Monthly Archives: June 2009

Riding in Eastern Kansas

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I just rode my bike the 80 miles from Topeka to Kansas City. I needed to get my iPhone looked at by the genius guys at the Apple Store. Anyway, it was a perfect day. Mid 70’s, little wind, nice. It is around 30 miles to Lawrence KS, then another 30-35 miles to the KC outskirts, and the rest of the way through city. I was riding listening to music on my phone. I usually have a rule against riding with earphones, but this is a pretty isolated ride after Lawrence . Anyway, I hadn’t ridden my bike by myself for a period that long for quite a while. I usually train with other guys. Almost exclusively. I love riding in groups. That is one of the coolest things about the sport. A bunch of people with vastly different abilities can go out and train together and everyone gets a workout. Anyway, I was surprised how much I missed riding by myself. I was having a good day on the bike. The hills seemed small. Nearly effortless. But, that wasn’t completely it. It was the I hadn’t taken the time to look around and appreciate the surroundings recently. And I was now. This is one of the best times of the year for that. Everything is lush. Looks fresh. The creeks and ponds are all full. This route crosses both the Santa Fe Trail crossing and California Road, which preceded the Santa Fe Trail. The Oregon Trail also crosses here. It is amazing thinking that 1000’s of pioneers walked nearly 2000 miles to the West Coast 150 years ago. And I’m digging riding my bike 80 miles. The Apple Store is at the Country Club Plaza. It is a outdoor mall that was built over 100 years ago. It was designed architecturally after Seville, Spain. Super high end shops and nice restaurants. It is rumored to have more fountains than Seville. There are a ton fountain here, every corner. I rode through Mission Hills on the way. It neighbors the Plaza. One of the most affluent residential areas in the country. Winding roads. Mansions. Tasteful opulence. Anyway, the Tour of Missouri finishes at the Plaza. A women’s criterium is held right before the finish of the men’s race. So, you should go out of your way and try to make it to the end of the Tour of Missouri in September. Make sure you get a nice room right on The Plaza. I can’t think of a much better way to spend the weekend if you’re a bike race fan. And ’til then, make some time to go out and do a nice long ride. Alone.
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Nature Valley Grand Prix

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Nature Valley started today. Having abit of a computer access problem so I’ll update more later. The weather is cool here in Minneapolis. Barely in the 70’s. Tom Zirbel, Bissell, won the TT this morning. 6 miles finishing on a 800 meter climb. I sucked. I generallly suck at Time Trialing now that everyone has time trial bikes. I swore last year I was going to get one. I almost did last week. I felt pretty good, just went pretty slow. Zirbel recovered pretty well from his big effort in Philly on Sunday. He beat Rory Sutherland, Ouch, by 13 seconds.

The St. Paul Criterium was tonight. Bissell had 6 riders finish in the top 12 in the time trial, so the race was destined to be a field sprint. The course was 1 km with one side having a slight climb and the start/finish stretch downhill. There were a zillion man hole covers that were recessed. It was stupid dangerous. Not because of the road surface. Mainly because of the way that Bissell was setting tempo at the front. They were only riding the inside of the course and swinging out for each corner at the last minute, jacking up the riders behind. A 4 rider break stayed away until the last lap. Colivita did a crazy fast leadout the last km and Haedo won. The front of the field shattered. I thought I was in pretty good position, but got tangled up and shuffled back. I had a bunch of juice still on the last lap, but the front of the field split. I was just trying to reconnect to the front and ended up 10th. There were huge gaps, but I’m sure the officials will score the field with one time. The average speed was pretty fast. I had something in the high 28 mph range at the end. Pretty quick considering how many times a lap you had to be fully on the brakes. It was starting to rattle a fair amount of guys. I was okay with it. That was just how it was going to be.

Tomorrow, the Cannon Falls Road Race doesn’t start until 5 pm. It’s less than 70 miles, so it will be a field sprint again. There won’t be any real bike racing until the last hour on Saturday in Mankato. The finishing circuit there is very hard and it will decide the GC.

I rode to the time trial and criterium and back, so it was a good mileage day. Not sure what I’m getting the mileage for other than I like riding my bike in new places.