Pic's from the week and Tue crit results

Yep, it's getting to be cross season. I went out and got some new shoes to run in. Not that I'm actually going to train in them, as my coach said; "it's for injury prevention". That's pretty much the truth, with a balky knee I don't spend too much time running. Kind of miss running, I used to run cross country and track in High School before I gave it up for Motocross and knee injuries. Oh well, maybe after I get a knee replacement.

So Mathgeek tells me that her co-workers husband bought an old convertible sports car. Kind of a empty nester type of deal. Made it sound like it was an older car, maybe a bit of a fixer upper. So one day the hubby was out of town and the girls decided to play and go for a cruise. Then she showed up in this........

Getting closer, still have to hang some cabinets and some other things but at least we have our room back.

I did may annual pilgrimage to Cleveland...........MO! I'm not sure if the population has changed since last year but if all you have to do is change the sticker it really doesn't matter.

Yikes!!!! Yes cross season is truly here! The rest of the Reynolds wheels have arrived and now there is a ton of tires to be glued before Cross Vegas and the first USGP.

But first there is the last event of the road season. 4 days of racing at Gateway Cup in St.Louis.

Tonight was the next to the last Tue crit of the season. Crazy hot with a small turnout for the A race. Kind of a boring race with just a few people really interested to attacking or getting away. Most people were just waiting for the sprint and that's how it played out in the end. I went in with a few goals from my coach so that was all that I was worried about. Hmmmm one more week to go.

Results:

1. Christian Beatty
   
2. Mark Cole
   
3. Paul Fancher


4. Pete Greig
   
5. Scott Stevens
   

Overall Points as of 8/31/10 :

Shadd Smith 71
Joe Schmalz 36
Mark Cole 35
Nick Coil 20
Christain Beattie 14
Phil Gronniger 13
Andy Chocha 11
David Hedjuk 11
Bill Marshall 10
Andrew Coe 9
Ben Stover 8
Tom Price 7
Jason Knight 7
Paul Fancher 6
Matt Ochs 5
Walt Bleser 5
Scott Stevens 5
Brian Bradley 4
Matt Ankeny 4
Brian Jensen 3
Steve Songer 3
Josh Crow 2
Bill Stolte 2
Joe Houston 2
Doug Plumer 2
Adam Mills 2
John Pahlman 2
Pete Greig 2
Doug Obershaw 1
Jeff Seese 1

Tue Crit results

Fast night out at the crit tonight, over 27 mph for and average I believe. Constant attacks never got any distance and we ended up with a field sprint. Here's the results:

Tonight's results:

1. Nick Coil
2. Bill Marshall
3. Paul Fancher
4. Christian Beatty
5. Mark Cole
   
   
   Total Points:
   
   Shadd Smith 71
   Joe Schmalz 36
   Mark Cole 31
   Nick Coil 20
   Phil Gronniger 13
   Andy Chocha 11
   David Hedjuk 11
   Bill Marshall 10
   Andrew Coe 9
   Christain Beattie 9
   Ben Stover 8
   Tom Price 7
   Jason Knight 7
   Matt Ochs 5
   Walt Bleser 5
   Brian Bradley 4
   Matt Ankeny 4
   Scott Stevens 4
   Brian Jensen 3
   Steve Songer 3
   Paul Fancher 3
   Josh Crow 2
   Bill Stolte 2
   Joe Houston 2
   Doug Plumer 2
   Adam Mills 2
   John Pahlman 2
   Doug Obershaw 1
   Jeff Seese 1

Last week.........

Last week was the beginning of school for Pinky and Curly and they sure look happy. It made me happy that I don't have to start the car much anymore. I love it when I don't have to drive and can ride my bike to work every day.















Friday brought a pretty major storm through the area. I was out and about when it started and could barely see well enough to drive home. When I got home I found the the ditch full and starting to overflow. It only got up in the yard for a short time but it sure makes me nervous.

Saturday morning came and I got out for a ride with pro triathlete Chris Legh who was in town for the Jackson County Triathlon. More on Chris later but look at that picture above, that's a whole lot o'bikes. I heard 900 entrants and there had to be twice as many people out watching. It was crazy, there were people everywhere.

Woke up to fog for my 5:30am drive with Chris out to the venue with more fog over the lake. The fog actually got a bit thicker over the lake as the first waves of swimmers hit the water at 7:30am. Either bike racers are sissies or triathletes are nuts, not sure which, but arriving at the venue by 5am to get a good spot in the racks seems a little crazy to me. No wonder triathletes don't do events every weekend, they need to catch up on their sleep.

So this is Chris Legh, my job for the weekend was to hang out with Chris a bit, go for a ride, and provide transportation to the venue. When I found out I was doing this last week I had no idea who Chris was. I looked him up, found his bio, and figured he was just another pro. We went out with a few other people for dinner Friday night for a little meet and greet and then I did a little tune on his bike.

Saturday we met for a spin with some openers for him. Openers for him, pain for me is all I have to say about that. He is a really cool dude, we talked a lot about kids, schools, Colorado, and Australian politics, among other things. I love it when you're riding with a elite athlete and you would never know unless you try to go hard.

After the ride we rolled out to the venue so Chris could do some question & answer sessions with people at packet pickup. He thought he would do 2 15 min sessions because he thought people would want to keep moving. Little did he know people would end up surrounding him for 4 hours. He brought boxes of sponsor swag to give away and had a great time with everybody.

At one point I was talking to one of the guys and they mentioned that Chris was the guy in the Gatorade commercial. You know, the one where the guy falls and crawls across the line at the 1997 Ironman, then comes back to win it in 2004. Check it out here.

I ended the day with Pinkys first soccer game where they won 14-1. What a change from last year where they never won a game.

Sunday was race day and after helping with the event it was time to load Chris up, bring him back to town, and head for home. Spent the rest of the day hanging out around the house.

Tomorrow is Monday, time to start all over again.

Tue KC Crit

Welcome to another installment of your KC Crit news. The season is winding down and and again the A field was kind of small. This week was a bit different as more horsepower appeared in the form of Brian, Nick, and Ben, from the Tradewind Energy/Trek Stores team. Everybody knew that this was going to be a hard race with these guys around. On the Mercy Cycling side we were missing one of our key weapons as Shadd was tied up somewhere else.

I knew it was going to get hard really soon when Brian was at the front of the group on the neutral lap. Sure enough, Brian attacked right away and I was unfortunate enough to be on his wheel at the time. What a way to warm up, warp speed right from the gun! At least he eased up and the field caught us a short time later. From there on out the race was a battle, attacks followed an easing of the pace, only to followed by more attacks. Another night with and average speed of around 27mph. Not too shabby considering how slow we would go between attacks.

With 5 laps to go Brian went to the front started attacking and totally blew the field apart. I bridged up to Brain and Joe with 3 to go but as the field caught us at 2 to go I was done. I wish I could tell you how the sprint played out but I was about a half lap behind at that point.

Overall it was a really good night. Awesome training for the upcoming Gateway Cup races and having the Tradewind guys there made the race harder and even more fun than ususal.

















Small but powerful group on the hill.


















More hill action on a really nice night. Finally a race where the temp/heat index was below 100.
















We must be going hard, Logan's head is beginning to tilt to one side.

















And the chase is on! I'm sure Brian or Nick just attacked.

Photos thanks to DD. 3 more weeks to go!

Results:

1. Joe Schmalz
2. Ben Stover
3. Mark Cole
4. David Hedjuk
5. Jason Knight

Overall points as of 8/17/10

Shadd Smith 71
Joe Schmalz 36
Mark Cole 30
Nick Coil 15
Phil Gronniger 13
Andy Chocha 11
David Hedjuk 11
Andrew Coe 9
Ben Stover 8
Christain Beattie 7
Tom Price 7
Jason Knight 7
Bill Marshall 6
Matt Ochs 5
Walt Bleser 5
Brian Bradley 4
Matt Ankeny 4
Scott Stevens 4
Brian Jensen 3
Steve Songer 3
Josh Crow 2
Bill Stolte 2
Joe Houston 2
Doug Plumer 2
Adam Mills 2
John Pahlman 2
Doug Obershaw 1
Jeff Seese 1

TNW KC

Yesterday it was hot, too hot to race, not really. It seems like that's the attitude that quite a few people had last night as the field in the A race was pretty small. I guess it's not too much of a surprise since there are so few road events left in the season. This week there is a TT and RIM. Since I'm supposed to be on a reduced training schedule I don't think either one is in the plans.

On to last nights race........ Like I said hot, hot, hot, as in 103 on the bank by the PV Starbucks.
We rode to the race and by the time we got there I had sucked down 2 bottles and stopped for more water just before we got to the race. The legs felt really tight as I had been laying the wood floor in the family room all day and didn't get in a recovery ride the day before. I was quickly getting the feeling that tonight's race was going to be hard.















It's getting closer every day!

The race started of with 4 or 5 really hard laps and as soon as it slowed down the attack came from Phil and Shadd. Half a lap later Joe bridged across and I heard the guy next to me say,"well, this ones over." Not so quick, I knew someone was going to try to get across to the break and sure enough a few did. I jumped on the wheel and soon Choch came roaring past us and we jumped on his wheel. We got on Choch's wheel and he did a killer pull to get us close to the break. Once we were close we jumped across to make the break something like 8 or 9 guys. For me, I was gassed, we got on and I wasn't able to recover at all. To make it worse Joe was pulling at 38mph on the back side so it was just as hard as going up the hill on the other side. I was skipping pulls and generally being worthless as I watched some of the guys getting popped off the break.


Soon it was down to Phil, Shadd, Joe, Jason, Mark, and myself. With 15 min to go Mark, and Jason were skipping pulls every few rotations, while I was just hanging on. Ahead I could see that we were just about to lap the field and that was motivating me to hang on a little longer. With 4 to go we lapped the field and as the rest of the break rode around the group I got stuck behind a few guys in a turn and got gapped. I thought about trying to get back up to the break, and Choch even offered to pull me back up, but I was blown and happy just to roll in with the group.


So with 3 to go Logan was setting tempo at the front of the group and pulling Mark, who had attempted to get back to the break, back to the field. So now 5th place was still up for grabs between Mark and I. Now, I knew that Mark was feeling better than I was and since I skipped a bunch of pulls I really didn't want to sprint for position. The last lap played out pretty much like I wanted it to, with Mark in front of me with 2 turns to go. I didn't want to beat him, I knew that wasn't going to happen, but I wanted to see how much of a sprint I could pull out of my really tired legs. Mark opened up the sprint and I made it about half way to the finish before I blew and he pulled away. Not too shabby for how tired I was, but that was by far, the hardest Tue Crit so far this year. Not sure why that is, heat, humidity, not recovered from the weekend, who know but they all probably played a part. Just 4 more Tue Worlds before the seasons over, who knows it might cool off for next week so get out there get some points!


Results

1. Phil Gronniger


2. Joe Schmalz


3. Shadd Smith


4. Jason Knight


5. Mark Cole

Overall Points as of 8/10/10

Shadd Smith 71
Joe Schmalz 31
Mark Cole 27
Nick Coil 15
Phil Gronniger 13
Andy Chocha 11
Andrew Coe 9
David Hedjuk 9
Christain Beattie 7
Tom Price 7
Bill Marshall 6
Jason Knight 6
Matt Ochs 5
Walt Bleser 5
Brian Bradley 4
Matt Ankeny 4
Ben Stover 4
Scott Stevens 4
Brian Jensen 3
Steve Songer 3
Josh Crow 2
Bill Stolte 2
Joe Houston 2
Doug Plumer 2
Adam Mills 2
John Pahlman 2
Doug Obershaw 1
Jeff Seese 1

KCCX Team Camp, cross is here!

This weekend the KCCX VERGE Elite Cyclocross Team had our team camp to discuss the coming season and get some riding in. Of course the highlight was getting some of product from our sponsors. Giro Helmets, Oakley sunglasses, Verge Clothing, HTFU clothing, Chamois Butter, and even some De La Paz coffee. On the bike side the Scott frames are being ordered, the TRP brakes were handed out, and best of all, access to every model of Challenge tires and a set or two of Reynolds wheels. I can't forget that to mention that Source Endurance is also going to be involved with the team. That's a bonus for me since I've been coached by Adam from Source for the past year and there is no doubt I'm faster than I've ever been before.


Between all of this there was discussion of the products we are using and the signing of Rider Contracts. Of course, no camp would be complete if we didn't go out and beat the snot out of each other on the bikes. Brutal but fun training rides both days had everybody was worn out by time we were done today.















This has got to be the sweetest deal around, Challenge Tires and Reynolds wheels. I absolutely loved these tires last year and I really look forward to using them again. Reynolds stepped up HUGE this year and is supplying the team with carbon clincher and tubular wheels. A few of the guys tried them out on the rides this weekend and so far the guys are impressed. As a bonus to anybody who races cyclocross we will be part of the Reynolds Spin it up program. In a nutshell, we will have wheels on hand at every race we attend for people to borrow for races or to just try out. Details are getting worked out right now but we will have a variety of wheels with Challenge tires mounted to them. Just think, carbon tubies or clinchers set up with Fango's, Grifo's, Grifo XS (file tread), or maybe even a new super secret mud tire. It's going to be a great program!















This is the first shipment of wheels, more to come in a week or so!















Just because we were on the road it didn't mean that Joe and Matlock stayed there. Since they were both on cross bikes, and had their new wheels and tires they decided to test them out.















Getting read to rollout Sunday morning. Man, it was early but at least we beat the heat!
















Team Photo shoot with out Artistic Director J Steadman, and our photographer Alex Edwards. Got some good shots of the crew sporting all our new gear for our sponsors.
















Shot this pic somewhere out by Longview lake. We went way east of KC on some of the best road I've ridden in the area. Guess I should of waited for the rest of the gang to get in the picture, oh well.















Check out this guy! That has to be the biggest moth I've ever seen and pretty cool colors as well. Didn't notice the reflection in Adam's new Oakley's until just now!

So camp is a wrap. Good things are happening with the team and it's going to be a good year! There's also a ton of work to be done before our first race which is only a month or so away. I'm going to be a busy boy for the next month!

Tue Crit, it was a HOT one!

Today was the hottest day of the year and it made the races tonight pretty tough. A strong south breeze made the heat bearable but really reduced the turnout for the A race. We still had a hard race with a 27 mph average. Kind of a interesting race, it started off slow and then after about 10 minutes a group got off the front with Shadd in it, then I bridged across with a SKC rider. Soon after that Adam bridged across with David and then Jason came across to complete the break. We kept a nice rotation going and after a while it got down to 7 of us off the front. With about 10 minutes to go Shadd attacked the group with Scott but they were brought back a lap later. Shadd attacked again and got away clean to jump up to the field. With 3 of us from Mercy in the break we just waited for the laps to wind down and sprint. Jason took a flyer with 2 to go but David took a huge pull to bring him back just before the last corner. Shadd took the win and in the sprint Mark took a line through the gravel in the last turn that I wasn't willing to follow so that was it. Over all a good night for the Mercy Team, Shadd 1st, Tom 3rd, Jason 4th, Adam worked hard in the break and Bill did his thing keeping the field in check.

Tonight's Results

1. Shadd Smith
2. Mark Cole
3. Tom Price
4. Jason Knight
5. Scott Stevens

Overall Points

Shadd Smith 68
Joe Schmalz 27
Mark Cole 26
Nick Coil 15
Andy Chocha 11
Andrew Coe 9
David Hedjuk 9
Phil Gronniger 8
Christain Beattie 7
Tom Price 7
Bill Marshall 6
Matt Ochs 5
Walt Bleser 5
Brian Bradley 4
Matt Ankeny 4
Ben Stover 4
Scott Stevens 4
Jason Knight 4
Brian Jensen 3
Steve Songer 3
Josh Crow 2
Bill Stolte 2
Joe Houston 2
Doug Plumer 2
Adam Mills 2
John Pahlman 2
Doug Obershaw 1
Jeff Seese 1