Revenge at Syllamo

If you’ve checked out my schedule for 2012 you will notice a re-visit to the NUE series. Back in 2008 I did quite well racing these ultra events and I wanted to check out some of the venues I hadn’t visited this year. While most of the NUE series consists of 100 mile events the Syllamo’s Revenge race in Arkansas is “only” 125k. This is likely because most of the course is singletrack trail and fairly technical in a rough, slow sort of way. With the shorter distance and  slower average speed I chose to rock the one-speed at this event as it seemed like the logical choice.

I arrived in Little Rock in time to check out Orbea USA and conveniently assemble my Ibis Tranny using proper shop tools. As has always been my experience visiting the “South”, these folks were super cool and generous and full of southern hospitality! Their sponsorship honch Frank had offered to give me a lift up to the venue Friday afternoon so we shoved off with his fiancee for the 2 hour trip north. We arrived Mountain View in time to pick-up our packets and preride the start which seemed to be the only selective part of the course. East-coast singlespeed guru, Gerry Pflug had kindly shared his suggestion for gearing which proved spot on.

For some reason we woke up about a half hour late and had zero time for warm-up. Usually this isn’t a problem but since the race began with a 13% grade for about a mile before entering the endless singletrack I knew I had already made a serious error before I event climbed aboard my bike. Sure enough my legs we pretty cold and I could only manage to enter the trail in the top 25 or so. The rocks had looked pretty bad in the evening twilight and they didn’t look any kinder. One of leading women was the first of many riders to almost instantly succumb to a slashed tire just ahead of me. I picked my way through the front-group wannabes and soon found myself off the back but with clear trail ahead.

This was my first rocky race with the new Kenda SCT tires and while I had a lot of hope, the carnage I was passing trailside struck paranoia into me. Not wanting to handicap myself with a flat, I rode like a small child until the second aid station where I discovered (after several minutes of searching) that my drop bag wasn’t there. While hastily filled my bottles I also discovered the 2011 NUE Champ Christian Tanguy battered, bruised, bleeding and obviously out of the race. I wished him well and hurried out onto the next portion of the trail knowing I had just lost some serious time.

The course was relentlessly rocky and never had much place to “open-up” so chasing was sort of futile. I just rode as fast as I could be comfortably smooth but felt lulled into a state of complacency by the seemingly endless bushwhack path ahead. Frank had suggested arm-warmers which despite the 90 degree heat seemed like a great call in fending off the briars and vines obscuring the trail ahead. I am a visual person and I hate riding trail when I can’t see where I am headed. Give me a hideous technical trail and some clear sight lines any day over a grassy overgrown low hanging canopy anyday!

I made up some ground on the only real climb of the race and was riding just behind three other riders when we came to a t-intersection with ribbons marking both directions. The front two riders had already turned left while the next guy asked me which way to go. I had no idea but assumed that the other two must have known so I chased after them down the hill. Eventually I saw them stopped ahead through the trees so I turned back and met the other fellow again back at the confusing intersection. He reported that the trail to the right had become increasingly overgrown so I suggested with simply wait for someone to show up who knew where to go.

About a minute later the other two gentlemen returned and instructed us to go the other way. This whole process wasted another four plus minutes so my frustration was already starting to boil. My recollection of the NUE events from before was less than ideal and this growing debacle was making me question my trip already. A few minutes later my front tire kicked up what was not a rock but rather some sort of yellow jacked or wasp who apparently didn’t like me running over it and proceeded to sting me directly on the head of my left quad. Sweet!

Hoping the last of the insults and injuries was behind me I soldiered on to the next aid station to discover that our bags were kindly arranged in the direct sun and had nearly reached vaporization. This had to be the final straw–nothing like a bottle of 150F CarboRocket to refresh from the southern heat!

In the meantime my GPS had lost contact with its satellites and was apparently not accumulating mileage at the rate I was traveling. As passed the final aid station for the last time I knew I was way too close to the finish and desperately started to chase. Another racer had mentioned something to the effect of “if you attack Syllamo, it will attack you back” so I proceeded as quickly as possible without risk. Since we had already been around this loop earlier I felt fast and smooth despite not being able to see where I was going plenty of the time.

Eventually I reached the road to the finish and all hope of ever seeing Gerry Pflug at the front of the race had evaporated in the afternoon sun. I felt better than I ever have after a long race but the result seemed disconnected to my physical performance. I go to events for the racing even if it means a sound beating from stronger protagonist. This was another case of feeling robbed by circumstances outside my control and now all I could do was wish I was home with my wife and kids despite the beauty of a spring day in the Ozarks!