sylvan island

the stampede=mud. crazy, crazy amounts of mud. the last time i raced in anything like this was at seven oaks a few years ago. the difference there was it turned into clay and there was enough climbing that it forced you to walk a lot. the island is so flat that everything was rideable, it was just a beast to ride through some of it. lots of two wheel drifting through corners. lots of outriggers. ended up 5th overall in the expert race. two years ago i never thought i'd be in the expert class so i need to keep things in perspective. in that sense i'm happy enough. no ss class in the expert field but had there been i would have been second. not thrilled about that but when aaron (pretty sure i'm finally getting names figured out) passed me he looked crazy fresh and i was attempting to slog my way out of a mud filled pain cave. congrats to him on this one as well as finishing the 80 down in arkansas. ran into adam who was down in arkansas with aaron and i almost didn't recognize him. 4 days after ouachita dude was on his bike and went through a windshield face first. intensive care and shit ton of stitches in his face and he's happy to be walking. perspective. i'm happy i can walk. i'm happy i can ride my bike for two and a half hours through sloppy mud and feel like a little kid for a while. good luck with the recovery man. good to see them and the rest of the iowa city crew, chatted with cam a bit about squirrel rockin the bone bender (huge congrats on first overall 6 hour on an ss), perkins (who got on the podium in the ss race), neipert and kingsbury who controlled the sport class...huge thanks to the organizers and volunteers. it was a mess out there but an absolute riot. there's gotta be pics somewhere, unfortunately i don't have any of them. i'll try to find a link eventually. my own dad couldn't even tell me apart from the other racers after a couple of laps. time trials this weekend and transiowa next.