Snow biking - Patti Brehler in Alaska's Iditabike race

SNOW BIKING

Anybody can mountain bike on a wooded trail. For a real challenge, try pedaling through two feet of snow with a 20-lb pack in minus 40 degree temperatures.

Two feet of fresh snow and a wind-chill of minus 40 degrees F are not the most ideal race conditions. But for one ultra marathon cyclist, the more challenging the race, the better.

Cyclist Patti Brehler, competed in the 1990 Iditabike race last February, along some of the infamous Iditarod dog-sled trail on frozen Alaska tundra. These marathoners completed only 52 of the expected 200-mile race this year, due to unrideable trails. The race was made even more grueling because cyclists were forced to push 30-pound mountain bikes loaded with 20 pounds of equipment through snow drifts often as high as the wheel hub. "It was like backpacking and pushing a grocery-filled shopping cart through sand," says the 34-year-old Brehler.

"I rode the trail for only about two miles, and had to push my mountain bike the other 50 miles," she adds. "It took me 37 3/4 hours to travel 52 miles, and sometimes it seemed more like a survival test than a mountain bike race."

One of the only 23 cyclists to finish the race, which began with 58 entrants, Brehler credits her achievement to a regimented cross-training fitness program. She began training seriously for the cold-weather conditions of the Iditabike in November by keeping the heat off in her home and by training in Michigan's 10 degree F winter weather in t-shirts, shorts and lightweight tights.

For Brehler, the race itself was not as challenging as the training period. "Races that are different--with different riding conditions like weather and terrain--challenge me because I've got to create a training regimen that will prepare me for the unusual conditions of that particular race."

Brehler set specific goals for each month prior to the race. One goal, for example, was riding 200 miles one weekend, camping out at night and simulating race conditions by carrying all the gear required for the Iditabike, including a portable stove and fuel to melt snow for water, a winter sleeping bag insulated to 20 degrees below, four bottles of water, bivy sack (a one-person shelter) and spare tubes and tool kit for the mountain bike.

A firm believer in cross-training to promote a more balanced body, Brehler's weekly training regimen included one long run of up to 10 miles, short runs during work lunch breaks two or three times a week, long-distance bike rides of up to 200 miles on weekends with short daily rides to and from work, plus weight-lifting two or three times a week. Three weeks before the race, she traded weight-lifting for additional riding sessions.

One to four hours at a time, two or three times a week, Brehler road a bike on an indoor trainer and went stair climbing once a week. Stair climbing enables a cyclist to increase the heart rate much higher than is possible on a bike. "It was actually the one part of my training that best prepared me for the Iditabike," she said.

As a final hard workout before the Iditabike, Brehler competed in the Detroit Westin Hotel's Race to the Summit. She finished first among females, climbing 74 flights of stairs in eight minutes and 25 seconds. After a short break, she then competed in the Westin's Vertical Mile Marathon--eight times up the 74 flights--in one hour and 34 minutes, finishing fifth.

Brehler is no stranger to unusual races--or adding a new twist to an old one. In 1987 she and partner Lou Hotton were the first female tandem bicycle racers ever to complete the 750-mile Paris-Brest-Paris race. Brehler and Hotton finished this oldest long-distance bicycle race in 79 hours and 43 minutes, coming in second among U.S. tandems.

She plans to again compete in the Paris-Brest-Paris race in 1991 with Hotton, to attempt a Michigan border-to-border record, and perhaps to repeat the Iditabike. Right now, however, Brehler wants to find out more about a topic she discussed with an "Iditadude" during the Alaskan race--climbing Mt. McKinley.

PHOTO : Ultra marathon cyclist Patti Brehler awaits the start of the 1990 Iditabike race held recently in Alaska. The Meal On The Go food bar, from Provesta, is the only food Brehler carried which didn't freeze solid.

Jill Miller and Bill Coleman are freelance writers living in New York City.

COPYRIGHT 1990 Aerobics and Fitness Association of America
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group