McGrath already and in new record time.

Aidan seems to be second or third now.

http://iditarodtrailinvitational.com/ne ... n-the-iti/

Some great pictures here. https://www.facebook.com/dan.bailey.737 ... 012&type=1

it was called The coldest race on Earth and done by the discovery channe

Sorry to bring this up again ... but, I watched it last night and can anyone tell me whether his second place position stood? Seemed like he wasn't really self supported in the true sense (or any sense really).

Looking like Aiden has had a shorter stop at the 350m finish at Mc Grath and started on the second third of the race with a 20 minute lead. Very fast conditions this year with not much snow but they are having to take a 30m detour to a bridge as a significant river isn't frozen.

s8tannorm wrote:

it was called The coldest race on Earth and done by the discovery channe

Sorry to bring this up again ... but, I watched it last night and can anyone tell me whether his second place position stood? Seemed like he wasn't really self supported in the true sense (or any sense really).

Aaarrrgggghhhh!!!!

Haven't watched it yet!

Aaarrrrgggghhhhh!