Rider Profiles

Saturday, October 17, 2009

Good CX day

Capital Cup in Topeka went well. Rather than racing Masters, I opted for cat 3 in the hope of scoring some upgrade points to move up to cat 2. 21 cyclists toed the line at the start. After a crappy, crappy start which landed me in 17th place after 500 meters, I gradually picked my way through the field over the next 40 minutes and finished in 2nd place, about 20 seconds behind the winner. A curious race for me with no decisive moment-just a long grind gradually catching everyone then dropping them. The course is very much a power rider/roadie course, with few technical bits and a lot of "drill it as hard as you can" grass sections. Two successive boarded run-ups on the same hill were entertaining: dismount, run up, remount, ride down, dismount, run up. The second time up was not fun.

There were a number of Nebraska riders there. Vaughn Pierce and Rich Anderson were in my race and rode well; Mark Savery, Troy Krause, Nate Woodman and Matt Tillinghast raced well in 1/2/3, with Troy finishing with a great result against the deep KC comp, on the podium in 4th; Craig Schmidt had a great result in cat 4 masters, finishing 2rd. Sydney Brown won the womens open race.

Tomorrow is the Boulevard Cup in KC, which will probably have a stronger and much larger field. Should be interesting.

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