START TO FINISH ICEMAN REPORT - NOW BACK TO REGULAR CX PROGRAMMING

The ICEMAN Start.

 According to The Michigan Scene  just over 5-hours ago nearly 12-million bike racers launched down this chute last Saturday, making it the largest Mountain Bike Race in the Galaxy.

While I always appreciate TMS analysis of the biking scene ever single day that I'm still alive (how much longer that's going to last, I dunno because as T says I have just about WATTAGE'd OUT™ on life) I find it hard to believe that 12-million soon-to-be-bikers hit the trail without cutting all the way through that Traverse City sand a cleaving the earth in half.

12-million bikes means 24-million wheels on one single-track = the end of the earth as we know it.

If 12-million mountain bikes, most fit with huge 29" wheels actually raced ICEMAN this week this is what would happen to the earth - essentially we would have been cut to the core, like an apple.

Why is Amanda Schaap and this woman smiling?

Why so happy they're about to race a grueling 2900 mile mountain bike race? Okay maybe it's 29 miles. So I'm having a problem with decimals today, kill me.

Every wonder why I almost always photograph women racers and not men? 

This is why there are more women bike racer stories here than on men (actually it's something a liek 735% differential). Morning of the race Shrek (Dan Korienek) and Goeff Kuyper are caught foraging around the motel parking lot looking for food and leftovers. 

Another before the race face. Dan looks over his rig before the storm. 

The ICEMAN finish line later that morning.

 Look at them sprint for the win! Yeah I was there watching the finishes all day long, each and every one! Yeah, not really, it was raining so I bailed out and went downtown.

Wet streets, not trails for this less-than-hardy bike reporter.

Actually while the racers were coming home this is where I was - staying dry in some warm coffee shop - until it was time for lunch - and then I was in a nice warm-dry restaurant.

Look what I found on the highway!

Jurrien Davison raced and then rode back to get his car! Does he look cold? You bet. Zero Body Fat + Snow & Cold Rain on M 72 = Hypo-Thermic Etho Bastard.

After watching everybody have so much fun at this year's ICEMAN I figure it's time for me to give it another try myself. I'm starting to train right now - not my riding or looking after my diet, but by putting performance enhancing tape all over my body.

Yeah, this is what I'm doing to get faster. Or at least be able to walk up stairs without being carried by my aide Igor.

Now to really be an ICEMAN contender all I need is the right bike. After getting a lot of advice from the pro's and more experienced in our group here's what I'm going to rock at ICEMAN 2013. While it may not have the top-end speed of a 29" mountain bike word is that I can squeeze through the 12,000 (or maybe 4,000 okay) people ahead of me more easily due it small size and the fact that my head will pass under everybody's elbows.

The perfect bike. All I need now is to switch to Team Minty so I can get a Minty Green matching kit.