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If you follow social media read blogs, watch YouTube or listen to podcasts, you may have heard of the hype around the Iceman Cometh mountain bike race in northern Michigan on the first weekend of November. The final climb, Icebreaker Hill, has been compared with World Cup mountain bike races, and World Championships in cyclocross - I can definitely confirm the noise is pretty overwhelming. Wave one starts at 9:15am and while it is early morning in November, there are fans out on the course already to give the amateurs the pro experience: they are on drum sets; there a bands; hand ups of whiskey and bacon; there are speakers playing heavy metal; and just loud people in general dotted throughout the woods between Kalkaska and Traverse City.

Even though 2023 was a very shortened season for me, I came into Iceman hitting new highs for power numbers and excited for what I could accomplish. I entered the race, wanting to do well with a number of goals, and the desire to finish with a race that I could be happy with. I had a decent position in the corral of wave 1, which I’d earned over the years of racing this event, 23 to be specific. After the national anthem, the gun went off and it was a mad scramble on runways of Kalkaska airport to get onto the two track early because this year Iceman Cometh had more single track than any of the previous years. I had pre-ridden the first half and had an idea of where the important parts of the race would be as after half way it’ll be just a matter of holding on.

Sure enough, the pace was high, and I was pretty happy with where I was sitting as we hit the single track. I looked back and found myself sitting at the back of the front group, a place I’ve never been before. I could see it stringing out ahead of me as we turned back on to the two track, and was just conscious of following wheels, saving energy and not letting go. We hit the second section of single track and just ahead of me maybe six riders up someone went down. This was the first split with the race. It was only a 10 second delay or so but now we were the second group on the road, which was a good place for me. We rolled through the single track, back onto seasonal road where everyone was reaching for drinks and taking gels etc, as a right turn on the road occurred everyone in front of me missed the next single track. During my pre-ride I had determined this was a key spot of the race, not quite in this fashion yet it was just me and two others who were on the single track going into the first climb of the day. Up the climb down the descent, turn onto one of the longest road sections with climbing at high speed. This is the key time to refuel and is about a third of the way through the race. It was here but the nozzle of my hydro-pack broke and poured cold, sticky, fluids, all over me, my hands and my bike. I was in panic mode. This was a disaster and I had to decide what my next plan would be. I’d lost the wheels ahead of me and quickly regrouped mentally. I sat up and waiting on a group behind me.

The rest of the race was a blur. Within this group there were maybe five at first but we picked up a few from the front. The pace was decent, but I was truly feeling it. As we started to hit the last third of the race, the hills were really starting to hurt, I was bonking pretty bad and all I could see the stars when I blinked. As we approached the last 5K or so, I was done. I knew I had a couple of steep hills to climb, including Icebreaker Hill, which is always a difference maker, hanging on to help try to accomplish at least one of my pre-race goals was the name of the game . When I crossed the line, I was hurting, my lips didn’t work, I was speaking gibberish, and I had given everything that I had. I anxiously looked at the results board, hoping for a somewhat decent result, and amazingly did my age group by the largest margin over my years. I looked back on Strava, I knew that I was on a good day and this was confirmed as I hit many PR‘s in the first half of the race. I clearly struggled on the back half and was on a great day. The party environment at the end of the race was huge. We stuck around for the pro race and cheered on Icebreaker. It was fantastic. If you’re ever looking for a bucket list race this is one that you should attempt. Sure travel to Michigan in November is a challenge, and you never really know what the weather is going to give you, but the beer, the freebies and the noise makes it all worthwhile. This is the end of my season, a short one at that. I’d ridden surprisingly well with a few races that I did, I was off to spend my off-season trying to get stronger and doing something other than riding my bike.