Chilkat Valley News reporter and columnist Eileen McIver, who reported on the newspaper’s performance in last year’s Kluane-Chilkat International Bike Relay, recounts the team’s experience this year.
As the defending red lantern team in the Kluane-Chilkat Bike Relay, we didn’t think we could do any worse. We were wrong.
Someone way ahead of us won the red lantern this year.
A relay official pulled over our team at 8:45 p.m. to tell us the race ended at 9 p.m., and could he have our timing stick.
We rode on. The fact that checkpoint 7 would be dismantled and unstaffed when we got there wasn’t a big deal. After our first three riders, all that remained of the checkpoints we saw were a few, windblown race officials.
We finished in 16 hours, six minutes “unofficially” because by then every official had gone home. The only people at the finish line when we got there were some young, drunk guys joking about hopping into our truck for a ride to the bar.
It was already dark, and it was summer solstice in Alaska.
Initial race results gave our team an “mp” instead of a time. We hoped that maybe meant “most personality” for my boss playing “Oh, Canada” on trumpet in front of the giant Canadian flag on Leg 2.
Then the final results this week ranked us “dnf” for “did not finish.” This is not true. We finished. The decision to ride to the bitter end cost us barbecued king salmon and maybe some team morale.
As I was riding sideways uphill somewhere on Leg 4, our riders for legs 5 through 7 had found hope in the prospect of quitting. “Let’s go get some fish,” they said. The idea got some traction and was only defeated by the fact that we were technically halfway to the end when I finished Leg 4.
Also, I was not the slowest rider on my leg. I researched on the Internet afterward and learned that despite my difficulties, I was nine minutes faster than a 10-year-old Whitehorse girl whose bike had broken down.
Our team got off to a rough start. When we checked in to pick up our race bibs the night before the relay, the lady in charge told us we were the last team to sign in and we’d forgotten our liability waivers. She rolled her eyes and said, “Of course, you’re The Rolling Papers.” We tried to explain that our team name referenced our jobs working at a newspaper, but she looked skeptical.
Our first rider started with our red lantern from last year attached to his bike, a sign of our determination. By the end of Leg 2, a man wearing jean shorts (“jorts”) passed us.
On Leg 3, the dreaded sweep rig, the truck that follows the last-place rider, crept up on us. As our rider finished, she warned me that the wind made going downhill hard.
She was right. Going down one hill, my bike distinctly moved backwards, just as I tipped over.
I thought about how the other 300-some teams were in front of us. I thought about moving back to Cleveland, where people aren’t expected to be fit. My teammates suggested that I stop or at least walk the bike.
I looked around, hoping to see a bear, as during bear sightings riders are allowed to jump into a car for a ride.
Our team captain walked next to me. He poured Tang into my mouth. My teammates told me that I was almost done, and that there was only one hill left. They lied.
My sister pushed me up the last part of the last hill, the way she did when she taught me how to ride a bike 20 years ago.
During Leg 5, the nice, older couple driving the sweep rig flagged us down. They said that they’d been driving for 12 hours and were done. Another truck pulled into the checkpoint and drove away with the port-a-pottie. I clung to hope that we could still make the king barbecue.
At 7 p.m., somewhere during the middle of our Leg 5, our Leg 8 rider was required to start riding in from 19 Mile, part of the mandatory restart for teams hopelessly behind.
On Leg 6, we came across Yukoners who had finished the race, driving home in the opposite direction, their bikes on racks behind their cars.
On Leg 7, about 10:35 p.m., some idiot in a truck drove by and yelled at us, “Go back to Canada.”
Around midnight, we stopped by the fairgrounds, just in case there were any king salmon scraps left from the fisherman’s dinner.
No luck.