After 100-mile warmup, Anchorage fat-tire biker wins Iditasport 100K

Fat-tire biker Josh Duffus won the 62-mile Iditasport 100K late Monday night, two days after completing the 100-mile Susitna 100.

Duffus, a 43-year-old Anchorage man, finished the wilderness race from Willow to Yentna and back in a little more than 11 hours.

The race began at noon at EagleQuest Lodge. At 11:03 p.m., Duffus returned to the lodge as the race winner.

The race attracted four racers, three of them bikers and one of them a skier. Paul School finished just before 1 a.m. Tuesday to claim second place and Monica Gargan of Italy finished at 4:29 a.m. Tuesday to place third.

Shawn McTaggart, the lone skier, finished at 5:15 p.m. Tuesday, just beating the 30-hour time limit.

Duffus spent the holiday weekend biking through the Susitna Valley. On Saturday, he finished 23rd in the Susitna 100, which started Saturday morning at Happy Trails Kennel in Big Lake. His time was 13 hours, 55 minutes.

The Iditasport 100K is one of four endurance races that began at noon Monday.

The 200-mile Iditasport Original, which goes from Willow to Shell Lake Lodge and back, attracted seven competitors. The Iditarod Extreme, which goes 370 miles to McGrath, has 24 racers, and the Iditarod Impossible, which goes all the way to Nome, has six racers.

As of Monday evening, Kevin Murphy was setting a fast pace in the race to McGrath, having already made it to Puntilla Lake, nearly halfway through the race.