Manion's cross... full re-cap

Hey Gang,

So here is a proper re-cap of Sunday's Manion's cross race. It was pretty f'ing fun so therefore it deserves a pretty f'ing great re-cap.

Music

• LCD Soundsystem 'All My Friends'

The cycling team i'm on was responsible for putting on this particular race and i found that to be quite a daunting task. It's a lot of pressure, and i wasn't even that involved. Luckily we've got some smart people on our team and i think we threw one hell of a party. Oh, there was racing too.

The course was hard as balls, which is a good thing or a bad thing depending on who you are. The reason for the extreme difficulty... the huge climb at the end of each lap. I didn't find it to be that hard but then again i knew what to expect. I'm sure it came as a shock to the system for most folks. But if you thought the course was a negative then i think we had plenty of positives to tip the scales in the favor of bad ass. The weather was beautiful (thanks Mother nature) the waffles and coffee were free (thanks Parisi Coffee) the beer was flowing (thanks Boulevard) the taco's were great (thanks In-a-Tub), and the music was spot on (thanks people with awesome music taste.)

All that stuff was great but what really made the event were all the great people who showed up. People make the world go round and Sunday was no exception. We had everyone from first time racers to former world champions, folk's racing in tennis shoes to folk's whose pit bike was more expensive than my only bike, folks who were there just to have a good time and folk's who were there to win.

We really do have a great cross scene in Kansas City.

The whole day seems like a blur but at some point i raced, and did pretty well. Nothing spectacular, but i held my own. i was in the 2/3 race but kind of wished i had done the 3/4 race. the field for the 3/4 was bigger and that's always more fun. But the 2/3's went 10 min longer and i rode strong for the whole race, so i'm patting myself on the back for that one.

One cool moment happened towards the end of the race. It was nothing i did but rather what was going on around me. With about 2 laps to go i got lapped by the guys from the open race. Three of them passed me on the climb and i have to say, it was pretty cool to be crawling up the climb while looking back over my shoulder and around the switch back's to see guys like Shadd Smith and Brian Jensen as they worked their way past me. It was almost like a Tour de France stage and i was part of the early break that was now blowing up and being passed by the heavy hitters as they attacked the final slopes of Alpe d'Huez. Or at least it was something like that.

i finished 3rd to last in the 2/3 race but i was close to some folk's who i used to think were much faster than me. Then again, i think this course suited me since i'm skinny and there was a lot of uphill. Next time i'll probably get my door's blow off.

So that's it.

Enjoy the photos.

Ciao