Actif Epica 2023 - a rider’s perspective

This video was made from a series of clips taken during a cross-country endurance race called "Actif Epica" (https://actifepi.ca/). The race crossed part of southeastern Manitoba (Canada) on February 18-19, 2023. There were several running (50km, 114km, 160km) and cycling (50km, 114km, 240km) distance events. The final video was 21 minutes taken from over two hours of recording.

I did have a lot of fun, took my time, looked for geocaches, walked (a lot), spent extra time at checkpoints, enjoyed the view, chatted with people, stopped to smell the proverbial roses, etc... In the process, I took pictures and a few video clips. The video compilation is a little longer than what I normally do but there is some commentary and a bit of background music 🙂

My total journey was a little longer than the official distance - when I left the course it was intentional, and I always left and returned at the same point. At least once I turned around to chat with another participant going in the opposite direction.

I decided to ride my 29er rather than a fat bike - because I thought it would be OK. There are a bunch of other reasons but I realized it was an error early in the ride as I watched the fat bikes tootle off along snowmobile trails when I had to walk.

I brought too much stuff, I may as well have been set up for a -30°C multi-day ride. My goal was to have fun and just plug along (and not die), I am not interested in racing anymore.

My travel time was just short of 11 hours and I had the pleasure of walking just over 23km. During the last half of the ride I had some excellent company (which limited my geocaching but kept me focused on actually moving forward to the finish). I was asked to accompany another rider to the finish when their partner had a mechanical failure. Excluding the 30% of the registered participants that couldn't finish - I crossed the finish line last.

The route followed a large elongated figure 8 stretched in a N/S direction. The wind was brisk and from the south for most of the ride with the strongest period during the ride north. Fortunately, the wind calmed down somewhat when we were going back south. The day started at -10°C and climbed to -2°C just about the time I finished. Just as I left Crystal Springs (15km from the end) it started to snow moderately heavily. The route was closed for the longer distance participants after I finished due to snow and wind (drifting) causing poor/dangerous visibility.

The video might give you the idea that this was nothing more than a winter road ride but there were a lot of snow-covered dirt trails/roads a number of lightly used snowmobile paths and a few ungroomed bush trails. The biggest risk of this ride is the wind and the never ending prairie exposure.