Four riders from Fairbanks broke with the pack at Million Dollar Falls to take top spots in the 18th annual Kluane to Chilkat International Bike Relay Saturday.

“Cross-country skiing is our main sport. Biking just gets our minds off it a little bit,” said David Norris, a 19-year-old University of Alaska-Fairbanks ski team member who along with Logan Hanneman, 17, finished first.

The two-man squad completed the 148-mile course in 7 hours, 21 seconds. A solo rider and riders from two, two-man teams finished within a minute of the winning time, about 12 minutes ahead of a second pack.

As many as two dozen cyclists were bunched at the front of the race up until about the halfway point, when the four Fairbanks riders, who race and train together, made their move.

“We all know each other, and we know what each other can do. Eric (Breitenberger) can hammer on the flats. So he’s out front then. On hills, we would pull him along,” Norris said. “We knew we were stronger as a group of four than a group of two.”

The group split near the race finish. “Then I punched it,” Hanneman said. Their winning time was about an hour off a wind-assisted course record, 5:55:55, set in 2002.

The mixed-fours team of Tour Da Haines held onto its title as fastest Haines team, finishing first of 43 squads in their division and 16th overall among 250-plus teams competing. The squad also topped 13 Haines teams that finished the ride.

Chip Lende, the only rider who was an original member of the team, said part of the group’s success is matching riders with their strengths. “I’m a good pack rider and (leg 3 and 4 rider) Sean (Asquith) is a good hill-climber. Our last two riders are just trying to maintain our place.”

That job fell to Quinn Asquith, Sean’s son, and Eliza Lende, Chip’s daughter. Quinn clocked the fastest time for the fifth and sixth legs in the mixed-fours division and Eliza, was one of the fastest women in the division.

“We need these young guys. I told Sean we’re getting slower, but they’re getting faster, so we can at least maybe maintain our place,” Lende said.

A Haines team led by Gina St. Clair was aiming for the local title but lost ground when a rider was left in the open.

Riding in a “pace line,” also called “drafting,” is elemental to a strong performance in the race. Dan Humphrey, one of two solo riders from Haines, used the strategy to help him finish in 10:21:16, ahead of most eight-person teams.

Humphrey’s chain fell off twice, he crashed once and until just before the race expected to be on a four-person team. Three Skagway teammates became ill at the last minute, prompting him to go it alone.

Humphrey said he started too fast, lost the pace line for legs 3, 4 and 5 and forgot to eat until hitting a wall of fatigue and stopping at Chilkat Pass summit. “Eating wasn’t at the top of my mind. My strategy was nebulous at that point. It wasn’t a conscious strategy.”

His 40-minute stop became a feast. “I had a banana burrito, an avocado, kombucha, watermelon, grapes, and whipping cream. I ate everything in the cooler, pretty much. I was famished. (Support crew) Liam (Cassidy) was bringing plates of food to me every time I stopped after that.”

Humphrey then connected with some other solo riders in a pace line that grew to five riders.

A pace line can save up to 40 percent of a rider’s energy, depending on numbers of riders involved, Humphrey said. “None of us could have gotten any of these times (riding) by ourselves. It’s a huge factor. Besides training, having a pace line strategy is the most important strategy there is.”

A drawback of drafting is the heightened crash potential, especially in community races like Saturday’s, where cyclists of different sizes and abilities sometimes bunch up.

Humphrey was in a pack of eight riders that cross-winds literally broke up near the summit. A smaller rider was blown into his wheel, causing him to crash at the same time cyclists behind him also touched wheels and went down. “It blew everybody around. For lighter riders like the girl who was blown into me, there wasn’t anything anybody could do.”

Highway resident Ed Michinski also finished the race solo.

Chris Kemp, 59, was one of several relay rookies who helped boost Haines participation in the event. His most recent race was as a musher in the upper Midwest more than 20 years ago. “The only thing I ever raced were dogs.”

Kemp and his brother-in-law each rode two legs and they recruited friends and family members to create a six-person squad that competed in the mixed-eights division.

Kemp said his training consisted of the regular bike commute he makes three times a week, all-year-around, between his Paradise Cove home and his job in town. He had so much fun he’s now looking at races this summer in the Yukon.

“I enjoyed the heck out of it. What a beautiful day. You couldn’t help but have a great time on a day like that.”

According to organizers, the relay set a new record for participation, but only by about a dozen participants. There were 260 teams and 1,260 riders.

Chip Lende, who also serves on the relay’s board of directors, said the race can’t get much bigger and that’s part of the reason it’s not marketed outside the region. “What limits it are the cars. I don’t think we could get many more cars on the road and keep it safe and get them all through the border.”

Lende said he was pleased with how the event came off. “The communities did well and there were no accidents. That’s all we can ask for. Everything went well.”

Author