Sylvan Island Stampede Race Report

I crossed the line yesterday way faster than expected. The conditions were about as bad as they could have possibly been, which caters to my riding experience. The mud, slop, cold and sheer attrocious conditions were right up my mental alley. As I write this my eyes are still shedding crap out of them and go blurry every now and then. Talk about a crappy but good day to ride a bike.

I hit the singletrack in probably about 10-11th place and was ready to get my mud bearings pumping. It's been about 8-9 years since I've irresponsibly ridden singletrack in downright destructive conditions. Luckily most of the other people in the field were not ready to handle it. In Iowa, there aren't too many trail systems that are rain friendly. After working past 1 or 2 people in the first mile I had my first mud mishap. I slammed the front of my saddle and the nose of my saddle rocked down into a negative 45 degree angle. Talk about crappy.

I hopped off the bike in an open doubletrack section and with one solid punch put the saddle back to about a negative 10 degree angle. Far from great, but for a day like this one it was perfect. So I was behind a slower gentleman on a FS Hifi 29er who just kept tapping his pedals on just about anything he could. The weather was just taking it's toll. And at this point we were only 2 miles into the race! So I got to catch up to the two people who passed me, one on another SuperflySS and the other guy I don't remember. SuperflySS guy and I started to do some work. We rode the remainder of the lap together and into the second.

At that point we had picked off about 5-6 riders and were working well together. Only problem was all the mud he was kicking into my eyes! My eyes and face were getting slammed and it wasn't helping my situation at all. So come the next gravel section it was game on. Passed him on the short gravel and just headed into the singletrack pushing my own pace. Apparently this cracked him cause at the next trail overlap he was gone. It could have been the pits of mud that were 3-5 inches deep in places as well as all the roots and rock buried in them to immediately stop your progress.

At this point I was riding by myself. I felt really good, but didn't see anyone ahead, nor did I hear anyone cheering for anyone behind me. Oh well just keep pumping the pace. I finally got my second handup thanks to Adam doing some bottle searching. Nate had to drop out cause he smoked a tree with his knee. I felt bad, but that's mud racing on a course that is basically a rocky, rooty pump track. Attention, attention, attention.

I finally saw someone which turned out to be Kevin. He was about a while section ahead on the singletrack. I just kept riding my same pace because I felt like it was a good one and I wasn't 100% killing myself. I actually caught up to him as he stopped to tighten his cleat. It had worked it's way loose and luckily he hadn't lost a bolt. At this point I knew there could only be a couple of people in front of me. I knew it was Nenniger, Shockey, and Cam. As it turns out I had passed Shockey earlier, but hadn't even remembered or realized it. At this point I was on a mission. My mind and body just hit some weird rythym. I can't even explain it.

I caught Nenninger in the muddiest section of all. He tried to put some pace in during a couple of the little open sections, but these were now mud pits as well and his shifting was gone. I just motored past in one of the nastiest sections of all. I don't think he was expecting that. That killed off all but one rider (I thought it was actually two) and I knew next one in line was Cam. He kept pulling through just ahead on the next section of singletrack in multiple places. We kept crossing paths. I couldn't tell if I was gaining or not. I was getting pretty gassed at this point anyways.

I hit the 6th lap with hopes of just holding my position and that's what I did. I did end up putting time into Cam (as far as catching up) but didn't reel him back. My first lap was over 1 minute slower than his, and my next 3 were faster. My 5th was slower, but I know my sixth was faster. One of my lap times didn't register on the Accu-Split. He posted a 22.xx lap and I knew I closed some on that lap.

Overall I took second in Expert on my Superfly SS. The bike is amazing. It is the hands down best race rig I have ever had. My brake pads are 100% gone my the way. The rear brake stopped working with about .5 miles to go which was fortunate. My front isn't fairing much better but does have some pad left. Those are getting replaced as well as the chain.

Thanks to all the FORC crew for and awesome race. Next time I'm working on a better start position. Watch yourselves. All you all.

Muddy.