I've seen it mentioned on here a few times, just wondering if anyone has done the event?
Looking to get as much info about it as possible as I have entered for 2011. Perhaps the wrong way round to do things? 🙂
I did it in 2008 with OffTheBrakes from here. He'll be along soon enough.
So having done a couple of Transalps and the Ruta, we thought it'd be a great idea to do Ironbike. IB is really quite an experience. Do you like insanity? It's not like the German type of multi day race where you ride hard on smooth gravel roads up and down. This has everything - of course there fireroad, but lots of technical up and down and carrying.
The fort day stands out. Having carried your bike to the top of the mountain, you get to descend 1000m entirely on medieval steps through a fort. Some of it is inside dark passageways in pitch darkness, so you've got to feel your way down - all this against the clock.
Apparently last year, at the end of a 110km day, you had to ride up a ski jump. They had two guys on either side who'd catch you when you inevitably fell backwards - more points further up you got. And guess where the start of the next day was? Yeah, they had to ride down the ski jump. 🙂
It's not just the racing that's hard; it's the fact you're camping and you're up at 5am every day.
But after all this, it's a fantastic imaginative event; the scenery is dazzling, and the riding's lovely too. And I think a couple of us might join you for 2011.
Cheers,
Vik
Sounds exactly what I was hoping for.
If your willing it would be great to get more info from you via email?
Yes, as Vik says it was certainly an experience! He'd done a few big week-long stage races before, and some epic non-competitive riding, and I'd done nothing of the sort...
I think 2 of the stages took me 6-7 hours each, another couple were 8-9 hours, and the others were 10-12 hours. Even with the early starts, some days you'll not be doing much other than waking up, packing away tent and kit, eating breakfast, riding, eating dinner, putting up tent and sleeping. Having said that, you're quite a lot faster than I am!
It's brutal, some of the days we did 4000m of ascending, but the riding and scenery are worth it. The IB website should have the roadbooks from previous years somewhere, which will show rough route profiles (although they don't show all the little wrinkles, so height gain/loss is underestimated a bit).
You're welcome to email me (in profile) for more info, I can copy in Vik as well.
Briefly, you'll need to like climbing for an hour or two at a time, two or three times a day.
Find a technique for carrying the bike that you can get on with for 10 mins at a time, and practice that.
And eat all your pasta before you go away, as you'll be eating it breakfast noon and night for a week, so you won't want any for a while when you return 🙂
Best of luck, I want to do it again some day, maybe I'll be there in 2011 too!
Sure - email's in profile. I'll send you the daily write-ups one of our guys did.
I need something like this next year, just to give myself a shake.
Dave - what do you think?
Matt, Vik - you have (long and rambling) mail.