Two years ago, the year of the inaugural Tour de Finn, Vakava entered a team and we took second. Not winning, especially for the team sponsored by Finn Sisu, was a bit of a bruise to our ego. Hence, last year, we fielded two teams, Vakava Pink and Vakava Blue, with the Pink team stacked with those of us committed to the most Tour de Finn races. And it worked out, Pink won the Tour de Finn team competition handedly.
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| The Vakava Racing Team 2025-2026 |
This year, in an attempt to encourage more racing and some friendly rivalry, Vakava has pitted our seniors (those age 40 and older) against our juniors. Not unlike many other local teams, we’re limited in how many teams we can enter because we only have enough women for two teams. Thus, many of our male skiers are not on either team.
And so this brings me to the Riverview Loppet on the Tour de Finn circuit. Erik and I were on a ski trip in Colorado the past two weekends (blogpost to be published some day) and so, after Skadi’s Chase was cancelled, this was our first Tour de Finn race. Two weekends previous the Seniors made us proud taking the victory over the juniors in the BCFK, but alas the juniors had their revenge at the 22 km Seeley Hills Classic where Gabby won the women's race while Josh took second and Leif third. In an advantage for our Seniorit Team, all the racing Juniorit women were doing the Ski de She, instead of the Riverview Loppet.
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| Seeley Hill Classic 22 km age class podium with Leif (left) and Josh (middle). |
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| Coach Dave was second in the 70+ age class in the 22 km classic but isn't on our Seniorit team. |
It’s interesting how life moves in circles. Perhaps due to our current team camaraderie, or WhatsApp, or a combo of the two, the Vakava Racing team has gotten a bit tighter and everyone is game with carpooling and sharing lodging. Our teammate Ian found a group of us doing either the Riverview Loppet or Tour de She a VRBO north of Hayward. We got to carpool with Ian and fellow teammate McEwan to hear some new stories. After years of Erik and I driving and staying by ourselves, suddenly it feels a bit like we’re back in college!
I’ve raced the Riverview Loppet twice previously, both times when it was the weekend after the Birkie before Pepsi moved to that weekend. The first time was back in 2004 when I skated the long race (it was a bit shorter back then) and it was a warm slow ski day. The second time was 2007 or ‘08 when I raced the shorter classic distance, which per memory, was only 12 km. I’ve never skied the After Hours trails (where the Riverview Loppet takes place in Brule, Wisconsin) for training ever. Hence, all I could really remember about the course was that some of it was fairly flat but that there was one section of sketchy downhills.
As a classic specialist, the Riverview Loppet might be my only skate race of the season, but because the official Tour de Finn race was the skate, that’s the race I entered. There was a fairly icy base following a warmup earlier in the week but it began snowing the evening before the race and kept snowing right through the race. This made for some pretty conditions in the trees, but for a very soft base.
Likely because the Riverview Loppet was on the Tour de Finn series, there was a big crowd and the race organizers decided there should be two waves for the 28 km skate. Those 40 and older would start two minutes later. Except, in the last five minutes of the race I learned it was those 41 and older (I’m 40) and anyone who wanted to could actually start in the first wave if they felt fast. Hence, because of the confusion, I got a really really bad starting position at the absolute back.
Sometimes I wish people would self-seed a bit better. I spent the first couple kilometers trying to get around a few people. The track was only one skier wide to complicate matters. As my former Vakava teammate Ben, passed me though from the “old people’s wave” I double poled while he passed me and I realized the double poling was actually quite fast on the firmest part of the skate deck.
I’ll be frank here, the skating absolutely sucked. Conditions were slow and to boot, the course isn’t piston-bully groomed, and so as often happens, there’s a small firm strip in the middle of the skate deck, but if I pushed off just off that, my ski would sink down and squirrel to the side. I hoped the slow conditions would work to my advantage as more of an endurance specialist but as the race progressed, it became clear, I’m just not good at skate skiing under these conditions.
I double poled along the side as the pack of the old people caught me, teammate Mary Beth hanging on the back. She told me to jump on and I tried but we were going uphill and I couldn’t V-1 very efficiently and so they got away. Awhile later teammate Brock caught me. He’s a real double pole specialist. I moved to the side and started double poling with everything I had and instead of passing me, Brock just tucked in behind me. The tempo was really jacking up my heart rate and I didn’t think I could maintain the speed for the remainder of the race so I told him to pass me. I tried to ski behind him, he was mostly double poling, but I just wasn’t strong enough and so I was back skiing on my own, occasionally trying to enjoy the snow clinging to the trees, but mostly just trying not to trip myself up in the soft snow.
About 14 km into the race my teammate Leif in the classic race passed me. I tried to double pole behind him and was successful for awhile, including on this super sketchy snow plowed out downhill. Fortunately it was a relatively short downhill and I talked to myself enough that I stayed upright but not long after Leif got away from me, too. Those short stints of double poling with Brock and Leif were my favorite times on course.
The course was an 18 km loop followed by a 10 km loop (same trail, just cut off 8 km) on some fairly fun terrain - few sketchy hills but lots of turns and transitions to work. Under normal circumstances, this would likely be a very fun course but with so much fresh snow, I almost felt like I was stopping around corners, struggling to string together the transitions, and I love transitions. I just tried to keep the tempo high and keep forcing the pace even though there was rarely anyone ever in sight.
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| Riverview Loppet course. The southwest part of the course was the extra 8 km we did the first lap. |
My time was just under 2 hours for a 28 km skate race. It definitely wasn’t my day but gave me more training time and made the drive more worth it. Afterwards there was one of those local lunches in the old town hall building that was retrofitted as a basketball court and the Lions club sang us their song. And almost everyone got an award.
For the Seniorits, Erik helped pull Mary Beth to the win from the old people’s wave. The timer seemed a bit shocked that someone 62 could beat out those twenty years her junior. Otherwise Craig had a strong showing for the Seniorit men, finishing 5th (I believe the official results are wrong since Craig started with the fast youngsters and hence never subtracted his 2 minute wave time), with Erik in 31st and Brock in 36th and for the Seniorit Women I finished 6th and Eva 11th to round out a full scoring Tour de Finn points team. For those whippersnappers, Ian led the chase with 18th place followed closely by McEwan in 19th. Leif Hanson won the 18 km classic race for which I believe he will get 20 Tour de Finn points for doing one of the offered races. Nate Porath for Vakava (at large) placed 13th in the 28 km skate while Zack Pannkuk won the 10 km skate by a large margin (should I tell him that’s called cherrypicking??? My editor let me keep this comment:))
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| Zach winning the 10 km skate. |
And finally but not least, Ahvo Taipale (does he need an introduction?) won the 10 km classic at age 79, so don’t give up yet!
Moving on to the Tour de She, Gabby Vandredies placed 7th in the 30 km skate followed by Stephanie Lewis in 9th, and Laura Cattaneo in 18th. In the 20 km classic, Adrienne Keller finished 10th.
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| Adrienne for the 40-49 age class win! |
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Stephanie (left) and Gabby (center) for the 20-29 age class at the 30 km Ski de She. |
