History

1999In 1999 a transplanted Aussie by the name of Daavid Turnbull concocted the original Icebike plan. Daavid commuted from St. Adolphe to the Fort Garry area in Winnipeg on a daily basis... all year round. The winter commute proved to be a formidable challenge in which Daavid reveled. His ability to overcome the weather and continue cycling earned him a reputation among the residents of St. Adolphe. To help share his experience with others, the Icebike race was born.

The first Icebike race took place at The Forks on the river surface and utilized a considerable amount of the river, meaning a lot of very slippery ice. There were some off river excursions up the riverbanks but the course mostly took place on the ice. The three categories were distances of 5km, 10km, and 20km. Daavid named the categories as snowflake, icicle, and abominable respectively. And as I remember, the day was rather cold with a biting north wind. A grand total of 45 participants signed up to compete in the race and the event was heralded as a success by Daavid and the racers. It seemed Daavid and Woodcock Cycleworks had a winner on their hands.

2000The second Icebike race was organized by Corey Dyck. He waded in with both Sorels to take Daavid's place. The call from down under was too strong and Daavid moved his family down to the warm climate of sunny Australia. Daavid is still there and takes a keen interest in how his event is run each year. Back to Corey, realizing that the event was a success out of the gates Corey continued to build on the success of Daavid and designed a course that included some fairly technical (for winter riding anyway) sections and the dreaded whoop-de-doos of death. These moguls of hard snow quickly deteriorated under the wheels of each rider as they went over, then through, and then endoing over them. Cursing these areas of the course only lead to more of the same when the riders tried to negotiate the mosh pit on the east bank of the Red River. The downhill ride north of the cathedral docks usually ended up with the spectators having a good chuckle as the racers came up with their faces full of snow. To say the 2nd event was a success is an understatement, the roster held 90 names....double last year's numbers.

2001The third Icebike was billed as "Icebike 2001-A Winter Odyssey". The big problem with this year's event was the river itself. The river had frozen too early while the water levels were high. As the water levels dropped, the ice stayed and pockets of air had formed underneath the ice leading to dangerous river conditions. The result was the river was off-limits. This was the year I decided to organize Icebike, typically adversity follows me but I soldiered on with the help of The Forks, Parks Canada, and the Rivertrail crew to create a course that remained on land and used the whole of the Forks area. The course also included some cyclocross style ascents. This proved to be a major obstacle to many riders as the steps cut into the frozen bank quickly became nonexistent and the riders enjoyed many slides back down to the bottom of the hill. Even though frustrated with this part of the course most of the riders loved the course as it was quick and technical enough to test their abilities. Being the first event I have organized made me realize the complexities of running an event....insurance, volunteers, sponsors, registration and on and on. But yet again the event was a resounding success with 135 participants...we did not have enough racer plates and had to make some out of cardboard thanks to the quick thinking of the volunteers in the registration area. A group of racers from North Dakota came up to participate and had a great time, as well as providing many of the photos for the website that year(thanks to Dave Sears).

2002I guess I didn't have enough of the organizing bug and signed on for Icebike #4 (2002). I managed to secure help this year. Gerald Adams helped create the shirt logo, Chris Yorke stepped up to the keyboard and created the website, the Woodcock Cycleworks gang helped with the course work and the capable registration crew came back with renewed enthusiasm. The course was a little shorter than previous years due to the Provencher Bridge reconstruction but we managed to come up with a fairly technical 3.8km loop. All was going very well and the toques were a hit with all the racers. The pasta night was added as a social component of the event and was held at the Children's Museum of Manitoba with the Old Spaghetti Factory catering it. The evening was a blast and a lot of free schwag was handed out. Tim Woodcock had some of the new products available on display and music filled the hall. Race day was a balmy -9C and the course was in fine condition thanks (in full) to Eugene Rioux of Gene's Contracting. The race was underway promptly at the strike of noon, but so many racers on the course made for a crowded competition. The racers numbered 175 this year, another huge leap in enrollment. Some racers had come from as far as Atikokan Ontario (6.5 hours east of Winnipeg), Grand Forks, Fargo, and Duluth Minnesota. With the prize ceremony held in a tent on the river surface, the racers got a chance to warm up with hot chocolate from the vendor and receive prizes from a huge bin of great stuff. You didn't have to win to get something as many can attest, although the winning prizes were pretty good. The finish order was controversial as some protests were voiced but the event is for fun and all complaints were appeased to everyone's satisfaction.

2003I made it a three-peat with Icebike 2003. The festivities will began on February 01/03 at 7pm with the Pasta Feed at the Children's Museum of Manitoba at the Forks. For $5.00 you got a spaghetti dinner from the Old Spaghetti Factory, water from World of Water, and tasty baked goods from Bread and Circuses. On display were some new cycling products, as well as a Play Station 2 trainer, a virtual trainer, and some of the newest mountain and road bike models. On race day the three categories were started out onto the course by the commissaries. The abominable category rode the first half of the course and then headed south along the Red River to the Bridge Dairy Ice Cream bridge then turned around and headed back along the Red to the second half of the Forks course for approximately 20km. The Icicles and the Snowflakes enjoyed another variation of the course we used in 2002. Dave Benson and the crew from Kids of Mud hosted and ran an under 12 event for the Kids of Ice??? Chris Little and Tim Woodcock from Woodcock Cycleworks had been hard at work securing sponsors and donations for prizes. Like last year there were finish awards but also a whole raft of raffle ticket draws for prizes so everyone had a chance to go home with something special. We also sold long sleeved jerseys, sporting a logo designed by Gerald Adams, to commemorate the day on ice.

2004For 2004 (icebike #6) a new Rivertrail contractor won the bid to provide services to the Forks. Darren of DVW bobcat services had his hands full as the river although looking pristine with its snowy cover had a different story underneath. The snow cover hid a layer of watery slush on top of the ice, which was solid. This makes for difficult plowing, but Darren is a man of enthusiasm and a "can do" attitude and he plowed us a great course, which had some cyclocross elements in it. The week preceding the race was dismal, with -40C temperatures the mood was desperate as the event would not be underway if it was -25C with or without windchill. We had to keep the rider's safety in mind. As a result we lost many of our out-of-town registrants who did not want to take a chance on traveling only to have the race cancelled or postponed on account of weather. With 175 registrants signed up we got a break and the weather improved, as a result we enjoyed another successful Icebike event. The event was underway and everyone was home in time for the Superbowl game and after a few days of postrace work I was off to the Dominican Republic for a well-deserved rest.

2005In 2005 I again organized the next Icebike, #7. DVW Bobcat and Darren once again gave us a new course that extended north to the rail trestle bridge and south to the Norwood bridge. This course gave us slightly more than 4 kilometers of distance, all within the curious eyes of spectators. The course incorporated the beautiful new Provencher walk bridge as a part of the rather fast course which was not too technical. The aid of Delwin Dueck was enlisted this year to help with the race with the intention of Delwin organizing the 8th Icebike event, so I can take a break. The race went very well and we all went home tired and ready to start training for the summer racing season.

2006It is now 2006 and Delwin is no where to be found, until 2 days before the race when he started to work at Woodcock Cycleworks again. Too late for Delwin, he has missed all the fun this year. The three fellows who helped out this year are none other than Tim Woodcock himself, Daniel Nemetchek, Cris LaBossiere (Of RhinoFitness), and me... again. Another year of great cooperation with the Forks North Portage folks, Parks Canada, and Denis Savoie of Snow-Neige lead to a very smoothly run event. The plans all went along just fine until mother nature threw us another curveball with a very wet warm slushy winter... no ice. Plan B was put into place leading us to design another mostly land course as in 2006. But this course was not the same, it had a cyclocross style riverbank ascent that was steep, iceskating surface, and the slide of death down to the river's edge. What was a very steep walkable descent quickly became a polished slide where many riders just gave up and slid down on their... uh... seat of their pants. We had some off-camber singletrack that proved difficult for the skinny tire riders but they made up for it on the fast flat sections of the Riverwalk. Once again this year Vulpine Adaptive came forward with a whole raft of awesome winter cycling products to give away. A new sponsor this year was Dave Leb from Liquid Ice Energy drink (yup...you...guessed it... we named this year's event after Liquid Ice. This seemed appropriate as all the ice around was literally liquid) and Dave handed out a whole pile of samples and free schwag to the racers. I can tell you that Liquid Ice energy drink is absolutely great! Another new addition to this year's race was our new website. Preston Molloy put together an awesome website which will continue to be our permanent home for Icebike (www.icebiking.com) and we are truly grateful for what Preston did, especially because he volunteered to do it for us.

Although our numbers were down this year (something about a big ski race in Pinawa) we had a great time and am already thinking about next year's Icebike 9�come and ride, the snow is fine!!

20072007 is the year of Icebike 9! This is the year of the snowblower, I used this wonderful machine to clear much of the trail on the east bank of the Red. The course was basically an off river course to avoid some of the uncertainties associated with the Red River and its sketchy freezing habits. The whole race went off without a hitch! We had ordered a pile of shirts for this year and ended up hanging on to more of them than I care to admit, so if you want a 2007 Icebike shirt, let me know, I have a pile of them....cheap $10.00 each. Having gone through 9 events has been great, we still have a lot of interest in the race and look forward to making it an even 10.

2008 For the 2008 race we are going to go big... no BIG!!!! We are raffling off a 2008 KONA Paddy Wagon bike, having a bunch of schwag to give away, including a shirt with every PREREGISTERED entry, and hope to make it the best race ever!!! This year we are cooperating with Ugly Duckling Productions who will be doing the Assiniboine Credit Union Rivertrail at the Forks in Winnipeg. I have already done some preliminary trail work in September in anticipation for the winter course so my snowblower won't have to become a weedwacker as well as a snow blower. If you have a desire to operate the handle end of shovel and want to get the scoop (pun intended) on the course call Woodcock Cycleworks at 253-5896 and reserve your weekend before the race to do some course clearing, we could always use the help! As always if you want to get the visual on the goings on from the year previous visit www.icebiking.com as Preston our webmaster continues to provide the most awesome Icebike race website in the world!!!

The snow has settled and Icebike X is in the history books as another successful Woodcock Cycleworks event. The weather was a balmy -13C with no wind, a light dusting of snow for ambience, and a group of enthusiastic riders rounded out the day. The course was fast and not too difficult, as we did not hear any complaining about the big hill or the snowy descents.

The big winner of the KONA Paddy Wagon was Tim Loewen, Tim has been on the cycling scene for a number of years and gives back to the community through the Wolseley Wheels Kids of Mud chapter. We wish Tim many years of cycling pleasure aboard his new KONA.

Now I would like to thank all the volunteers who have made Icebike possible over the last 10 years, without them this would not have been possible. When I was involved in the first Icebike with Daavid Turnbull I never thought I would help with the next and then carry on organizing the next 8. It has been fun, a huge amount of work, exasperating at times, and rewarding when I see everyone having a great time. So it is with this recollection of Icebike 10 that I am announcing my departure from the organizer's role in Icebike. I will hands the reigns over to the next enthusiastic organizer so that we can get new energy, ideas, enthusiasm, and give me a (in my opinion) well-deserved rest.