The author at Dockery Rd, Iceman 2021. Rob Meendering Photography, purchased under the personal use license. This post is not monetized.

Iceman 2021: Pass Counts, Insights, and Alternate Podiums

Data by Stephen Spry, writing by Ben Snyder

In its first return since the pandemic, the 31st Iceman Cometh Challenge ranks as the 5th fastest edition since 2001. Great conditions and a quick course brought the lead group of pros across the finish line at 1:30:36 — nearly 25 minutes faster than the 2019 race.

While a few of the pros go home with cash prizes, the rest of us leave with only smiles and stories to recount for years to come. By diving deeper into the data behind those stories, we can share insights that help paint a fuller picture of the largest single-day mountain bike race in the nation.

We’ve divided this analysis into three sections:

• Primary Insights — Objective statistics based on race performance.
• Observations — Subjective insights based on patterns in the data.
• Alt Podium — The top three riders with the highest number of passes.

Let’s dig in.

Primary Insights

In the linked spreadsheet, you’ll find the following statistics for 3759 racers (i.e. all racers excluding Sno-Cone and Slush Cup participants):

• Wave Performance — How you placed in your wave and which wave you caught up to by the time you finished.
• Pass Ratio — How many people you passed and how many people passed you + a ratio called Modulus of Passicity™ that ranks your pass performance for easy comparison.

To use this spreadsheet, click the link below and scroll to find your name in the column labeled “Racer” (use the wave column to help locate yourself quicker). If you’re having trouble, try using control + f on Windows or command + f on Mac to search by your name.

Iceman 2021 data

Observations

We can also infer a handful of statistically interesting patterns in the data. These details are slightly more subjective, though we felt they were interesting enough to share:

Here we plot the fastest, slowest, and average times in each wave and highlight a few key points.

• The average time in wave one was faster than all but five other waves’ fastest times (excluding the junior waves of 49 and 50) and had the smallest deviation between fastest and average times; wave one racers are fast, unobstructed, and most similar in fitness.
• Someone in wave three won the non-pro Iceman, demonstrating that wave placement may have a negligible impact in the early waves, though they can probably also just pedal their bike really dang fast.
• If you observe the average wave times on the chart above, you can spot dramatic shifts between waves 17/18, 23/24, and 33/34. These are the waves where wave placement shifted to riders with fewer finishes.
• These shifts suggest that fitness eclipses wave placement as a factor in the race as you can see both fastest and average times decrease at those same wave breaks.
• This year saw a 13% DNF/DNS rate compared to a 24% DNF/DNS rate of 2019 (which was a muddy, cold slog). That’s 504 people vs ~1000 from 2019.

Alt Podium

We think it’s worth championing a few standout athletes that delivered exciting results above and beyond finish times. The alt podium is made up of the top three passers from the entire field split between men and women.

These riders clawed their way from the back of the race, scrambling through bramble, sand, and chunder to work their way to the upper ranks of racers. Without further ado, the alt podium winners are:

Alt Podium (Women)

1. Maggie Rettelle — Starting wave: 43; Riders passed: 537; Earliest wave caught: 13; Waves jumped: 30.
2. Tina Meyer — Starting wave: 43; Riders passed: 504; Earliest wave caught: 13; Waves jumped: 30.
3. Cristina Noble — Starting wave: 42; Riders passed: 489; Earliest wave caught: 13; Waves jumped: 29.

Alt Podium (Men)

1. Dave Christensen — Starting wave: 46; Riders passed: 828; Earliest wave caught: 5; Waves jumped: 41.
2. Bryan Smith — Starting wave: 38; Riders passed: 819; Earliest wave caught: 5; Waves jumped: 33.
3. Chris Carter — Starting wave: 37; Riders passed: 813; Earliest wave caught: 5; Waves jumped: 32.

You might also consider these racers as the most “out of place” in their wave assignments and the most worthy of getting a significant bump in next year’s edition. Great job folks!

Final Thoughts

We’d like to thank the Iceman race organizers for another fantastic event and for giving thousands of people a lifetime of memories and a season’s worth of training goals.

It’s often easy to criticize an event of this magnitude as many choices the organizers make are likely to upset one group or another. So, let’s all enjoy Iceman while we have it and keep supporting the race so we’ll have another 31 of them.

See you next November!

Additional Notes

• Watch for another post on wave predictions and wave models from us as we approach the next Iceman Cometh Challenge
• We did this same analysis for the 2019 race, though it was posted to a now-defunct blog. If you’re looking for the old data, you can find it here in an archived version of that post.