Iceman

What a weekend! Iceman has to be my favorite stop of the Triple Crown....the most Superfans, the fastest racing, and the toughest competition. This was my 15th Iceman!

We started off as we always do loading up the Hyundai friday morning for the long drive up and over Lake Michigan. We picked up Tristan and were on the road earlier than last year...right? Every year we leave earlier, but for some reason it always gets dark before we finish our warm up ride. The bike was great, the trail was in top notch condition, and I was ready to rock....

We hit registration, saw old friends, had some dinner, and finished off the night with a little ice cream with my dad.

Saturday morning was a little breakfast and then a short drive to Kalkaska in the afternoon for the race. It must have been the warmest Iceman to date....

The call up was odd as a bunch of roadies were called to the line and the US National MTB Champ was not....

The start was smooth for me at the front of the race, but someone went down and the not so good noise of metal and carbon scraping against the concrete, along with tires exploding, had me happy I was at the front. I filed into the woods in about 5th wheel.

Tristan made the first move after Simonson was pulling...I sat up and started blocking...midwest on the offensive....it was fun....

A couple miles later after the Tornado singltrack Tristan and JHK took 2 hard pulls and the gap opened. The 2009 Iceman was down to 6 men. JHK, Sam, Carl Dekker, Mike A, Tristan, and Myself. I attacked multiple times only to be marked by the duo on the 29ers. I gave it one really hard effort just before the Vasa Trail, but JHK shut me down. I was starting to feel the efforts, the pace was slowing and I think all 6 of us were hurting....

With 3 miles to go I started to get the twinges in the right quad. Not good....

I positioned myself good up the Ice Breaker climb and was stuck like glue on JHK's wheel. He gapped me by 1 second out of the final singletrack and had a little more punch up the wood chip climb. Sam caught me by the top jumped in front of me and opened up the gap. Once he started ramping it up again there was no way I was coming around him through the campground maze.

I'm a little bummed to lose out on the double triple, but I raced aggressive and only missed out by 12 seconds. But, at the same time this is my 4th podium in a row at the Iceman...and 2 outta 3 ain't bad. JHK said it best, "I just wanted to make sure you were the only "one" to ever win the triple crown!"

Andrea capped off an awesome season with a 16th in the pro womens race....I think the womens field was even deeper than the mens. She was really strong the entire season and I'm really proud of her...I think shes going to come back even stronger next year.

The best part of the Iceman is always seeing the old familiar faces...after the race I hung with Mesko, Precthl, Buermans, my old soccer coach Dennis Massey, Bernie Smith gave me a newpaper clipping from 1996.....so many stories, so many good memories.....

Thanks to all who have supported along the way...