Syllamo's Revenge 2010

Syllamo's Revenge 2010

Wow.... what can I say? The trail is rated by IMBA as one of the 5 'epic' trails in the US. It definitely lived up to expectations on that scale.

Getting ready for the weekend had been very difficult. The Sunday before the race, the rear triangle on my Sugar began to crack (see previous post). I found it on a pre-race hill climbing adventure with Bill and Adam from the team. Needless to say I freaked out. In the end, I got very lucky and was able to get the bike rideable again.

Moving forward to Friday, Bill and Brad picked me up at the house and we hustled to Syllamo. Brad made a few navigational mistakes and that caused us to take an hour longer to get there than it should have, but I got to see parts of AR that I've not seen in a few years.

When we arrived, Charles and Shawn were already at the cabin, enjoying the stream down below. The cabin belongs to a friend of ours and we rent it for a very agreeable fee. It sits on a hillside overlooking a beautiful rocky creekside bluff. Needless to say, it was a helluva lot nicer than staying in a tent!

After checkin' the place out, we headed out to the trailhead to take on the first 5 miles of the racecourse as a pre-ride. The first climb of the race is extremely tough fire-road riding about a mile long. I rode it but was absolutely dying when I got to the top! We bombed on through the rest of what is effectively the blue trail. Rock garden after rock garden passed and made for extremely slick and technical riding.

At one point, I came up on Billy and Shawn standing in the trail. The were hurling rocks off the trail at something and yelling to stand back. Shawn had ridden up on a 6ft rattlesnake sunning itself on the course!!!!!! Definitely an interesting experience. The rest of the ride was fun but extremely technical and was brutal in the way it pounded us.

When we finished the pre-ride, we headed back to the cabin where I worked on Charles and my bikes and Brad cooked us a killer pasta dinner. That was definitely one of the better pre-race meals I've ever had.

After dinner, heavy weather rolled in and rocked the cabin with rain and heavy winds. Tornado warnings rattled off the staticky radio, but we did not know which county we were actually in, so we were unsure if the tornados were near or far. Regardless of their location, we all ended up sleeping in one room in the hopes that the room was safer than the room above.

We fell asleep listening to the rain and wind, and predicting how scary the course was going to be.
We awoke to sun and warm temps. It was muggy, but I figure that area is always muggy in the mornings during this time of year.

At the park, we started getting everything ready for the race. Numbers on the bikes, food in the pockets and full camelbacks.

Amazingly, after the start gun fired, I made it to the fire road climb in really good position. Unfortunately, I threw most of that away on the climb as people passed me by. I rolled on into the singletrack, but was repeatedly held up on descents as less skill riders made their way down. Basically, I got caught in a pack of people with OK climbing skills and poor descending skills, which is the opposite of myself. I can go downhill quickly, but climb like a homesick rock.

To say the course was technical and tough was/is a gross understatement. Rock gardens came every couple hundred yards and a large number of them were totally unrideable for all but the pros. I walked as much as I rode in many cases. By the time I got to these sections, the rocks were covered with the slime and mud from 200 riders feet and tires and turned them into greasy limestone plates with broken edges just waiting to rip our skin open.....

By mile 12 or so, I was out of water and starting to really drag. So many people had passed me that I really did not know where I was. I heard from one guy who passed me that the sweepers were not far behind me and that really crushed my spirits. Soon enough, I hit the first aid station (which really was wayyyy into the course) and promptly turned onto the green loop. At the top of the green loop, you are given the chance that not many people have had in seeing a wonderful view of the White river and the valley through which it flows.

Unfortunately, when I finished the green, no one was there. The whole aid station had been packed up and there was no food, no water, not even a sign telling you where to go. IMO, that completely sucks. They saw me and 10 others enter the green course and they just pulled out and left!!! I waited there for a while and eventually caught a pick-up truck ride back to the campground. With no water or food, it would have been foolish to continue on and ride.

I'm dissappointed in myself for quitting. It may not have been a bad decision in retrospect, as I know I would have missed the last cutoff by almost an hour. I guess there is just something about DNF'ing a race that gets to me mentally.

Next year, if things work out right, I'll be there again and will do my best to complete the entire course.

DNF'ing aside, I enjoyed the trip. It was good to get out with the team and shoot the bull.

Broken Sugar

Well, its the week before Syllamo, and my bike is broken.... seriously broken. I cracked my rear triangle and have a real mess on my hands....

Thankfully, I called around and by a stroke of luck, my buddy Aaron at Outdoors has a rear triangle for my bike........

After bringing it home, it fits perfectly and everything works like it should. I'm back on the horse.......

Stealth Bike

Had a good looking bike in my shop this evening. A Cervelo Soloist in anodized black. Whole thing is either anodized alu black or 3k carbon.

This black beauty belongs to my buddy JR. He's a top level amateur triathlete in my area, and a good friend.

So this evening I took some time to trim the steerer down. I also trued up his wheels and adjusted the brakes........ Last year, I installed some KCNC brakes, a KCNC cassette and the Neuvation tubular carbon wheels. A very nice setup.

Anyway, I think its a good lookin ride.....

A Double Competition Day....

I started racing in 1991. First on mountainbikes, then on the road, and finally cyclocross as well. I even did some duathlons back then, but usually I stuck to the riding portion and let someone else cover the run. When it really comes down to it, I hate running.

I understand why people enjoy it. They get the same feeling from it that a cyclist gets from riding his or her bike. However, I don't personally get that feeling when running - really I usually only feel pain.

So this weekend, I did two events, and amazingly they both include both running and cycling - The 2010 Wolfman Duathlon and the Tour De Cross #4.

For the Wolfman, my goal was to beat my run time from last year. While I really did poorly in the event, I did manage to beat last year's run time of 36 mins. I'm guessing I ran it in approx 31 mins. I really enjoyed the finish, as the entire team ran on to the course to finish with me. Very cool.

I was really proud of the team as we won approx 25% of the hardware - 3 category wins and one 2nd place for the mixed pair trophy.

After going home, getting some lunch and some dry clothes, I headed to Olive Branch for the last race of the Tour De Cross Cyclocross series.

I was tired when I got there, but I really did not realize how tired I was. Spectators told me that both myself and Billy W. (the other guy who did both events) went from blazing fast at the start to an absolute crawl at the first barrier. I finished the race and only managed to go over the bars one time.......

The series was really enjoyable! I hope more people come out to race it in the future editions. My dismount and remount skills increased substantially. My fitness increased somewhat. Mostly I had a good time.

Tour De Cross Race #3 - Real Cross Weather!

The Tour De Cross #3 Cyclocross race was today. This race series has been at an unusual time of the year for cyclocross, and as a result, we've had some unusual cyclocross weather.......

First race was warm and dry. Warm might not go far enough.... Rarely have I had sweat pour from my brain bucket after a cross race, but at that one, I did......

Second race was relatively warm, and only a little muddy. Kinda like an early season race.

Third race was real cyclocross racing..... We took the start line with the rain having just stopped. The temperature was a whopping 40 degrees..... and the course was an absolute swamp!

This really seemed more like a classic cyclocross race. Corners were sketchy, water standing all over the place. On the first lap (right after this picture was taken), I managed to take that little near 180 turn and lay it down. The following roll in the mud, or maybe it was a slide, really took the piss out of me. At that point, I realized quickly I'd take nothing but DFL, so I backed it down one notch and simply finished the race.

Is there anything wrong with that? Yeah, I did not kill myself out there. But then again, there were 5 people in the race, and I was in fifth. Maybe that really was not the way 'cross should be ridden, but today I guess I did not have much more than that in me.

I started the race without any 'cross in my tank, and very little cyclo. By the end, I was empty on both counts.

Next week is going to be a real tough one - a duathlon in the morning and a 'cross race in the afternoon.

Tour De Cross Race # 2

What amazes me more about European cyclocross races is not that they race in the conditions they race, it is that the fans come out in those conditions. Frankly, 'cross is about mud and cold for the riders. But the fans standing in the mud and the cold still blows me away.

Today, we took on the wet and the rain and the mud in the Tour De Cross race #2. Brian the organizer had re-organized the course to be even more interesting than last time. Lap times during the first race were in the 3 minute range, whereas the laps in this race were in the 5 minute range to start, and came down to the 4 minute range by the end.

For me, I found that I'm really starting to get my mounts/dismounts down. I'm no Nys or Stybar, but I definitely have improved my technique significantly. Unfortunately, I can't say the same about my fitness.... I'm still an overweight backmarker.....

Again, this race was really a lot of fun. I stink at cross, but I love it all the same.

I'm looking forward to next week's race!

Tour De Cross Race #1

Well, I missed most of the 09-10 cyclocross season...... All my intents and preparations (which were not really that much) were swept away last fall as I headed to work overseas for a long work trip. My hope was/is that the trip would be good for my career. That remains to be seen, but I know I benefitted from it.....

Back to cyclocross, I really wanted to get in a few races this season. The truth is that I'm a pretty bad cyclocross racer. While I was a 'cross a holic way before it was something popular in the US, I'm still an overweight, undertrained rider.

While I felt like my mounts/dismounts were finally starting to come around at the Mid-South championships, I still took nearly DFL.....

Fast forward to today, and I finally got to get out and race some 'cross. A good guy named Brian is putting on a full 4 race series this spring and the first race was a lot of fun. Five riders made up the entire field, but the course was certainly challenging, if a little unusual.

The course itself was 1/2 mile long and involved countless 180's, and eleven barriers --- ELEVEN Barriers!!!!!!

I got a killer start and beat everyone pretty strongly out of the gate, but that was extremely short lived.... I continued on and dismounted for every barrier. Soon thereafter, someone knocked the cross-tie barriers 90 degrees over, which made them just low enough to hop instead of dismount. OK, it made four of the eleven hoppable.

With hopping the barriers, I began to pull away again a little from my buddy Matt who was about to lap me on his first ever bike race - Someone please remind me to get my less in-shape friends involved in cycling instead of the thin muscled friends with 40 bpm resting heart rates.

In the end, I put on 16 or so laps and had a lot of fun. I took 4th place and lapped the 5th place rider 3 times.