Me and Lucas pre riding some of the Syllamo trails.   If their could ever be one race you would want to win this one would be it for me.   Taken from my buddy Mitch, A super tough course got a whole lot tougher.

Close to 300 racers started the Syllamo’s Revenge in AR. on Saturday. I think everybody had their own idea of what they wanted from this race and if you asked any one person I am sure they would all tell you the same thing. Just want to finish!! I think its always been that way for this race. Going back to 2006 the first year I did this race I finished second along with Richard Maycheck. Both of us had our own problems and were probably lucky to make it to the finish. In 2007 things went pretty good and I finished second again. In 2008 I had high expectations and trained really hard for this race. Long story short I had 5 flats and a big hole in the bottom of my tire but still finished thanks to a lot of super cool racers. It was amazing how many of them would of given me their only tube. That is one of the things that makes this race so cool!! So going in to this race all I really wanted was to make it around this course with out any major problems. Fellow crew member Chris pretty much convinced me that with the bad conditions the best chance of finishing this race was on a SS. I have a Rig but it was in pretty bad shape for racing so I gave John from Cyclewerx a call. What does a great friend do for you, they hook you up with their SS superfly. Stoked! I got in a good pre ride with it on Friday and made the decision then to race it. The race started good. Didn’t know how I would do on the road to the first big gravel climb. All went well and I wasn’t too far back going into the climb. Once I hit the climb I was just wanting to keep a comfortable pace. I was having such a good time at how well the SS was climbing I just couldn’t help but to ride it as hard as I could. Once I hit the single track I had a pretty good lead. I did not think I would stay out front and didn’t plan on it and was riding pretty conservatively with all of the slick rock. Don’t get me wrong I was hammering the hills every chance I could get. Getting to check point one first was awesome. Going into the green loop was cool. My wife had planned on being on the trail there to get some pics but I wasn’t sure if her and Lucas would be there. It was awesome to see them. Total motivation! Lucas was pretty excited. From that point on I only thought about one thing, how to get around this course first. Everything was going too good. The second check point came and went, and before I knew it, I was on the yellow heading to the red loop. I think I surprised them at the third checkpoint. All was good though just a simple could you please mark my # and point me to the trail, and I was off. The red loop was just fast. I didn’t think I could get caught on this section but it never left my head. The 32×18 was spinning great, and it was the only time on this course that I thought maybe I would of liked a harder gear. Once I popped out of the woods for the final downhill I was pretty amazed that I rode all of the single track completely by myself. It felt more like another double berryman ride than it did a race. Coming up the road to the finish I was still looking back thinking a geared rider was going to come flying by me, it never happened. Going through the finish I think it took me a few minutes to realize that I just won the Syllamos  Revenge. Something that had been in the back of my head for a very long time! I think Steve Parker did a awesome job on getting this place ready for the race.  It was amazing how much the ice storm had destroyed the area.  Couldn’t imagine the amount of work he had to put into it. Thanks Big.  Congrats to everyone who even tried this race.  Syllamos mountain bike trails.

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