OFFROAD SERIES
Tour of the Other Mining Country  -- Sunday, August 5th -- 14 miles

Fairbanks Cycle Club Press Release, 8/5/01

The Tour of the Other Mining Country Race was held Sunday, August 5th.  
Cool weather made for a smallish turnout, but all participants agreed that
the race was fun and that the trail conditions were great.

Rocky Reifenstuhl only narrowly nudged out Chip Vaughan in a sprint for
the finish.  Vaughan, 23, was racing his first off-road race ever, and
while he remained fairly non-demonstrative about his performance, looked
quite pleased.  "Great trail," said Vaughan with a smile.

Gail Koepf was the only woman racer, finishing in the middle of the pack
and taking an easy first place in the womens division.

The Tour of the Other Mining Country race is an off-road race, borrowing
it's name from another race (The Tour of the Mining Country) held out in
the Gilmore and Pedro Dome area, and also to the fact that it goes through
several active and historic mining areas.

The course starts at the intersection of the Healy intertie and Henderson
Road.  Riders follow trails uphill past the Ryan Lode mine, up Henderson,
and then up the Marathon Trail, originally a cat trail put in by miners.  
A short detour is made so that racers go past a run-down old squatters
cabin, using a steep and technically difficult section of single track.  
Following the Marathon trail again, riders push up the Alder Chute, an
impossibly steep pitch that tops out on Ester Dome.  Getting into the big
gears, racers then power their way along the ridgetops, all the way out to
the marathon turnaround, veering left just before the turnaround marker.  
At this point, the majority of the work has been done, but racers are only
halfway on the course.  From the turnoff to the finish, the racers speed
down long, winding single-track trail, strewn with roots and loose
branches, up a couple short ascents, and finally down the big hill.  Near
the bottom, some riders found that their hands were numb from applying so
much brake pressure, and were relieved to be on level ground again.  
Racers then sprinted along the Quartz Road to the finish line, riding past
two active mining operations.  Overall course length is 14 miles, with
about 2500 feet of elevation gain.

A key course marker, consisting of a pin-flag and a direction arrow were
pulled up by someone late Saturday night, resulting in two racers missing
an important turn and going down a trail towards Murphy dome, costing them
many minutes off their time.  "We are used to this sort of thing, but it
is disappointing anyway,"  said Tom Clark, the vice-president of the club.  
"I leave other peoples stuff alone, I wish they'd do the same for our
stuff."  Nevertheless, the two errant racers finished the course in fine
spirits, sharing the spot for last place.

At the finish, refreshments and munchies were consumed and stories about
the trail were shared, with riders reminiscing about various sections of
the course that stood out in their memory.


RACE RESULTS
============

Men:
Rocky Reifenstuhl	1:13:48		1
Chip Vaughan		1:13:48		2
Josh Snow		1:14:40		3
Doug Stewart		1:19:50		4
Tom Clark		1:25:51		5
Doug Yates		1:30:01		6
Alex Vaughan		1:48:24		7
Steve Clautice		1:48:24		8
Liam Wescott		DNF

Women:
Gail Koepf		1:31:52		1