Before the race Expedition Idaho

Here we are before the Expedition Idaho Race at a pre-race interview.

Preparing for an expedition race is not like getting ready for a sprint or even a one day race. There is all this GEAR that must be shipped or taken with you to the location and usually coordination among 4 different team-mates usually from different locations. I was happy to have a strong team with 2 Expedition Newbies (Jeff and Mark) and one PQ veteran (Marghi).



As you can see we were having a great time as we planned, packed, prepped, went through interview, and simply got everything ready to go.

The Start of the Race

We started the race at 10 AM with a very short prolog which was a scavenger hunt. The purpose was to spread the teams out a little bit before we hit the Silver Mountain Gondola with our mountain bikes and rode the Gondola up the mountain. That was the easiest elevation gain we had in the entire race - it would only get harder from here.

Once we got to the top we had 3 CP's in the ski area. CP3 was located at the base of Lift 3, CP4 was located at the top Kellogg Peak (6300 feet) and CP5 was at the top of Wardner Peak (6200 feet). This involved basically pushing our bikes up a 25% slope (up the ski slope) and riding down incredibly steep and rocky downhill ski runs.  Here is a nice ski map of the area

http://www.silvermt.com/pdf/silvertrailmapweb.pdf 

Now here is where it starts to get hard. The next few CP's were located back of the ski areas in the backwoods areas. CP 6 was the most challenging as there were no mapped road sections leading to it. My idea was to try to contour to a saddle heading to the southeast - with no marked or mapped roads. Most of the teams in front of us had taken a route the went to the base of the hill at 3700 feet and then climb back to 5700 ft. We ended up taking the latter route - with only two teams going to the saddle route. The downhill from 6200 feet to 3700 feet was one of the most challenging technical rides I have ever done. Every racer has crash stories for this section. It was rutted, rocky, and steep. It was also grades ranging from 6-15% with no chances to stop easily. Jeff hit a bush, flew about 10 feet through the air and landed on a small mannequin doll that was the mad hatter. I went down sideways and bloodied my knee quite well (it is still very swollen).

We were going so hard and fast my right clip pedal sheared off and went flying into the woods - so I ended up riding most of this leg with a stub of a pedal. Oh well - we chugged away. This was an all night bike ride with the most incredible spot being CP10 - which did involve pushing/carrying/coaxing our bikes about 1/2 mile up a 30+% slope. We also had to bomb them down the other side - which was walking them downhill.

After hitting CP11, we rode into the small town of Mullan and stopped at a convenience store and got some supplies before riding to CP12, and then finally TA1.


View Expedition Idaho in a larger map

Here is a little chatter of us as at TA1



Here are some video's of Day 1 and 2 in chronological order.

Saturday Evening - Pre-race briefing - http://youtu.be/5nCE1GCzTCY
Sunday Morning - Preparing gear - http://youtu.be/tp9ziSrfT2Q
Sunday Morning - Prolog to Race - http://youtu.be/R_lDDVn_U4A
Sunday Morning - Up the Gondola -  http://youtu.be/eFKIR3z0-mQ
Sunday Evening - At TA1 in the evening - http://youtu.be/-di0iH-5BTw

Up Next - Day 2 Trek - Heart of Darkness