newsminer.com

After breaking trail over a 200-plus mile section of the Iditarod Trail, Fairbanks’ mountain biking maniac, Rocky Reifenstuhl, and three other cyclists arrived in the Yukon River village of Ruby on Tuesday night and are now more than halfway to Nome in the Iditarod Trail Invitational, a.k.a. the world’s longest human-powered winter race.

Reifenstuhl, 55, was traveling with Jay Petervary of Wyoming, who won the shorter 350-mile version of the race to McGrath before continuing to Nome; Carl Hutchings, of England; and Peter Basinger of Anchorage.

The four riders reportedly broke trail for 150 miles from Ophir to Ruby, the most remote section of the Iditarod Trail. According to an update on the race Web site, the four riders had to push their bikes most of the way from Ophir to Ruby and didn’t encounter anyone else on the trail.

Even so, they still managed to average about 50 miles a day between McGrath and Ruby. It took them just under 4 1/2 days to cover the 214 miles.

The four riders left Ruby for Galena, 52 miles down the Yukon River, early Wednesday morning.

Petervary, who claimed first-place in the 350-mile race with a time of 3 days, 14 hours, 20 minutes, and Reifenstuhl, who was fifth in the shorter race with a time of 3:23:15, were reportedly traveling together in the lead.

Fairbanks rider Jeff Oatley, who finished 15 minutes behind Reifenstuhl in a tie for sixth place in the 350-mile race, said the pace in the shorter race “was a little saner than usual.”

Oatley rode with a friend from Colorado, Tim Stern, and finished in 3 days, 23 hours, 15 minutes.

The only problems riders ran into during the 350-mile race were on the north side of the Alaska Range, after racers crossed Rainy Pass, Oatley said.

“Rainy Pass is always the toughest part of it,” he said.

The trail basically disappeared after racers crossed over Rainy Pass, he said. The group of nine riders that included Oatley and Reifenstuhl ran into three people on snowmachines who were breaking trail for the Iditarod and ended up passing them because they were going too slow, Oatley said.

“They were stuck; they weren’t going anywhere,” Oatley said of the trail breakers.

The cyclists ended up pushing their bikes down through the Dalzell Gorge, picking their way around open water and crossing ice bridges.

“We passed (the trail breakers) and just postholed a couple miles to the Tatina River,” he said. “It took us four or five hours to go two miles; then we got to Tatina and it was all ridable.”

The trip through Dalzell Gorge was tough but the weather made it bearable, Oatley said. Riders took turns breaking trail through the waist-deep snow, he said.

“It was a beautiful day,” Oatley said. “Everybody was joking and happy.

“It would have been a much different story if there had been 30 mph winds and it was 15 or 20 below.”

In the four years he has completed the race, Oatley said the trail and weather was the best he’s seen it.

“It was beautiful — clear skies, sunny and not very cold,” Oatley said. “We probably walked 35 miles, which is a small amount of walking. I’ve walked 160 miles out there before.”

As for Reifenstuhl, his neighbor and Fairbanks riding partner, Oatley said Reifenstuhl was in a bad mood but seemed to be making good time.

“He was just like the other guys going to Nome — getting some sleep and not killing himself.”