Extreme sports attract crowds, help boost county tourism

Key Takeaways

Rowing a canoe for 120 miles, through the dead of night, is tough enough. Watching the teams compete for the nearly 80-year-old race is another story.

The AuSable River Canoe Marathon has attracted two-person teams to Crawford County, Mich. since 1947 for a race from Grayling to Oscoda. The competition has grown from a local-heavy event in the 1950s to an international draw in late July. The $55,000 prize purse doesn’t hurt. 

It’s one on a calendar full of summertime feats of strength that capitalize on counties’ unique geographies, drawing adventure-seekers and spectators alike to try their hand at a challenge, marvel at the contestants mastering niche skills and endurance. It’s a wide world of wild sports.

“Canoe racing is popular, and we’ve got about 20,000 spectators following the teams down the river,” said Michelle Millikin, a race co-chair. “It’s super fun to watch, to see their pit crew chasing their team all night to replenish their liquids and give them food and supplements.” 

Early in its 77 years, the race was planned as a post-Labor Day tourist attraction down the AuSable River nearly to Lake Huron, but the longer days of sunlight in July were too hard to resist. The race begins at 9 p.m. with a quarter-mile run to the river, with roughly 100 teams of two carrying their canoes. During the duration of the race, which takes 14-19 hours, teams must carry their boats around six hydroelectric dams. That’s the only time they leave their boats, so in addition to the conditioning that participants must undertake to prepare to row their canoes, they need to be ready for that much time in their seats.

Millikin has been involved in the race for 12 years, ever since she and her daughters watched the race and picked a Canadian team to support. From there, her participation escalated. 

“Planning is a year-round effort,” she said. “We rely on a strong working relationship with Crawford County to make the event work and ensure that participants are safe.” 

The race’s documentary series “AuSable - The River, The Race, The Legend” won the 2024 Michigan Emmy for Outstanding Sports Documentary. For more than 50 years, the race has also spawned the AuSable River Festival the weekend prior, capitalizing on the “marathon fever” for another week.

“There’s a lot that draws people to the race, but I think the sense of history, that we’ve been doing this for almost 80 years, helps us hold a special place in their hearts,” Millikin said.

Don’t forget to stop

It takes a while to get to Lander County, Nev., but when hundreds of people flock there for more than 10 days in mid-September, they come with a purpose: To ride their bikes, fast. Really fast. They’re shooting for 90 miles per hour to top Todd Reichert’s 89.59-mph record from 2016, on a flat stretch of Nevada Highway 305. Participants have a 5-mile runway to reach their top speed, which is recorded over 200 meters. 

The World Human Powered Speed Challenge, known colloquially as “the bike race,” draws an international crowd, representing 14 countries since the event started in 2000, that can often fill hotel rooms for up to a month, as cyclists adapt to breathing at 4,500 feet. That gives visitors more time to get acquainted with central northern Nevada.

Paula Tomera, executive director of the Lander County Convention and Tourism Authority, said the 10-day event duration gives participants the most versatility for the best possible weather conditions, which can include wind that isn’t too fast.

“We’ve had people go faster than 90 miles per hour, but the tailwind is too strong, so their records aren’t legal,” Tomera said. “These bikes are really moving.”

These aren’t road bikes, though. They resemble pointed eggs shielding a recumbent cyclist from the elements and capitalizing on aerodynamics, so futuristic that a visitor could be forgiven for thinking the county was named after the lunar lander, rather than for Frederick W. Lander, chief engineer of a federal wagon route. They generally require two-member teams to help cyclists get moving because the cyclist is locked into a reclined position.

Battle Mountain, the county seat, swells with cyclists and their support crews, many of whom begin their visits weeks in advance to acclimate to the high altitude. Tomera said a pre-pandemic survey showed $500,000 in tax revenue from race-related spending over the 10 days of the event.

“We have some people who build their bikes in their garages,” Tomera said. “Some of them are not highly trained athletes, these are just people who have an avid interest in the sport and train in their off time and can move themselves at 75 miles per hour.”

But Highway 305 is not in the same shape it was when it was first repaved to the race’s specifications in 2009. Tomera is hoping for attention from the state department of transportation in maintaining the road’s surface to keep the competition in town. Her proposal for a 4.5-mile track to play host to the race has been tabled by the county commission.

“We don’t have anything else that has nearly the drawing power of the bike race that will bring people to town,” she said. 

After the 200 meter top-speed stretch, participants have a 2-mile segment to slow down and stop, though Tomera said state highway patrol officers are on hand to follow behind them with their lights on in case the cyclists somehow forget to stop.

Highs and lows

A single district in Inyo County, Calif. contains both the lowest point in the contiguous United States and the highest. Human nature being what it is, it was only a matter of time before people tried to travel on foot between Death Valley (282 feet below sea level) and Mount Whitney (8,360 feet). Uphill, of course.

Hikes in the 1960s made way for running races in the ‘70s, and now the Badwater Ultramarathon annually draws roughly 100 entrants trying to cross two mountain ranges for the grand prize of a belt buckle and the notoriety of being brave enough to try in July, the hottest time of year for the region.

“When I moved down to Lone Pine and witnessed the race for the first time, I was struck by the insanity,” said Will Wadelton, who represents the district on the Inyo County Board of Supervisors. 

“It highlights the vast size of my county and the huge diversity that we have. We have the highest and lowest point, and in the lower 48, the hottest temperature on record in the shade.”

Though most of the race follows state roads, both ends of the 135-miler include county roads, including the finish at Mount Whitney Portal. 

It’s not a major imposition on the county to play host to the event, and besides the road permits for the finish area, the county’s commitment is limited to setting up electronic message boards for the roads, and Wadelton noted that the race organizers usually bring them back to the county’s garages, saving time for the staff.

The runners supply their own teams of volunteers to serve as race crews, driving alongside in a van or recreational vehicle, providing support and medical care. 

The race hasn’t seen any fatalities, despite being held in temperatures regularly topping 120 degrees during the day and rarely dipping below 100 degrees at night. 

The entrants are among the best long-distance runners in the world, and must finish within 48 hours. The top finishers have run the distance in under 22 hours on both men and women’s sides, and in 2022, a 77-year-old man, the race’s oldest finisher, did so in just over 48 hours. 

“I wanted to get up there to see the finish and I figured if I got there 24 hours after the start, I’d be safe, but I got there and they said seven people had finished already,” Wadelton said. 

The extreme nature of the event limits the number of entrants, but considering the number of runners, crew members and spectators, the visitors fill the hotel rooms and rank among the county’s top 10 events.

“It brings people from all over the world to see what Inyo County is all about,” Wadleton said. “You’ve got European runners and Asian runners coming all the way here and they’ll go home and talk about what they saw here.”