Last night I went local cyclocross race, the Grote Prijs Shawnee in Kansas City. I’ve been putting in some hard training days. I haven’t really been able to tell how I’m going just training, so thought that it was a good time to race. If I jacked up my hamstring or some other mishap, I still have over a week to recover. I’ve been kicking around just skipping Nationals in Madison and going straight to Louisville, but I can’t really see missing the best racing weekend of the season, by far.

Last night was super fun. The course was lite as best a local even can be. Mark Thomas had rented a couple big, generator run stadium lights, but it was still dark in a few places, which just made it all that more exciting and seem that much faster. I have no idea why a person’s mind perceives speed differently when it’s dark. It always seems like I’m going so fast, on the road and off road, when I’m riding at night.

I had ridden an hour and a half with Bill in the afternoon pretty hard, so I didn’t feel the need to warm up so much. I don’t think there is a better warm up for a race than riding for more than an hour, earlier in the day. That is the reason that lots of times you’ll see the domestic Pros going for a ride in the morning before a criterium.

I rode a few laps on the course between the races. The course was tight and tricky. The ground was a little soupy, thawed and refrozen turf, which got slicker as the evening progressed. I felt pretty good warming up and was looking for a good work out.

I got a fair start, going into the grass third. Starting used to be my forte, but it seems to have alluded me recently. I moved up to 2nd early, behind Brady Kappius, Clif Bar, Littleton,CO. I couldn’t tell if he was trying to catch his breathe from starting or that was going to be his pace. I was well within myself, which is a very nice thing in cross. I was hoping that I’d actually be racing someone most of the day. I felt like I needed to be stressed by someone else’s tempo at times. And I like seeing where others expend their energies on a course. But after about 1/2 a lap, I knew I was going to be riding by myself the whole day. I felt good and wanted to put in some big surges. I got a gap on the field, but Brady came back by me hopping the barriers much faster than me.

I rode just a little while longer with him and then rode the rest of the race on my own. I can’t complain about my form or feeling. It is nice to be able to exert power on grass when you need it. I do have to admit, that after one long boggy section, I was looking forward to the next few turns to rest some.

The race was less than an hour, which was fine. My lower back and stomach has been kind of sorts the last couple weeks. My back was fine during the race, but still felt shitty driving home. I have no idea what that is all about. Normally, I don’t has any issues with those parts of my body. It’s always something I guess.

Since we’ll be talking so much about promoters, I have to go on record that promoting bike racing is a very hard job and greatly under appreciated. It has to be under appreciated because it’s such a hard, thankless job that it is only for the passionate. That is the best thing about the US cross scene. The passion. We all have it. There were probably around 150 riders total at the race last night. And every one of them had a great time. So, thanks Mark Thomas and all the other guys out there that would rather be racing, but instead expend their energy so others can race.

It’s going to be warm here the next few days. Nearly 60 today. I’m still going to be riding pretty hard the next few days. I’m training through Nationals, hopefully going fast for Louisville. It’s a very inexact science in my case. I’ve never been very good at it.

First lap over the barriers. Brady was ahead of me after the 2nd barrier.

The race for 2nd and 3rd was heated all night between Brady and Daniel Miller.

Catherine won the women's race and looked like she had some form, which is always nice.

I was trying to stand and get back up to speed as often as possible. I've probably been watching too much super charged cross racing on the internet recently.

It's only appropriate to ride by a chicken coop in a cross race.

Kansas is famous for lots of stuff, but one I didn’t know about was bumper stickers. The modern sticky bumper stickers were invented in Kansas by Forest P. Gil from Kansas City before World War 2. I’m not sure what we would do without the ability of expressing our believes on our car bumpers.

I heard on NPR today that Topeka High, my high school, was the first high school in the country to cost more than $1,000,000 to build. I’m not sure why they decided to spend that kind of money in 1931. It is a very ornate building and one of Topeka’s city landmarks for sure.

And now there is controversy about whether the chimp that recently died in Florida was really Cheetah, the origianl chimp from Johnny Weissmuller’s Tarzan. That sure would have been a really old chimpanzee. I hope it is true and not a fake. I loved Tarzan and have every one of Edgar Rice Burroughs books he wrote and have read them more than once.

Something that has amazed me recently is how many rich people there are in this country. Maybe not exactly how many rich people, but how much wealth. It constantly bewilders me when I’m riding around these towns where the real estate seems astronomically high how many homes there are that cost zillions of dollars. I always think that when I’m walking around downtown Manhattan in New York. I think that somebody owns every one of these buildings. And they go on for miles upon miles. Then there is Austin. It isn’t a cheap place to live. The housing is expensive. Plus, the property taxes are out of this world, something close to 2.5% as far as I can figure. (There is no state income tax though.) And I can ride for miles upon miles and there are just huge houses upon huge houses. It doesn’t seem like there is enough money or high paying jobs to support the infrastructure.

Talk about infrastructure, Topeka’s has gone down the toilet. It seemed like this fall, all the city did was try to repair roads. And it didn’t work. The repairs crack nearly as soon as they open the road. I was riding my bike at night when I got back from Christmas and it’s nearly too dangerous to do with the conditions of the roads. There are so many pot holes that could launch you if you didn’t see them. I don’t see anyway to catch up with the situation any time soon.

Okay, enough of this. I have a ton of stuff to do toady. I got a couple new pairs of Shimano shoes for cross and need to set up the cleats. They aren’t that easy to mimic the position of my old shoes since the bottoms are much different. I’m a little worried that the plastic on the bottoms are too hard of a durometer if my pedals get wet. There doesn’t seem to be any rubber which is always good for grip when it is wet. Plus I have to ride over to Lawrence and get some small parts from Sunflower. That is 70 miles round trip. It is supposed to be near record high in Kansas tomorrow, mid 60’s. That is always good in the winter.

This is a great bumper sticker.

The entrance to Topeka High School.

The original cast of Tarzan. They look so happy up on their tree limb.

A lot of our roads here in Topeka really suck.

And I have no idea why many people don't think that the curbs in front of their houses are their responsibility. I can't stand it when the sewer grates are clogged and leaves are normally the problem.

I've been switching between my road pedals and MTB pedals, but I'm going to ride these until Nationals to make sure they are going to work.