Iceman is by far my favorite race.  It is the “world championships of the midwest”, the course seems to get faster every year, and the social happenings after the race are second to none.  That being said I was a bit nervous when I headed up north the Thursday before the race.  My legs had felt good and I finally seemed to be putting the pieces together and wanted a good result in the singlespeed class.  I had the rig dialed with a switchblade fork, XDX rear and a shaved down ACX on the front it was fast!  I pre rode most of the course Thursday and Friday, and woke up nice and rested at a very early hour on Saturday.  I rolled into Kalkaska to chilly but not cold temps and a little off and on snow and drizzle, great weather for this sandy course.  I had a decent warm up and got lined up super early to ensure a front row spot.  A little standing around, a little goofing around and the next thing you know we were off.  From the word gooooooo we were flying, Mark Olson took the holeshot and three of us, Brad White, Chad Salla, and myself, got organized and started working to quickly catch him and leave everyone in our wake.  We worked together a bit on one of the hills we ran into traffic and got a gapped Chad.  Since about mile maker 1 I had a bad feeling about the rider doing the lions share of the work, super fit looking and wearing a Successful Living skinsuit I had a sinking feeling it was Brad White who had family close by and was known to show up to Michigan races now and again.  Sure enough it was Brad and I was in trouble.  He got a gap on a short steep hill that we both decided to run and I kept him in sight for a few miles until I popped on a big hill and fell into survival/recovery mode.  I got caught by Chad and we ended up battling almost the entire rest of the race.  I was able to get away on almost every hill but his slightly bigger gear and the motivation of the chase brought him back on the fast flats.  Going up the one of the last big hills I started to cramp let Chad around and let him ride away to a 30 second gap and 2nd place.  I fought my way up the hill managed to get the cramps to go away by riding a bit tentatively before hammered the wood chip hill and the icebreaker in fear of being caught in the last kilometer like last year.  Fortunately no more cramps and a big gap to the fourth placed rider allowed me to sneak across the line in third just in time to get heckled by the world famous Jamie Smith, who happened to be doing the finish line announcing.  I came in under my goal of 1:45 and was happy with my time but really want to come back next year and try to climb a little higher on the podium.  The rest of the day was a ton of fun.  Cheering for the pros, awards ceremony, and of course the Bells after party.  Thank you to everyone for making this a great year and for all the sweet bike stuff!

GBK

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