Whitehorse Daily Star

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Photo by Vince Fedoroff

POWERING THROUGH – The Contagious Mountain Bike Club hosted their third annu al Gran Fondo race Sunday with 49 riders participating in the 50 and 28-kilometre races to Mount McIntyre.

Riders face tough conditions in Gran Fondo

With the quick increase in temperature on Sunday,

By Dustin Cook on March 14, 2018

With the quick increase in temperature on Sunday, the third annual Contagious Mountain Bike Club Gran Fondo featured a combination of very fast and very slow trails depending on the time of day during the long-distance race.

A total of 49 riders brought their fat bikes out for the day of racing on the snow-filled trails – or so they hoped. But as the temperature rose throughout the day and the sun hit the trails, conditions became slow and slushy for the riders as they made their way to Mount McIntyre.

Event organizer Sierra Van Der Meer said for the first 20 kilometres of the longer 50-km race, conditions were very good.

“As the day went by and the temperature increased, the trail got warmer and it stopped being as fast,” she said. “It got quite chewed up and was essentially a hike a bike.”

Trail conditions got so tough in the afternoon for the riders that they had to redirect around part of the course, Van Der Meer said. To do this they received help from skiers on the trails and members of the Whitehorse Cross Country Ski Club to get messages to the riders as they were isolated on the trails. The skiers helped them navigate around the tough portions of the trail and get them back on the course.

For the first two years of the Gran Fondo, Van Der Meer said the race was hosted at Takhini Hot Springs and this marks the first year they tied the event with the Yukon Ski Marathon. The long-distance ski race was run the day before on the same courses.

“Last year I volunteered at a ski marathon aid station and after volunteering Colin Abbott and I talked about how we could work together,” Van Der Meer said. “We were able to figure out during an event what are all the different things that take a lot of volunteer hours and how can we work together to make things more efficient.”

The two races used the same aid stations out on the course as well as the same course markings. Another similarity between the two events was the race times, Van Der Meer said, with the top finishing times in both races very close in comparison.

Thirty-five riders participated in the 50-kilometre race with the first finisher, Josh DeCloet, coming in just under three hours with a time of 2:53.

Four brave athletes also decided to make it a weekend adventure completing both the ski marathon and the bike race in back-to-back days.

Fourteen cyclists completed the shorter 28-km race that started at Mary Lake about an hour and a half after the longer-distance start.

“Having the shorter course is a fun way to engage with more people,” Van Der Meer said. “People who aren’t ready for 50, but ready for a challenge.”

As the riders experienced throughout the day, Van Der Meer said organizing a snow bike race is a major challenge because they are so dependant on the weather – which has been very fluctuant this winter.

“Organizing snow bike races is really a challenge because you’re so at the mercy of weather and December was a really tough month. It was either -30 on the weekend or plus seven,” she said. “It would have been amazing if it stayed at -5. The course would have been rock solid the whole time, but we can’t control the weather.”

The bike club had to cancel their previous winter event in early January, the 5+ Hours of Light Race, due to a large dumping of snow in the days leading up to the event.

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