Syllamo's Revenge: Shotguns, Rifles, Handguns, Ammo, 68 Camaro

Mason, Nico, and myself Gino made our way down to Mountain View, Arkansas this past Friday for what is one of the most badass races any of of us have been to: Syllamo's Revenge. The drive down is simply awesome escpecially once south of the border into Arkansas on Hwy 9. That is unless a storm is a brewin' inside of Mason for all of his other unknowing fellow passengers to experience:



But the scenery on those roads is unbelievable, with more twists and turns than most singletrack. As Little Buddy said, you gotta do all you can to keep your tires on the pavement. Fortunately Team Seagal's racecar driver wannabe Casey Ryback wasn't there or else we might have ended up a few hundred feet down a cliff on the drive instead of slicing our way through sweet singletrack on the way to some mega wrist-snappage.

A little PBR-infused preride on Friday evening to test out the starting .9 mile 11% climb and the stellar first few miles of singletrack, a meal at the largest Mexican restaurant any of us had seen with the worst service ever, and a good nights sleep in our hotel, and we were ready for the 8am start.

The race started with about 280 or so racers trying to get up that Forest Service road climb. It wasn't pretty for non-Team Seagal members. Our fellow racers were getting their wrists snapped less half a mile into the race. I'm damn glad I can trackstand. I got to watch a half a dozen riders fall down around me to give me a path to make my way to the top. Weaving our way among the slow toppling-over riders Nico and I made our way to the top entering the singletrack in the 20s right behind fellow STL singlespeeder Carey Edwards. Mason came up just a little behind picking his way through the stumbling riders using his aikido-heightened reaction time.

Things quickly changed for me as Nico, Mason, and a hundred others passed me as I got a flat less than 2 miles into the race. I spent the next couple of hours picking my way among the slower riders at the back of the pack eventually catching Mason, and Nico, and passing mechanically tormented DRJers Dwayne and Robert (Marshall). Dwayne was of course smiling.

This trail system is truly inspiring with awesome views, incredibly flowy singletrack, some damn rocky technical stuff on the blue loop, and some big stream crossings where Mason saw another rider go COMPLETELY underwater. In the end we all charged through the course making our goals. I got 30th overall, at about 5:50 still feeling pretty damn good and even better after a nice cold PBR. Nico was right behind at 31st after he broke his chain and ran the last 2 miles on his zerospeed, and Mason got in well under 8 hours. We're still awaiting the posted results for singlespeed placings.

Mason does an excellent job of not looking too tired while modeling the new team kit:

Syllamo's 2008 was the day that singlespeeders came out to represent. The top 4 overall (at least) were all singlespeeders with St. Louis's own Matt Keevan leading the way at a time of about 4:45 on the muddy and slippery course. Even Chris Ploch was amazed:

Or at least shocked at the ton of rock he got as a trophy for his age group.

Matt Keeven carrying away his first of 2 tons of rock:

Yes that is what you think you see on his T-shirt.

Keep checking back as Mason or Nico might add their own mind spew to this posting about the totally un-gayzorz 2008 Syllamo's Revenge.

Finally,

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To end this post in style here is Nico Toscani's left cheek after a bit of a tumble out on course. Enjoy.


UPDATE the results have been posted.