Tue KC Crit

I saw an interesting article in Cyclingnews the other day that is kind of reminds me that cross season is near. Instead of following a rider through a day, they followed Tyler Farrar's bike. It gives you a better idea of what goes on behind the scene with teams. Even with small teams like the KCCX cross team we go through some of the same steps when we are on the road. Interesting reading for me and I might of picked up on a few tricks as well.

I guess I been a bit of a slacker in the photography department lately since I once again have no photos of tonight's race. Maybe next week I'll find someone to snap some pictures. Once again the turnout was a little low from what most of us expected. Looks like people are either scared of the hot weather or are done with the road season. Seems kind of silly to go all in for cross at this point, the season start is 2 months away and the race that counts is 5 months away. Sounds like there are more than a few guys who will be flying in September and done in October. Back to tonight's race, kind of a night where we are either flying or coasting. We still ended up averaging around 27mph for the race so it wasn't too slow. I got in a few breaks but nothing lasted, all though I had hopes that the last one would make it but we got caught with 2 laps to go. Still, not a bad ride considering I'm coming off 2 weeks rest and the interval set before the race was a tough one.

So here we go, tonight's results:

1. Shadd Smith


2. Christian Beattie


3. Nick Coil


4. Steve Songer


5. John Palman

Overall Points:

Shadd Smith 63
Joe Schmalz 27
Mark Cole 22
Nick Coil 15
Andy Chocha 11
Andrew Coe 9
David Hedjuk 9
Phil Gronniger 8
Christain Beattie 7
Bill Marshall 6
Matt Ochs 5
Walt Bleser 5
Brian Bradley 4
Matt Ankeny 4
Ben Stover 4
Tom Price 4
Brian Jensen 3
Scott Stevens 3
Steve Songer 3
Jason Knight 2
Josh Crow 2
Bill Stolte 2
Joe Houston 2
Doug Plumer 2
Adam Mills 2
John Pahlman 2
Doug Obershaw 1
Jeff Seese 1

The tough guy award goes to.........

Jens Voigt is the man, why you might ask, read this. First he had to recover from a horrendous crash on a decent at last years tour, then he crashed again descending a mountain this year is tough. But to get up this year, take a loaner bike until he could get a team bike is over and above the call of duty. Looking at the picture Jens is a bloody mess with road rash all over but he's determined to finish the tour. Such is the mentality of riders in the tour. Then you have to add in the pressure of knowing that he can make a difference in how the team works for Andy Schleck tomorrow in the mountains. Yea, he had to keep going.

So much for last night's Tue Crit, I'm guessing it was a rain out, we had torrential rain and lightning at the house about start time. Why was I at home you might ask, well I saw the radar and decided I needed to move the sandbags back into place before the floods began again. This time the 2nd round of rain went south so we got lucky and the water never got out of the banks. I've got to say that this whole flood thing is getting old and I might build my own levee before the summer is over.

By the way, check out Cameron Chambers write up on his race at the MTB Nationals. He had a awesome race and has a great story to tell about battling it out with a legend of the sport for a National Champions jersey. Fellow KCCX teammate Brad Cole had a write up of the same race where he was 4th here.

Looks like the guys are about done with the taping and slapping on the 1st coat of mud, time to get some more work done before it's time to go pick up the boys.

Zipp night at KC Tue night Worlds

Yep, it's true. You could use set of really cool Zipp wheels in the B race this week at the KC Tue Nite Worlds. Doug, our SRAMbassador has a few sets of wheels that people can try out. Show up a little early so you can get them set up on your bike. If you don't get to race them, stick around and maybe you can ride them after the race. I want to check out the new carbon clinchers, all the aero benefits in a clincher rim.

Here's my latest house update; the drywall was delivered this morning and tomorrow morning it goes up. The crew comes in @8am to hang the drywall and another crew is scheduled @12 to throw some mud at it. I'm gonna hang out and see how the pro's drywall a room and then it's off to the Tue Crit, it's gonna be a hot one!

Busy Week

The house is dry and it was time for a decision on what to do to get it back to normal. Mathgeek and I decided to look at remodeling the room since we had it so torn apart all ready. What was I thinking............ So we got a bid to drywall the whole room, even the ceiling. Why the ceiling you might ask? Read on.....

Our ceiling had 6 decorative beams running across the room and we wanted to get rid of them. Our contractor buddy and the drywall contractor both said that the beams would come down if you "smacked them with a sledge hammer a few times". Uh sure, I can do that, but all along I was thinking that there had to be more holding them up there. Sure enough, more boards and nails than I want to think about. Ended up cutting them in to smaller pieces and then knocking them loose.

Now I need another dumpster for the rest of the trim, paneling, and beams.

So now we have a totally stripped family room that's ready for the drywall crew.

Still can't believe that they put the paneling on before the fireplace. The drywall guys are going to just cover it up instead of trying to take it down. Check out that ceiling, that's why we need to drywall that as well. Those beams left some pretty big holes.

So that's been my week in a nutshell. Good thing I had a rest week on the bike, pretty much did all my riding back and forth to work. So this week the drywall crew rolls in and hopefully we will be painting by next weekend. Good time to get back training before I have to think about laying a new floor down and finishing the room.

Tue night Worlds

Tonight was a hot one for sure so I hope that's why there was a small field for the A race. The B race looked a little smaller as well. Anyway, we had most of the Mercy crew at the race and before the race we had a little meeting and Joe said we were not going to let it come down to a field sprint. That led to attacks galore and about half way through the race the field split and most of us made it into the front half. The attacks continued and soon Shadd and Joe were off and gone. Adam and Choach played the field sprint right to finish in the points and I just missed with 6th. Oh well, that was a hard race.

Results:

1. Shadd Smith
2. Joe Schmalz
3. Andy Chocha
4. Adam Mills
5. David Hedjuk

Overall Points:

Shadd Smith 58
Joe Schmalz 27
Mark Cole 22
Nick Coil 12
Andy Chocha 11
Andrew Coe 9
David Hedjuk 9
Phil Gronniger 8
Bill Marshall 6
Matt Ochs 5
Walt Bleser 5
Brian Bradley 4
Matt Ankeny 4
Ben Stover 4
Tom Price 4
Brian Jensen 3
Scott Stevens 3
Christain Beattie 3
Jason Knight 2
Josh Crow 2
Bill Stolte 2
Joe Houston 2
Doug Plumer 2
Adam Mills 2
John Pahlman 1
Doug Obershaw 1
Steve Songer 1
Jeff Seese 1

Omaha and beyond

Forgot that I had this picture from the Lawrence weekend. Pretty sweet to have that big of a race so close. That was week two of the triple header of race weekends, KC, Lawrence, and Omaha.

After being sick for the last 2 weekends Omaha rolled around and I finally started feeling better. There were 2 days of racing but Mathgeek and I decided that we needed some family time so I decided to do the crit Saturday and then hit the Omaha zoo on Sunday. Of course this was all decided on Friday night so the mad scramble ensued to pack up the family for a 9am departure. All went well and we arrived in plenty of time for the Masters race. Rode pretty well in the race and ended up in a break with a few other guys that were in the 40+ race. Since I was the only 50+ guy in the break once we got away it was time to sit in and save some energy for the Pro 1-2 race. Ended up winning the 50+ race and then it was time to head to the hotel for a little pool time with the boys before the last race.

Rolled back to the course and hooked up with the rest of the Mercy crew and figure out the game plan for the race. I love it when a plan works and we get the results we wanted. 1st,2nd,5th,6th,10th, and all 4 primes, very nice. Pretty worked after 2 races and couldn't get to sleep for a long time, love those late races.

Followed a long race day up with 4 hours of walking the zoo but it was totally worth it. The kids had a great time and the zoo is truly awesome. I can't forget to mention that racing in Nebraska is kind of a treat for us as we see tons of friends at the races while we are in town. Nice to hang out with my brother for a bit and let the kids interact for a while. My buddy Ray from when I first started racing was at the races. His son has taken an interest in bicycle racing so he was there doing his 2nd race ever. Pretty cool to see another generation give racing a try and if he's got dad's motor he could be a fast one.

So we were watching the weather while we were in Omaha for our trip to the zoo and I decided to look in to see what the weather was like in KC. We saw that there was going to be some big storms on Sunday morning. I was a little worried about another house flood but we figured that it's been dry for a while so it should be OK. Then we got home to find the debris line in the picture above. That's about 15ft from the back door and it wouldn't take much more water to get it to the house. The weather guy said we had 2.2 inches in the 2 storms that came through and that was some kind of record. I have to say that this stuff is really wearing me out. I like watching the weather but I get a little freaked out every time it storms.

I heard that there was a possibility of more rain Sunday after we got home so I ran out and got some sandbags for a little protection. Ended up not needing them but I think I'll hang on to them for a while and see what happens.

Tomorrow is Tue KC Worlds, should be fun cuz it's gonna be HOT!

Tour of Lawrence x2, Tue KC Worlds

Seems like day 2 of the Tour of Lawrence was so long ago, so much to do, so little time........ Still sick and feel like I'm sucking air through a straw. Oh well, what can you do. On to the Tof L. Did the Masters race so I could get back to KC for family duties. The race went OK until I decided to go for a cash prime, that sucking air through a straw doesn't work so well when you're going hard. I though I was going to pass out from lack of oxygen by time I got to the line. I got the prime but the effort told me that I had no chance in a field sprint for a good finish. It was going to have to be off the front in a small group or nothing. So I tried to get away a few time to no avail and that was it. I still don't know where I ended up placing but since I just rode it in it really doesn't matter. At least we got to race on dry roads again, the races later in the day weren't so lucky.

After a day of recovery the next event was the Tue KC World's. Pretty small turnout for the A race again this week. Pretty understandable considering we had just finished 2 hard weekends of racing. The entire Mercy crew was tired and we decided that we wouldn't work too hard to get in breaks and try to keep it together for a field sprint. With little wind to slow the field breaks would roll away only to get pulled pack a few laps later. Phil went just before 5 to go and I tried to go with him. When I got to him I could barely pull through and we got caught right at the call for 5 to go. All night I managed to only have a few coughing fits but I was only good for one pull in the lead out before I was done. Darn that lack of oxygen.........

Here's the results:

1. Shadd Smith


2. Joe Schmalz


3. Mark Cole


4. Andy Chocha


5. Christian Beatty

Overall Points:

Shadd Smith 53
Joe Schmalz 23
Mark Cole 22
Nick Coil 12
Andrew Coe 9
Phil Gronniger 8
David Hedjuk 8
Andy Chocha 8
Bill Marshall 6
Matt Ochs 5
Walt Bleser 5
Brian Bradley 4
Matt Ankeny 4
Ben Stover 4
Tom Price 4
Brian Jensen 3
Scott Stevens 3
Christain Beattie 3
Jason Knight 2
Josh Crow 2
Bill Stolte 2
Joe Houston 2
Doug Plumer 2
John Pahlman 1
Doug Obershaw 1
Steve Songer 1
Jeff Seese 1



Might head for Omaha this weekend for the races, or maybe just a day, hmmmm what to do.....

Tour of Lawrence

Not too much to post about from today's race. I showed up a little late for the race but it was running late anyway. By time we were ready to start I was about to fall asleep on my bike. To say that I was lacking motivation was something of a understatement. After a pretty good week of racing last weekend at the Tour of KC the form was looking pretty good. Tue night at the crit I felt OK but something was up, by Tue night I couldn't sleep from all the gunk running down my throat. Jeez......I thought that being on antibiotics would keep me from being sick but I guess the drugs are for a bacterial infection not viral. At least the meds will be done tomorrow, now if I could just get this elephant off my chest.

Wow, what a rant.......just really tired of all the sickness this year. As for the race, fun hilly circuit race today in Lawrence around the KU campus. I've never been to the campus before and it's really cool. Have to stop by with the family some time and check it out. Anyway, in the race there were a bunch of attacks that never really went anywhere until 2 laps to go. I had no legs to go with them or try to jump across so I did what the rest of the field did and waited for the last time up the hill. Given the state of my health I tried to tempo the first part of the hill hoping to jump near the top. Andy blew that plan to pieces as he jumped early and got a gap on the field. With a long finishing straight and a head wind I was scrambling for a wheel just to get to the line. Finished with a bike toss at the line and was either 5th or 6th. Didn't even check as I had to get home in time to meet Jonas as he returned from Boy Scout camp. Mabe I'll find some pic's to post later.