Snake Alley Criterium – Burlington, Iowa Cat 4/5

Saturday, May 30, 2005 – weather was perfect 75 degrees, scattered clouds and very little wind!

After a long night of racing and traveling back to the hotel room I was unsure how I would wake up the morning after the Wapello-Burlington road race.

We arrived back to the hotel after a huge dinner and a couple beverages around 10:30 PM. Race registration was at 10:00 AM the next morning so Matthew and I were not too worried about bedtime!

We woke up to a gorgeous morning and we both felt pretty good. Matthew had a pretty bad crash the night before in a 10 man break about 1 kilometer from the finish. I am convinced he would have battled for the top spot on the podium had a competitor not fell into him…but he took it well and as a result he was feeling the road rash a bit on Saturday morning!

Personally, I was feeling a bit nervous because I had heard so much about Snake Alley from all the Proctor guys. When I got to the registration and race site I was quickly schooled on why I had heard so much…700 feet of climbing on a brick cobbled road. Did I mention the road…Snake Alley…had 8 switch backs!!

My goals were very modest I simply wanted to complete 2 laps of the 8 that were scheduled for the race…I didn’t realize they allowed the competitors one “warm-up” lap of the course…so maybe my goals should have changed J

After the initial warm up lap we were staged based on our registration number. I was in the third row of ten with 2 rows of ten behind me. 50 riders started the race. Once we were all set we were allowed to take off.

The course was about 1.2 kilometers long (or short) with the total of 700 feet of climbing up the road to the bricked/cobbled nightmare called Snake Alley. The start was about 2 city blocks a quick right hand turn and immediate climb to the foot of Snake Alley.

It became very clear to me that 2 laps was a great goal…until I started hearing the cheers of encouragement from some of our Proctor teammates. If only they weren’t standing at the foot of Snake Alley…I could quit in peace.

Each lap was just as painful if not more as the lap before but I managed to make it the entire race and just barely got passed on the last lap by the winner. I had made all 8 laps and actually finished in 23rd place overall.

Congratulations to Ryan Michels for finishing 4th overall and to my roommate Matthew on another great effort mixed with some bad luck (equipment malfunction).