Wednesday, September 22, 2010

KC Cup Weekend Recap

Well...had to give myself a little time to reflect on these. It was a long weekend, lots of racing, lots of unexpected stuff. It was good, mostly...

Saturday started off with me deciding to double up in my first ever USAC sanctioned cx race. Single Speed and Category 3, also on my SS. Well SS went well, I got 5th.



The singletrack really gave me an advantage, I played it smart and hung for the first 2 laps then attacked and passed a few people until I caught Michael E and passed him for the top-5 in lap 3 of 4. The last lap I just held on and settled in, rode smart and finished 5th barely at the line, almost edging out 4th. Mike ended up 6th.

The 3s race I knew I was going to get smoked, especially considering the effort I had just put in the SS race (which had ended 20 minutes before the 3s race). Well, I got way smoked, off the line, first lap, whole race...I pulled after 5 laps with 3 to go cause Brian Jensen was lapping me so I figured I'd get out of their way and go drink beer. Definitely did good at that.



Thanks to Jon Peck for the photo.

Sunday I was extremely hungover and not feeling too well. We had also recieved about 3/4 of an inch of rain so the rocks and trail surface was nice and slick. So was the road I would find out...

Somehow got myself around and rode to swope in time to enter into the marathon class with 10 other brave souls. I was just hoping for a podium finish again, especially since I was relatively trashed still. I jumped off the line quick as I ever have and caught Roger Williams wheel going up the starting climb..through the grass start/finish and into the first single track I'm still right on Roger...within a couple minutes we are forming a little gap on the guys behind us but they catch us pretty quick once we hit the road section...I slip back to 4th at this time cause some gear heads go flying by me not realizing that there is a little paved incline to muscle up before hitting the turn into the singletrack...I hit the climb hard and scooted back up to Roger's wheel right as we were making the road turn to enter the single track again...bam! next thing I know I'm seeing trees and hearing people yell and bikes are flying past me. People are asking if I'm alright, my adrenaline is spiked big time and I'm confused that I'm no longer on Roger's wheel. Takes me a good 30-45 seconds to compose myself and get back on the bike. I immediately high cadence it and give chase to everyone who had passed me. Now I'm sitting in like 11th. Pass 2 guys on the Hope lodge singletrack section before the gravel road, 1 more on the gravel road, 2 more as soon as I hit phase 1. Here I ride for a few minutes before seeing the next guys ahead of me near the jawbreaker area. Pass 3 guys through that cause they're walking and pass the finla 2 right after cherry bomb cause they are walking wudchuk run. The rocks were uber slippery but I had the tech skills to handle it. Riding smart and staying upright was key. By the time I hit the phase 3 part of the loop, I had gapped 3rd already by 5+ minutes but was already down 8 minutes to Roger. So I just kept telling myself to ride smart and stay up...Only went OTB one time the rest of the day, and that was because I was being too cautious haha. So I finished 2nd! fuck yea suckas!



Not all was rainbows and buttholes though. I had suffered a pretty good gash going down the first lap on the road.



So I ended up at Truman Medical Center for 6 hours. Big ups to Leslie for chilling with me the whole time. 15 stitches and no riding for 10 days (I made it until Tuesday at 6 pm)



Lots o pics, prose and pimping...what a great blog post.

peace and riding!!!

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