This past weekend Carl Bakker went up to Kalkaska Michigan to race in the ICEMAN Cometh Challenge. Here is his report on the race: A 40 degree race start with 50% chance of showers throughout had the majority of us overdressing and taking the “better safe than sorry” option. Fortunately, at the start in downtown Kalkaska, the sun was shining and the wind 10-12 mph headwind was blocked, leaving us feeling warm (instead of shivering miserably) as we waited for the race to get underway. Once we were rolling, though, we were rolling! The first 3 miles of the race I averaged over 19 mph into the wind on a singlespeed sitting in with the pack, and though our pace slowed considerably once we hit sandy doubletrack, the effort level kept picking up from there. A couple of crashes and mechanicals quickly split up the group from a “pack” down to a condensed line as we hit our first real singletrack. I had set out that morning to “ride” Iceman and work on technical skills and get a great workout in with friends, but when we hit that first singletrack, the race was on. The tackiest dirt I’ve ever ridden made for awesome cornering and strong, efficient climbing. Though I did little more than hang on during the technical singletrack (drop bars and a rigid fork don’t make for great handling or forgiveness over rooted, rocky, bumpy ground), there was plenty of doubletrack thrown in for me to use as I bunny hopped my way up the ladder over the course of the next 20 miles. About halfway through I was able to get the first bit of food in my mouth; my hands were glued to my handlebars and I was wearing lobster gloves to boot, so my ridiculous attempt at feeding was to shove a Cliff bar in my mouth, still fully in its wrapper, chew through the wrapper, and pull the tattered wrapper out of my mouth a mile or so later. Somewhere after that things started to get hazy as we hit some fairly intense hills and I had to put cyclocross run-up skills to use. Fortunately, I was running the hills faster than people were riding them, and so I was able to pass a number of people on each climb and recover as we rolled at an even pace through the singletrack that followed. I know we were rained on for a bit, which made it hard to see, but made the sand pits that we crossed very rideable as the people in the very front of the race groomed them down. In my case, I loved the rain – I was absolutely cooking in my clothes and the rain was a great relief, like dunking my head under a cold running sink. This had to have been about mile 24, because I remember someone yelling “5 miles to go!” and realizing that no matter how cold it was I could handle 15-20 minutes without gloves on. I managed to somehow pull my soaking wet gloves off and stuff them in my frame bag just in time, because we hit some knarly (spelling?) singletrack that would have taken me down a time or two if I had been wearing my clumsy gloves. Fortunately, though, I managed to maneuver through the worst of it without falling a single time, and then it was back to some hilly doubletrack that allowed me to pass 6-7 people on each hill (the singletrack and fatigue was really starting to bottleneck people up here) as we came within shouting distance of Traverse City. Once I could hear the announcer on the loudspeaker, I felt like a shark sensing blood. People were cashed, making mistakes, and ready to be done. I knew that there was no amount of all-out effort that would cause me to bonk at this point, so for the last two miles I just threw all my cards on the table and went as hard as I could (this had to have looked ridiculous…I was really thrashing and not at all graceful) through the last turns, under the tunnel, up the hill, and then-the finish line. - Carl Bakker |
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April 2019
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