![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.iceman.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Beth-Iceman-225x300.jpg?resize=225%2C300\")
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Last week, we made the call. No doubt the announcement that this year\u2019s Bell\u2019s Iceman Cometh Challenge wouldn\u2019t happen disappointed a lot of people, but we\u2019ve been overwhelmed by the positive calls, emails, and text messages in the days since our racers heard the news. Your support has made a very tough time so much better, and we can\u2019t thank you enough for the donations and kind words.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n There might be a lot of things to worry about now. We are more stressed out and anxious than ever before, and the consequences have much higher stakes than deciding which tires to run in a rainy edition of Iceman.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n One of the things I\u2019ve learned is that the busier you are, the more stressed you are, and the more things you\u2019re juggling, the more you need to ride. Seriously. You aren\u2019t going to find time, so <\/span>make <\/span><\/i>time to get outside, to ride your favorite trails, or discover something new. Turn up a new subdivision that you\u2019ve never ridden before. Take a short drive and ride a route you\u2019ve always wanted to, even if it\u2019s just a trailhead or road a half an hour before.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Just riding can make you feel better, but there\u2019s an added benefit, too. Once you\u2019re pedaling, so many of the things we\u2019re all worrying about ten to shift to the backburner. Even if it\u2019s just for forty-five minutes or an hour, riding gives you a chance to look up from your laptop or cellphone, turn off the news and look around; the world is still turning. The sun is still shining. As real as those worries are waiting for you back at home, for just a short while, you can step away.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n That\u2019s why we\u2019re giving you the 2020 course to ride<\/a>. We hope you\u2019ll check out the route and spend the next year wondering what might have been. Would you have made it through Make It Stick with the bunch? How many riders would make it to the base of Anita Hill together? Would Madeleine\u2019s Trail be too soon to make the move?<\/span><\/p>\n Of course, we need to mention a few things. We really hope anyone choosing to ride the course this fall will keep any groups small, ideally composed of people from your own household of other riders you\u2019ve ridden with recently. Please think before you travel from out of the area and be considerate of local guidelines, including mandatory masks at local businesses. We also don\u2019t recommend carpooling, either from out of town or to drop cars in Kalkaska. Finally, the Kalkaska Airport is an airport<\/em>; stay off the airport.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n First into the woods won\u2019t matter too much on this route, with the race sticking to the wide two-track all the way to where it links up with the old course, a section known as JZ\u2019s Party Zone. After a hard left, it\u2019s a short and familiar stretch of singletrack and two-track all the way to Smith Lake Road.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n One of the biggest changes to race happens right here. Instead of taking the hard right into the singletrack of Tornado Alley, you\u2019ll stay on the Brown Fire Lane two-track all the way to Dockery before a right on the gravel to get back to the normal course. From there, it\u2019s back into the woods for Make It Stick and a white-knuckle descent down the original Water Bottle Hill.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The next target comes after crossing Broomhead, where you\u2019ll see all the hard work Northern Michigan Mountain Bike Association put in to repair Hot Sister. Hopefully, you\u2019ll get to experience this section as it was meant to be ridden; fast, fun, and dry!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n After crossing Williamsburg like last year, Iceman gets turned on its head. Instead of going right on the Vasa…go left! This year was meant to be one for the big men, trimming the Boonenberg and shipping riders at full speed around to the 10k. It\u2019s not all flat, though. After taking a right on Special K to the 10k, there are two sneaky, gradual climbs before you pop out back \u201con course\u201d just before the run into Anita. It\u2019s all familiar from there, with a left on Madeleine\u2019s and down Wood Chip to finish with a left-hander up Ice Breaker!\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n There is plenty of great riding left to enjoy in 2020, so let\u2019s all make the most of it. Go ride. Stay safe. Let\u2019s be a part of the solution to this thing and let\u2019s make sure we see each other in 2021!<\/span><\/p>\n Download the correct file for your device here.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Last week, we made the call. No doubt the announcement that this year\u2019s Bell\u2019s Iceman Cometh Challenge wouldn\u2019t happen disappointed a lot of people, but we\u2019ve been overwhelmed by the positive calls, emails, and text messages in the days since our racers heard the news. Your support has made a very tough time so much … Continue reading “For The Fun Of It: The 2020 Course”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":288,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,6,9,17,18],"tags":[32,47,99,100,117],"class_list":["post-287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-course","category-important-news","category-news","category-strava","category-training","tag-32","tag-course","tag-pratice-ride","tag-pre-ride","tag-riding-the-course"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.iceman.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/Beth-Iceman.jpg?fit=720%2C960&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iceman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iceman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iceman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iceman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iceman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iceman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iceman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.iceman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iceman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.iceman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
The Route<\/span><\/h2>\n