Arrowhead 135 - happening now!

[ScottM]

Anyone following this race?  It started at 7am this morning.  135 miles across one of the coldest spots in the US - northern Minnesota.  Racers are required to carry a pretty substantial bikepacking kit for sleeping and surviving in temps that can reach -30 or so.

Sometimes the top racers on bike can rip it out in under a day, but conditions can force 2-3 days for many riders, too.

Here's the link to the race blog:

http://www.arrowheadultra.com/blogger/blogger.html

And a good article about it, from the Grand Forks Herald:

http://www.grandforksherald.com/articles/index.cfm?id=104491&section=outdoors,outdoor%20news

This is a pretty new one on my radar, but something I'm now starting to think about as a possible stepping stone to AK stuff.

Lastly, many of you know MikeC.  He's out touring the route, his amusing story on why he's there can be found here:

http://lacemine29.blogspot.com/2009/01/dumb-stupid-dumb-head-then-arrowhead.html

His SPOT hasn't shown any messages yet, but I'm going to keep checking.

[ScottM]

neve_r_est on the forum here is also doing the Arrowhead and has got a writeup on the setup and a bunch of his gear.  It's over on his blog:

http://nonconformcycling.blogspot.com/2009/01/time-up.html

[neve_r_est]

I should warn that I'm a newbie at this multi day race/tour self sustained stuff. I was carrying way more than most anyone else I saw out there. Then again I'm pretty confident I could have hung out out there for a week and been fine, not a bad thing for peace of mind during a first attempt.

You know Scott, I've been noticing you seem to be drifting into this snowbike stuff quite a bit lately, maybe you should be warned: once you're brain gets frosty you can never escape. I mean, this is only my third snowbike race and now I can barely escape thinking of anything but the next one. And look at MC. Every year it gets worse

DG