Eugene racer takes on Iditarod by bike.

Byline: The Register-Guard

Reports on the progress of the famed Iditarod sled dog race have been tweaking the imaginations of newspaper readers around the world for the past 10 days, but 23-year old Eugene bicycle painter Peter Basinger has no trouble visualizing what the Iditarod racers are going through.

That's because Basinger has ridden - and pushed - a bicycle over the entire 1,100 miles of the Iditarod Trail, from Lake Knik to the city of Nome.

He did that in the 2003 Alaska Ultra Sport, an ultramarathon formerly known as the "Iditabike' or "Iditasport" race, which usually begins the week before the Iditarod.

The Ultra Sport is unique in that competitors are allowed to travel by bike, foot or skis.

"Different parts of the trail favor different disciplines," said Basinger, who has competed in the event every year since 2001 and this year became the youngest person ever to win. "I always bike."

The Ultra Sport is also two ultramarathons in one.

Most entrants race 350 miles from the tiny trading post at Lake Knik, over Rainy Pass through the massive Alaska Range, across the vast Kuskokwim Valley to the Innoko River mining district and the town of Ophir, and then on to the village of McGrath.

That's the course Basinger raced in 2001 and 2002, and the one he covered in 5 days and 59 minutes earlier this month. He was the first of the 33 racers who started the 2004 race to make it to McGrath.

Some Ultra Sport racers attempt to go the full 1,100-mile distance to Nome, which is what Basinger did in 2003. About half of this year's field signed up for the longer race.

Basinger estimates that he had to push his bicycle "about 120 miles total" this year. "That's a little more than usual but not bad," he said.

There are six check points along the 350-mile race route. At two of which racers are allowed to re-supply themselves from "drop bags" carried ahead by race organizers.

The key to Basinger's victory may have been his ability to keep plugging along without much rest.

"In five days, I had less than 10 hours of sleep," said Basinger, who lived and worked in Anchorage until moving to Eugene about four months ago and going to work at Co-Motion Cycles.

"Biking and pushing day after day is hard, but some of the real challenges are trail-finding, avalanche-avoiding, overflow, and traveling over miles of ice," he said.

Temperatures during this year's race remained "relative warm - around freezing," Basinger said.

While it "eliminated some of the usual challenges of operating in the cold," the warm weather resulted in "really slow biking conditions."