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Dirt-road Touring
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After 20 days, 23 hours, and 45 minutes, Kinsey Loan became the first woman to finish the 2024 Iditarod Trail Invitational 1000, taking fourth place overall. With help from some dedicated dot watchers, we put together a quick recap of her ride. Find it here…
Yesterday evening, Kinsey Loan from Eagle River, Alaska, became the women’s overall champion of the 1,000-mile version of the 2024 Iditarod Trail Invitational (ITI) event from Knik to Nome, Alaska. As expected, this year has been full of surprises, including heavy snow, freezing winds, accidental swims, and folks getting turned around in the Alaskan wilderness.
This isn’t Kinsey’s first time participating in the ITI, and last year’s event went anything but smoothly. According to Kari Gibbons of the Wild Winter Women group, last year, “Kinsey walked for 10 hours to reach Yentna Station with two flat tires. In a year where 44 of 96 starters scratched, Kinsey came back from the flat tire fiasco to finish the race as the first woman and 12th overall, all with a broken metacarpal bone in her hand from a fall in the Farewell burn.” Her experience and preparation paid off this year, and she completed the ITI 1000 in 20 days, 23 hours, and 45 minutes, placing fourth overall—under three days behind third-place finisher Philip Hofstetter.
Kinsey rode with her partner and fourth-place finisher Mark Moeller, splitting their time between cabins and their tent to catch some sleep. They settled into third and fourth place early last week and maintained their position all the way to the finish line in Nome, Alaska, yesterday evening. Congratulations to Kinsey, Mark, and everyone else who’s participating in this year’s event. Leah Gruhn is currently in second place in the women’s race and just passed Koyuk at mile-791, she’ll likely be finishing up in the next couple of days.
While not participating in the official ITI event, Ana Jager was out touring the 1,000-mile route and finished on Friday with a time of 19 days, 1 hour, and 8 minutes. She left just one day before the official grand depart and spent the majority of the ride by herself. Of course, Ana is no stranger to challenging events like these; as profiled in Eszter Horanyi’s piece in the ninth issue of The Bikepacking Journal, she was the first woman to finish the 2022 Tour Divide and the 800-mile Arizona Trail Race, which also meant she was the second woman ever to finish the Triple Crown Challenge in a single calendar year. We’ll have more on her ITI experience soon.
There are still many riders out on the route, and you can follow their progress live here. There are over 100 people participating in the event, split between the 1,000 and 350-mile routes, including those skiing, running, and biking. So far, 40 of them have scratched.
Further Reading
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