Syllamo's Revenge 2009: No More 68 Camaro

For all of you waiting, we here at Team Seagal have finally been authorized to inform you all of this past weekends goings at the 2009 Syllamo's Revenge. Being the bunch of jerks that we are we don't have any pictures to show from this trip. They still haven't been declassified (or taken) so you all are going to have use whatever brains you've got and do a little imagining. Just don't think too hard.

The Team Seagal transports left town at varying times throughout the day to keep our enemies at bay. Nicorn and I (Gino) left in the am followed by Masorn and Doctor in the later pm. Of course Nico and I were the first to make it to team headquarters for the weekend assault on the trails of Syllamo:


Held within this cabin is the worlds largest collection of horrible John Wayne movies. However they can be the perfect trial to see which teammates can outlast the others for a delicious helping of finishers crowns.

Back to the mission at hand: leaving a trail of snapped wrists along the Syllamo Trail System. We headed to the race start a little before 7 and parked next to the STL crew of Christian Stitz and Matt Keevan. After a racers meeting held in front of the best Chevy pickup wrapped with the giant head of an insurance agent/race promoter ever, we made our way to the start line and got ourselves some good spots up front and center. At the start, John Matthews turned right as we all started to go left. And this was before his unfortunate cabeza to ground impact later in the morning. Start line mayhem behind us, we made our way down the pavement to the opening salvo of the mile long gravel climb. At the base your Team Seagal heroes shifted down, oh wait, no we just pedaled harder and made our way up that climb. Dwayne repeated last year and made it into the singletrack first way in front of the rest of us, dancing on his singlespeed. I chased up and squeezed in 3rd in front of Furhman with Nico several spots back, the Doctor several spots behind him, and Mason doing some slow grind wrist-snapping behind the Doctor.

From the singletrack start on, its 48 miles of no holds barred mountain bike racing. Big rocks, sharp rocks, slimy rocks, mud, muddy rocks, fast flowing streams, incredibly flowy trail, tight turns to rip, stairs to climb, and giant holes from fallen trees to run around. Yes this past winter's ice storm did a number on parts of the Syllamo trail system, but our singlespeed steeds care nothing about a few sticks littering the trail snapping though them like the sound of so many broken wrists. Plus we had our finely honed dismount and remount skills accumulated during a fall of CX racing.

There were flats encountered, derailleurs ripped off, chains sucking and snapped, hard crashes to the ground, and rocks to run over in Keen sandals. Yep that's rights racing in sandals. The most ballerific rider out there was Arkansas native Clayton Bell tearing it up in SPD sandals on a bright green Niner singlespeed. Insane.

For the Team Seagal crew Syllamo's Revenge 2009 was mission accomplished, but in the pre-2001 sense of the phrase. You know, we actually did something. We're still waiting official results, but here's the basics: Mason knocked almost an hour of his time last year in this years much tougher conditions. Nico took home fifth in singlespeed (possibly season SS champion in the Arkansas MTB Marathon Series) and a top 20 overall. The doctor battled back from 2 flats to finish a little behind Nico. I came in eighth overall and 3rd in singlespeed.

Anyone got a fireplace mantle I can rent out?

STL came to party as is now tradition at Syllamo's with Ploch, Matthews (nasty crash and all), Mitch, man no one could touch Dwayne, Scotty, Zach, Christian and numerous others all finishing strong. And props to Keeven for ripping it for two hours, fully rigid, before the stitches in his hand gave way.

So how does one celebrate a day on a trail like syllamos? Well killing a cooler full of delicious Pabst followed by a little bit of mexican food with some fellow trail conquerers sounds like a plan to me. 2010 Syllamo's Revenge- I'm ready now!

So has anyone seen my sunglasses? Last seen around a blue Nissan Sentra somewhere in Northern Arkansas.

UPDATE: Results are posted. Nico officially got 16th overall, the Doctor was 9th in SS, and Mason was 15th in SS.