{"id":4636,"date":"2020-05-29T12:52:57","date_gmt":"2020-05-29T16:52:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/?p=4636"},"modified":"2020-05-29T12:52:57","modified_gmt":"2020-05-29T16:52:57","slug":"the-iceman-a-traverse-city-tradition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/?p=4636","title":{"rendered":"The Iceman: A Traverse City Tradition"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Drew Johnsen<\/strong><br \/>\nEMS Press<br \/>\nTraverse City East MS<br \/>\n1st Place Division MS, News Writing<br \/>\nSports News Story<\/p>\n<p><b>JUDGING CRITERIA<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Lead features interesting, important angle<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Uses colorful, lively style<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Avoids cliches, editorializing<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Displays knowledge of sports; uses understandable terms<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Shows research\/interviewing skills; emphasizes how &amp; why<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Effective use of facts\/quotes<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Proper diction\/grammar; use of the third person<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Unity\/coherence<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>On November 2, more than 4,000 mountain bikers and 10,000 spectators descended on the Kalkaska Airport for the 2019 Iceman. The Iceman is a Traverse City tradition held each year on the first Saturday of November. It debuted on November 4, 1990, with 35 riders making the 30ish mile trek from Kalkaska to Traverse City. From year to year, temperatures on race day vary widely. Typically, they range between 30 degrees and 40 degrees, but they have been as low as 25 degrees and as high as 57 degrees. Several years have seen snow and freezing rain during the race, making even getting to the start line difficult. This year\u2019s race day was cloudy with a high of 43 degrees and a low of 32 degrees, so it was pretty perfect. Iceman race director Cody Sovis has been biking since he was about six or seven years old. When they were little, Sovis and his twin brother would bike around the Commons with their dad. \u201cWe weren\u2019t very good, but we always liked to see what we could do,\u201d he said. In high school, Sovis stopped biking and began football, track, and baseball. But when he got to college, he decided he wanted something he could do forever. That\u2019s when he began biking again. \u201cCycling is something you can do anytime, anywhere,\u201d he said. Sovis has completed six or seven Iceman races in his career and was the first person to finish two in one year. This was his first official year directing the race and he couldn\u2019t have been more excited. He wanted to work with his team to create a special event. \u201cI want it to be something that everyone enjoys and will always want to be a part of,\u201d he said. Every day he worked as the new race director, Sovis learned a new way to do something. His 30-plus years of cycline helped him immensely with this new challenge. As the director, Sovis did not compete in the race this year. \u201cIt\u2019s a bit weird not getting ready to race, but I\u2019ve found that putting on the Iceman is a lot harder and more time consuming than racing, but just as rewarding.\u201d he said. Seventh grader Brody Day raced in the 2018 and 2019 Iceman. To him, the Iceman is more than just a race. \u201cIt\u2019s kinda like the Patriot game,\u201d he said, comparing it to the annual Central vs. West football showdown. \u201cYou don\u2019t want to miss out.\u201d Like Sovis, Day got into cycling because of his dad. \u201c[Biking] has a really good community of people, \u201d he said. Sixth grader Madden Alpers participated in his first Iceman this year. He started biking around the age of eight and his friend talked him into trying the Iceman this year. Alpers unfortunately had to tap out of the race 20 miles in due to bike malfunction. \u201cIt was hard,\u201d he said. Day was excited for this year\u2019s Iceman and had a goal to beat his last year\u2019s time of two hours and 23 minutes although he was happy with that time. In the end, his finish time was two hours and 41 minutes. But the typical race time this year was slower than last year\u2019s, so Day felt like he met his goal. \u201cIf you look at everyone else\u2019s times, with the conditions, I technically beat my time too,\u201d he said. \u201cWe were all 30 minutes behind.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Drew Johnsen EMS Press Traverse City East MS 1st Place Division MS, News Writing Sports News Story JUDGING CRITERIA Lead features interesting, important angle Uses colorful, lively style Avoids cliches, editorializing Displays knowledge of sports; uses understandable terms Shows research\/interviewing skills; emphasizes how &amp; why Effective use of facts\/quotes Proper diction\/grammar; use of the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":4637,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,69],"tags":[175,24],"class_list":["post-4636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-image","has-post-thumbnail","category-nw","category-sportsnewsstory","tag-2019-20","tag-divisionms","post_format-post-format-image","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Issue-2-page-11.jpg?resize=600%2C400&ssl=1","featured_image_src_square":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Issue-2-page-11.jpg?resize=600%2C600&ssl=1","author_info":{"display_name":"Joel Beeker","author_link":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/?author=9"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Issue-2-page-11.jpg?fit=2050%2C2200&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6K0n6-1cM","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4636"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4636\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acutabove.mipamsu.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}