Cloudride2017 and IPWR

2017 Cloudride

Encouraging entries for this years Cloudride with 20+ entries still a month out from the start date. Nice to see a host of new names to the bikepacking community. I’ve put up a rider list [without profiles] on the race tracking website and will add riders names as further registrations come in. I’ve responded to a number of questions from some riders and others remain mysteriously silent. I hope this is quiet confidence and not fear induced silence. I’m hopeful of more registrations between now and Easter. At this stage with so many new faces and unknown form it’s difficult [and exciting] to see where the winner might emerge from. Two with definite credentials are Jess Douglas, a multiple World 24h champion and Steve Fitchett another with National level podium form in the 24h discipline, albeit from a few years ago.

At present the race route .gpx file is still provisional. The ITT riders [below] rode some variation to the provisional route and prospective starters should note those changes [see the race tracker page of their ride]. There are pending further changes as I await further clarification on some recent private road closures [Doctors Flat Rd].

ITT Riders

As a benchmark for this years counter clockwise race two of our registered riders Anton Iassenev and Pete Salakas headed out on the race loop last week effectively doing an individual time trial [ITT] observing the bikepacking rules of self sufficiency and navigating the course. They arrived back in Canberra late Monday in a time of 6d:11h:58m a very respectable mid pack ride time.

Anton was on something of mission as his wife was expecting their second child right on the Easter Cloudride start date but was determined along with his ride buddy Pete to do the Cloudride course and be back in time for the birth of their No.2. Some excellent riding from both these young men and some instructive benchmarks for the Easter grand depart riders to review the time gaps over the course. Their ride and tracking points are up on the maprogress.com website and are an valuable resource for riders to plan their fuel and water loads from.

IPWR

The Indian Pacific Wheel Race heads out of Fremantle tomorrow at 6:00am Perth time currently 3hours behind the Eastern States. There are some serious overseas races in this event meeting for the first time .... notably Mike Hall, Kristoff Alegert, Steffen Streich and the locals Jesse Carlsson, Seb Dunn [Canberra] etc. Amongst the girls, Juliana Burhring, Sarah Hammond, Beth Dunn and Jackie Bernardi [Cloudrider 14] will be very evenly matched and can certainly mix it with the best male riders.

I'll be racing in the 'survival' category and hopefully be back home in time to wave off the Cloudriders...

The race tracker link is;

https://indianpacificwheelrace.maprogress.com/

The race rules are here

https://indianpacificwheelrace.maprogress.com/

Most of the multi media gossip will be aggregated on the IPWR Facebook page [I think]

Several Vbloggers on YouTube are racing and plan on doing daily [Ha!] reports.... notable are

Cycling Maven and

Durianrider [with a language warning]

Several doco film crews are following... Rapha/Curve, Cycling Tips and maybe Velo News. You'll need to google around to track what they are posting .... maybe some will link to the facebook page

Any posts I do will be direct to the IPWR Facebook page as Stevo Cloudrider .... nothing personal maybe some random pics.

Historically I've managed to loose/trash my phone in the first 24hrs of these races so this might be breaking new ground .... but don't count on it!

Tour Divide