Syllamo bike trails are located outside of picturesque Mountain View Arkansas, the trails consists of several different loops and when combined they make up a 50 mile single-track race course with 9000 feet of climbing per lap. Needless to say, this is one of the harder races around. RB’s Racing was represented by Laureen Coffelt, John Oakes, Jeanie Zelinski and Chris Irving. Laureen won the women’s class last year and was hoping to be a repeat winner this year as well. The course was not as wet as it was last year but with temperatures in the upper 80’s and high humidity it would prove to be a difficult day for everyone. Laureen had difficulties with the heat and took a very respectable 2nd place in the women’s class, earning another of the famous Syllamo awards.
John Oakes having never ridden at Syllamo had only heard rumors of the hills and the quality of the single-track. It would prove to be a nice race for John, after a good start on his single-speed Salsa Dos Niner racing the other single-speeds up the nearly one mile 14% grade start climb he entered the trail around 25th overall and top ten in class. John got his second wind at the mid point of the race and started his ascent through the ranks and powered through the Red loop to a 14th overall and 3rd in class with an amazing time of 5:32.
With this being the first mountain bike race of any kind for Jeanie Zelinski, she thought it would be wise to race Syllamo’s Revenge as a first timer. It was a heck of a baptizing as Jeanie made all the cut off times and finished looking like she went for a stroll in the park at around 9 hours and 30 minutes. That was a long day in the saddle on those trails.
Chris Irving suffered his first flat 30 minutes before the start, his second 40 minutes into the race and his third at 2:20. Having run out of tubes he started walking to the next checkpoint to “officially” throw in the towel. After walking for four miles and arriving at checkpoint #2 there was a pump and tube awaiting him. Much to his dismay the race would have to continue. Chris finished with no more problems with a time of 6:21, besting his time from the previous year by three minutes.
Many other Memphians made the trip with the top finishers being Paul Hart (Stanky Creek Cycling) breaking 6 hours with a time of 5:59 and Stephen Wells (Ripper Clan/SCC) close behind with a 6:12.
Next year the race is expanding to a field of 350 racers with no simultaneous “tour”. The organization for this race is a thing of beauty from the registration process to the checkpoints and finishing with the food and 10 cases of New Belgium Brewing beer at the end.
