WHAT
The North Star Bicycle Race is an unsupported 629.4 mile out & back attack done in the self-supported one stage style. No entry fee, no meetings, no merchandise and no sponsors. There is no max entry to hype and no wait list to watch. The NSBR is a racers’ race complete with no control points and no prizes.
A battle by bicycle.
WHEN
Wednesday, September 11, 2024. Roll out @ 0700
WHERE
North Star Bicycle Route aka United States Bicycle Route #41.
This was my biggest race of the year. Besides a crash in April and a few light weeks recently due to health problems, it has been a great but exhausting year of racing and traveling. I read about this race on bikepacking.com and really fell in love with it 🙂This was exactly what i am looking for. It is also the same distance as Race Across the East and therefore a good preparation for the body and soul. Let’s cut to the chase.
Northbound: St. Paul, Minnesota – Grand Portage, Minnesota ( Canadian Border)
315 miles
19h 10min moving time
20h 54 min elapsed time
Climbing ~8000 feet
I left my hotel and headed over to the start at around 5 am. It was about an hour ride. We were to take a few pictures, meet each other, grab my spot tracker and depart at 7 am. Few miles after I left my hotel I realized that I had made a mistake. After all this time of meticulous preparation , I have forgotten to upload the Minnesota State Map to my GPS unit. Or should I say, I thought it was a great idea to remove many from the unit in order for it to hopefully work with less problems 🙂But I figured, All i need is Starbucks on the way there and I am golden, I have time to waste. Wahoo Software Engineers, why would you only allow maps to upload with Wi-Fi? Do you think I am using it on my indoor trainer?
I found Starbucks, connected to Wi-Fi, it’s not downloading, ughh. Gotta keep moving. I was the 2nd to arrive at the start location. The gentleman who was already there was kind enough to offer Wi-Fi and I tried again, same result. Well, nothing I can do about it so let’s go. I can still see the track, notifications before turns, elevation profile and such. All will be good. Stay positive.
There were about 20 of us, and after meeting some new people and taking few pictures, under the cheers of friends, fans and families, we were off !!!
Some great pictures by Aaron Ehlers
The first 8.5 miles or so were neutral on the way out of town. I got way too relaxed and had to do some work for a minute or two in order to get to the 5 guys at the front and we proceeded forward.
One of the riders took off and was already opening a gap, the rest of us stayed behind close to one another. Then another rider came by me and said that he was about to chase the leader. I was near Karl Kroll and we were going back and forth with one another after spending some time talking during the neutral start. I highly encourage you to follow his youtube and socials. How about cycling through the Americas for over 3 years, 23,635 miles (38k km) long, 27 months.
I figured the two guys ahead would wear each other out. There is no way both are equally fit, one is doing more work and at this pace, there is a chance someone blows up. And that did happen late in the race as the chaser ended up bailing out. What I knew was that this will only work well for me if I do it at my own pace. Simple as that. There was no point emptying the tank in the first 50 miles on a 630 mile non stop race.
Karl opened a small gap on me but he was still in my eyesight. Then, he was on the side of the road repairing a flat tire. The shoulders were rough in this section of road and I kept hearing small rocks flying all over the place from time to time. Next thing you know, I hear puff and I get a flat tire myself. Great, I am not panicking, we just started, I got this. One other racer passes me. I found no objects puncturing the tire, slapped new tube quickly, pressed on the CO2 cartridge and voila, I am back in chase. Karl passed me while I was fixing my tire.
Further down the road, I entered another trail , perhaps around mile 80 and I did not like it. Every 20 feet, there were large gaps on the road. And on a 25 mm tire, my body felt it. All of a sudden, Karl comes from the back, no Jersey and full size floor pump attached to his bicycle. What? I get the no Jersey, 70 to 80 F is hot for people from Minnesota. Just kidding 🙂He was explaining to me that he had to use both of his plugs for his tubeless tire repair and both of his CO2 Cartridges already. Wow. Apparently he found a pump at the department store and he looked confident that his issues are now solved.
After 5.5h , I had covered 100 miles to include the stoppage time. Things were looking good at the moment. I was soon in Duluth, MA. The town sits on Lake Superior and has the nation’s only freshwater aquarium. The lake itself is almost the size of my country of birth- Bulgaria, it’s massive. In fact, it’s the 2nd largest freshwater lake in the world with 1,332′ dept.
The town was my first chance of getting some supplies. They had two Kwik Trip Gas Stations on the route and that was basically some of the only 24h options on the route. Well, nothing really opens 24/7 after mile 187. Everything is closing between 6pm and 9pm around here. Planning stops was critical. Knowing that there is another Kwik Trip in 30 miles, I didn’t fill up on water 100 % so I am not super heavy. I was going to stop again quickly in a few hours and top off. In retrospect , I don’t know if it made a difference aside from less weight on my shoulders from the Camelback.
The terrain in this section was flat and weight made no difference. In fact, I was shocked to find out that the first 150 miles had 1900 feet of climbing and the last 180 about 5700 feet. There were some trail closures, road constructions and all kinds of mess going on in town, so I had to figure out a detour. I wished I could see the roads on my GPS unit at the moment 🙂 But hey, I quickly figured it out and was back into it. I didn’t end up on the highway , so give me credit.
I really liked biking along Lake Superior. The water was crystal clear, people were outdoors doing all sorts of activities. The views were magnificent, the water crystal clear. Life was good at the moment.
It was getting dark now, time to put on my reflective gear and top off on liquids at mile 187.I had plenty of snacks on me but they had fresh Pizza and I ate 3 slices. 12h after we departed, and I managed to rack up 194 miles. Now I had a headache thanks to the constant cracks on the trail earlier, just great.
Nobody was really passing me anymore but I was not passing anyone either. The first 5 to 8 of us now started to open a real gap on the chasers. I then got another flat in the middle of the night (as I was closing on 3rd place). Another pinch flat, what are the chances? I was scratching my head. Now I was imagining that I might have installed the rim tape wrong and it was not the road surface lol. I slapped some electrical tape on top of it, new tube and kept racing. No more CO2 Cartridges. Hopefully no more flats as I would hate to use my pump.
It was a bit of a chilly night but nothing terrible. I was closing in on the Canadian border and just saw the leader heading back south. The biggest climb on the route was situated here, Mount Josephine. It was a little over 2 miles and it was slow going but manageable. 4.3 % average and 9.3% max grade.
Right before I entered the climb, I bumped into another racer but I was not sure if he was heading north or south. We both entered an uphill section of gravel, but he went back down as I was climbing. He told me not to worry as the gravel ends soon.
As soon as I descended on the other side, I was at the Grand Portage visitor center. Honestly, I was pleasantly surprised by what it had to offer. Maybe because I set my expectations low by just finding water here and not really knowing a visitor center will be open at 3:30 in the morning. Well, I was able to get some water, change some layers of clothing, swap my chain for another freshly waxed chain and off I went up that climb again.
Southbound:Grand Portage, Minnesota (Canadian Border) -St. Paul, Minnesota –
315 miles
22h 05min moving time
24h 41 min elapsed time
Climbing ~8000 feet
I was now praying that I will find a place to eat breakfast as I will be entering some small towns after 6am and my prayers were answered. I arrived at Subway 10 min after they opened. The lady making my ham, egg and cheese sandwiches asked where I was going and thought what I was doing was insane. I agreed, packed my 2nd sandwich to go and kept moving. She really sold me on the locally sourced dark roast coffee and I was excited to try it. After all, I stopped coffee 3 weeks before the race as I really knew I would need that kick during the race. I was kind of falling asleep around 4:30 am but managed to stay up with some caffeine gummies. The coffee was cold at 7:10 am, what is this ,some sort of a joke ?
I was starting to think about my position more as we only had a little over 200 miles left. I ate well, had enough supplies for a long push and upped the tempo. I figured everyone else was going to be sleep deprived and also stopping so going for a long stretch without stopping should bring me back closer to the top 3. At the time ,I was actually closing in on 4th place but the 2nd place racer would quit at mile 471. I was actually really feeling it and was going strong. The gap was getting smaller and smaller. Then boom, another flat. Ok, no big deal, I got this.
The stretch next to Lake Superior ended near Duluth, I stopped to resupply there and kept pushing south. The trail after town was pretty good and I was enjoying myself. I was starting to run a little hot and my nose was running. Maybe my body is reacting to the different air and I was paying for my effort. More on that later.
Karl was about 29 miles ahead and Jamie was 14 miles ahead. The gap to Jamie went down to 7 miles. As I entered my least favorite trail, I was closing in on him right before darkness. Luckily, I found a water fountain on the trail and filled up. I was hoping that he would have to stop and resupply. Remember the gaps on the trail every 20 feet. . . Yea, they were totally messing with me both physically and mentally. I can feel it in my arms, neck, back , shoulder, rear … just about everywhere. But Jamie was now in my eyesight, mission accomplished. I was thinking about staying right behind him and going hard the last 2 or 3 hours. Well, until one of those violent cracks on the pavement resulted in my water bottle holder snapping in half on the rear of my bike and it fell on the ground with the bottle still in it. I mean, this thing was just fine going across the US for 3500 miles but now it just breaks this easily ?
Jamie was gone, but here and there I could still see his taillight in the distance. Except, I was now about 40 hours on my bike without sleep and was really feeling it. Then, the hallucinations started. And I’ve experienced it before but this time it was wild. At first I thought it must be Halloween decorations, some scary characters moving things around but they looked too real to me. I closed my eyes , opened them back up and they were gone. This did not feel safe at all, in fact, it was quite the unpleasant and surreal experience. Like seeing myself and other creatures in the 3rd person. As much as I wanted to stay in contention, I knew that I had to grab a quick nap. I was still within reach of my minimum goal of under 2 day finish but far from my 40h goal that was below the course record. Numbers are numbers but safety is more important.
Of course, when I need to sleep, I could not find anything suitable around, even a bench. I just stopped and laid down. The mosquitos had other plans though, they were swarming me so fast that I did not even last 5 minutes. I kept going and then passed by a Portable restroom. Hmm, this will work, but it better not be nasty. I was quite surprised to see that it was nice and clean on the inside and the bugs could not get to me. I was shivering but I didn’t think it was that cold. Apparently , I was already getting sick but did not know that yet or refused to acknowledge it.
After pretty good 20 min nap, I was off again. It was a bit of a blur from this point until the finish line and there were no more than 50 to 60 miles left to the finish. My body was shutting down, I was not able to really eat for the past 8 hours as I had some acid reflux. I think that crazy trail really did me a number after riding it soon after I had a large meal.
Whoever had our names on the trail with chalk, thank you, I so needed this energy boost at this very moment.
I was not giving up on 3rd place but could only go but so fast at this point. It was more of a recovery pace than racing. I did find McDonald’s open in the middle of the night and was able to eat. That helped a bit but I was still feeling terrible. Not paying attention to any stats but rather worrying about finishing this race. I was hoping not to ride again the entire night and hope is a powerful pill.
St. Paul was near and I was so happy to be backThere were quite a few turns in this section and some technical local trails before the finish line. And 1.9 miles before the finish, yet again, I got my 4th pinch flat tire. This time, it was in complete darkness near a bridge on the trail and next to the homeless camp. They were burning plastic and wood and it smelled terrible. I was not going to stop here and mess around with my tire. The 45h finish still looked good but I’ll take 46 and walk this one off. Plus, I ran out of tubes and was not looking forward to finding little holes and patching old tubes at this time. Luckily, nobody passed me as I was unaware if anyone was closing in on me. At the end, someone finished 1h behind me. I bumped into a few shady characters while walking but luckily no issues. I was done at 4:59 am. I was really walking as fast as I could because my thought was that I could finish in under 46 hours. It worked.
Now I had to patch my tube and bike to the hotel. I arrived there at the perfect time for breakfast and was thinking about a large meal and a plate for later. Maybe disassemble my bike and sleep for a few hours. I showered , laid down to check on some missed messages on my phone and was likely asleep within 2 minutes. lol 🙂 I woke up at 10:30, checkout was at 11 and so was my airport shuttle. Great, I just started another race. My bike had to be disassembled and loaded into a suitcase!
Somehow , I managed to get everything in order and in the suitcases by 11am and left the room at 11:02 just to hear from the hotel receptionist that I missed my shuttle by 4 minutes. My flight was leaving in 1.5 hours. They called a cab and I managed to get on the plane.
What an ending to my trip. It turns out , I was already running a fever and going down with something on the second day of this race. Luckily, it was in early stages and I managed to finish the work.
Lastly, this race is part of my ongoing effort to raise funds for the breast cancer foundation One in 8. Have a look and contribute as much as you feel comfortable with. Greatly appreciated
https://www.globalgiving.org/fundraisers/rae2025/
Velo-Tribe Coaching 
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