2023 Iceman Cometh - Wave 1

The 2023 edition of the Iceman Cometh Challenge was a beautiful one. Temperatures dipped into the low 30's for the start, but was dry and partly sunny.

After pre-riding the course in late October, I had tentatively devised a plan to stay up front until we hit 'Make It Stick' to make sure I wasn't stuck in traffic in the following single track that was added right afterwards. The reality is, of course, that that's everyone's plan. So, when I realized that the pace was going to be really high right from the start, I did the best I could to stay near the front without going too far into the red. In the end, it worked out for me and I somehow found myself up in front with a group of 6 coming into Timber Ridge and broke away to take 3rd overall (age groupers excluding pros) and 1st in my Age Group.

BUT - you won't see that part because my GoPro up front died after about 50 minutes and my rear camera died after an hour and a half. The rear camera I expected and am not too concerned about. But the front camera is a GoPro 9 and I expect more out it than that. So - if anyone has any tips on how to get better battery life to last a couple of hours (I've already reduced settings to the lowest quality that keeps the image stabilization), I'd love to hear from you.

I would like to shout out to KOM Cycling for their fantastic and innovative mounts. I used my Garmin Varia mount on my seat post with a GoPro/Garmin mount attachment to easily connect it to my bike and I use the KOM Cycling Garmin mount up front to carry my Garmin up top and my GoPro below. On top of that, I've met the team behind the company (I'm not sponsored or a paid promotor - I just work with entrepreneurs and reached out to learn more about the company) and really like how they've gone about building this business with their passion for cycling, commitment to product development and improvement, and flat out hustle. Buy their products. :)