IceMan 2010

Posted by joel on November 9, 2010

2010 marked my first attempt at competing in the [Iceman]. This race consists of a 30 mile point to point race between Kalkaska and Traverse City, MI. This particular event has intrigued me for a couple years because its one of the three major races in the Midwest – the other two being Ore-to-Shore and Chequamegon. Since I had a mechanical at Chequamegon, I had more motivation to enter and perform well for IceMan.

The trip over to Traverse City encompassed driving from Wausau to Green Bay to meet up with a number of TitleTown Flyers, then proceeding north to the Upper Peninsula, then east across the UP, and finally south to Traverse City, whew! The entire windshield time, one way, was roughly seven hours. Our fearless TitleTown Flyer leader, Shawn, coordinated the lodging and as usual worked out great.

The morning of race-day saw the temperatures hovering around the upper 30′s. Add to that a small amount of snow the day before made for a slick course. My start time saw a slight improvement in conditions but the west facing hills were still pretty slick. I was part of wave 29 which went off at 10:30am. At gun time, the race started off pretty tame, with about three guys in my wave maintaining the front. I noticed the pace was too tame for my taste, so shortly into the race I pulled off the front and was able to maintain that for most of the race. Since the organizers changed the format to wave format for un-ranked riders, I was at the mercy of 28 previous waves, this made for a lot of congestion in the single track.

After the first 20ish miles I was feeling really strong and continued to keep the pace up. I came into a downhill and hadn’t experienced much ice so I didn’t see much need to be cautious. As the saying goes, hind sight is always 20-20. I should have backed off a touch and been more cautious because I went down at about 30mph on an aggressive downhill that was covered in ice. After the bail, I did a quick inventory, straightened the bar, and got back up to start pedaling. I finished the remainder of the race and still have a swollen and sore knee. My finishing time ended up being 2 hours and 5 minutes. Not bad considering the crash and congestion!