Sylvan Island Stampede Race Report

So this is way late, but better than never. I headed down to Davenport early on Saturday for my cousin's wedding so I got a chance to preride the course with Emily. Riding the course backward from last year was very surprising. It rode great! Not a single hiccup in the flow of the course.

The wedding went off without a hitch, I probably drank too many beers, and then headed to the hotel to get some rest. I woke up nice and early to watch Paris-Roubaix. It was crazy to see Cancellara ride away from the rest of the field that well. After getting ready we headed over to the Island to watch the Sport/Women's race.

After getting all ready, we lined up for the Men's Expert race. Things were running behind all day long so it was an antsy start on top of the fact that it was the first IMBCS race of the year. I as usual was an idiot and didn't get a front row start which really hurt my chances. I was right behind Kevin who got bumped off the start which in turn caused hesitation on my part.

So getting into the singletrack somewhere around the 20's I knew I was going to need to do some work to get through the beginning of the field. What I didn't know was that I was going to darn near have to blow myself to do this. On the open sections of the course it seemed like everyone was riding really strong. I had to burn a couple more matches that I would have liked to just moving up.

I got up to around 4-5th by around the end of lap 2. I realized that if I held that "pace" I was going to blow up. Worst part was all the accelerations were causing me to slow instead of being able to settle in and hold a solid pace. The rest of the next two laps were damage control.

I over'Gued myself somewhere around lap 4. My stomach got all weird and bloated which turned out to force me into a comfortable pace. At this point I realized my fitness was lacking and that I was going to ride above my comfort level just to save face.

Lap 5-6 were when I felt the best. If the race would have ended at lap 6 I would have been happy. I would have been one place lower, but Jed Gammel rode stronger than I and should have beat me if not for a late race puncture. I also have to give it up to Brian Kingsbury. He rode the race of his life. His fitness looked great. He caught me on lap 6 and never looked back. Hats off to him.

I ended up 5th on the day. With guys like Brian Eppen, Jesse Lalonde, Cam Kirkpatrick there, you know it is going to be a tough day. And it was.

I promise to get the Decorah Time Trial update up this week. It went a lot better.