It takes a special kind of athlete to travel through 120 kms of mountain biking on in-grown logging roads, 60 km of paddling down an isolated river, and bushwhacking through 55 Km of mountainous terrain.

Race the Phantom 2011, hosted in Dalhousie, New Brunswick, was the venue for that kind of athlete.

The 40-hour race began at the Reinsborough farm (a family friend of Troy Johnston, race director) at 11:59:59 pm Friday night underneath a thrashing thunderstorm.

But, louder than the thunder were the howls from the racers mountain biking through the dark farmland.

Team Kinetic, NaturalSelectionAR.com, and Mundial St.-Raymond sped off early to the first checkpoint where as other teams throughout the first biking leg suffered equipment malfunctions.

The Lost and Team Angry Seagull AR broke derailleurs early in the race and could not fully recover.

After surviving the first four mandatory checkpoints and an advanced one, the teams transitioned from bike to paddle one by one from the sunrise until noon.

Team Kinetic, last year’s champ, canoed on the calm salmon-harboring Upsalquitch River with the early lead 10 minutes ahead of Never Say Never… Again and Mundial St.-Raymond once they found the clue for Doc’s Caboose at the fifth checkpoint.

NaturalSelectionAR.com, the New Brunswick natives, had fallen off pace during the first biking leg due to a navigation mistake that cost them around five hours.

By this time, the rain had ceased and the racers paddled downstream widening the gap between the top teams and the pack.

At the second transition area everyone dropped off their boats and nourished him or herself to prepare for the trek into Quebec’s Appalachian Mountains for the night ahead.

The seventh checkpoint was located at the Chute a Picot – a stunning waterfall in the mouth of the woods in Saint-Andre-de Restigouche.

Team Kinetic and Mundial St.-Raymond were in and out quickly but for most of the remaining teams the falls were the equalizer.

NaturalSelectionAR.com nearly caught up with 3rd place Never Say Never… Again, a foursome whose age totals over 200 but make up for it in grit and determination, with Team Trail Shop, Team Bulletproof, Team Nepisiguit River Company, and Control Point Junkies all in the mix.

Then hell broke loose.

Bushwhacking under the night sky proved disastrous to many, as teams lost their bearings and struggled to retrieve checkpoint eight.

Team Kinetic and Mundial St.Raymond, however, kept their fast pace and made it to the final transition area back on their mountain bikes around 2 am.

The rest of the teams emerged covered in mud from the heart of the race’s darkness in the Sunday morning sun with NationalSelectionAR.com gaining seemingly insurmountable ground since the hiccup during the first leg.

They biked down the highway and across a bridge back into New Brunswick territory to face yet another mountain.

Sugarloaf national park has a ski hill that doubles as mountain bike course during the summer – chairlift and all, the Sugarloaf Bike Park.

It posed as the “treat” near the end of the race as many of the racers hadn’t experienced downhill mountain biking before.

After completing two runs each it was back to the Reinsborough farm where the race began.

Team Kinetic emerged victorious, winning the $1000 purse by retrieving all of the mandatory and advanced checkpoints, just slightly edging out NaturalSelectionAR.com.

Team Trail Shop raced hard to place third where as Mundial St.-Raymond, who were challenging Team Kinetic the whole race, fell on some hard luck, losing their punch card.

All 14 teams cheered on each other as every team, even Angry Seagull whose two of its racers doubled on one bicycle for the last leg, crossed the finish line.

**You can read all of the details of the race, as they unfolded, at the Breathe Magazine Flashblog.