What a weekend of racing at what will soon become the mecca of trails in the KC area. The venue and facilities were top notch and both races had large fields.

The KC Cup Cross event on Saturday had almost 170 racers and the course was challenging and fun. This course favored mountain bikers with all the technical features.

The Green Hills area had 3 racers representing in this cross season kick-off event. Colton Palmer (James's nephew), spanked the Jr. class in winning his first cyclocross event. All those Monday night rides and trying to keep up with the "big dogs" paid off for Colton.
Uncle James jumped right into the fire as he chose to do the open 40+ class. Don't let the 40+ part of this fool you. This class is loaded with experienced fast crossers that dominate the midwest. James finished 16th in a very large, competitive field.

I finished about 3 seconds out of first in the Open 50+ class behind Dan Henson, who just moved up out of the 40+ class. Dan is generally in the top 3 in that class so it will be great to have some new competition. I crashed and broke my shifter so I couldn't change to a higher gear. I'd get ahead of Dan in the twisty stuff and then he'd ride past me on the road where I couldn't shift any higher and was geared out. There is always another day and new motivation.

Lots of cross coming up.

On Sunday, Denny spanked the 30-39 beginners winning by about 5 minutes. His 1st lap time would have put him ahead of the sport 30-39's, but we do know that you have to keep the juice up for more laps in the sport and expert class. Denny is up for the challenge.
James finished 6th in the 40-49 experts and it's great so see James back and going hard after being gone most of the race season. He's on a mission to work hard in the remainder of the season and come back stronger in 2010.

I finished 1st in the 50+ class but there was only two of us. This will be changing in the next couple of years as Lyle and James will be moving up in class and pushing me.

I had a blast at this race....I was a little on edge til I cleared the "JawBreaker" section...then I turned up the heat. The 1st time I rode the course I hated it....then after a few laps on Wednesday night I started getting use to it and had lots of fun!a I'd sure like to take credit for winning by 5 minutes but I think it was more like 2 min......the guy who won the Sport 30-39 is on my list.....unfortunately he normally places 5th or 6th in the MWFTS races so Ive already mentioned to Margie that Im stepping up the training immediately.......this was her response...... Its all good tho.. I had a fun time and will be picking up my new Salsa Chili Con Crosso bike on Friday night to begin my cross career!!! GAME ON!!!!
My next purchase however will be one of those cool looking short billed biker hats...those things rock!!!!!