Time to ride!: Tour of KC

After a few mellow days in KC we raced the "new" Tour of Kansas City this past weekend. New courses, new organizers, and a decent prize list attracted a few powerhouses from the region. But still the Tour of KC Part # 2 in August will happen, too.

Day 1 was pretty technical and more like a circuit race with some false flats and lots of turns. Scott Moninger came out of retirement and him and Alex rode away half-way through the race. So the chances were 50/50 and that only "ok" but not perfect if you wanna win the race. I got away from a little chase group with about 5 or 6 laps to go and could distance myself from the field but didn't catch Alex/Moninger. I got close but had to settle for third and "The Cagle" did what he does best and just jumped the field for 4th place. Mat A. rounded out the Top 10 with a 9th place. 2-3-4 is solid, but we knew we gotta win one of those days here. Also, it was great to see some new faces on the team: Joseph Schmalz and 52x14 junior Chris Wallace rode very well and did lots of work for the team.

Day 2 was over in Lee's Summit, MO. (That's the place where I sent LOTS of paperwork - and even more $$$ - since the Dept. of Homeland Security Center is based out of there...) It looked like it would rain before the race and everyone I asked told me it wouldn't. So I left my MAXXIS rain tires in the pit and went with the slick Michelins. Not the best choice since it started pouring on us 20minutes into the race. Above mentioned Chris Wallace made the race winning break with 3 others and while the peloton was busy chasing each other and not crashing, the leaders rode away. Alex and Mat made the split with a few others, too and the field got lapped with 1 lap to go. It was a bit "problematic" to figure out who's who in the last lap and we ended up with a 4th, 5th and 7th place while Moninger - yet again - took the win. First crit in the rain this year and it was actually not bad at all once the dirt was washed off and we could go fast again.

The final Day of ToKC was held in downtown and was a pretty tough, short and fast course. It was just below 1K in length and we ended up doing 54 laps on it - ouch! The best lap time was a flat one minute or 32mph, courtesy of "The Cagle". Hats up to the organizers for finding that course. That was challenging and fun at the same time. 25minutes in I found myself in a break of 10 along with teammates Joseph and Mat - 2 Big Shark guys incl. Moninger and 4 (!) Trek guys were with us, too. That was a tough one to crack and I wasn't really sure how we can get a win out of this. But, things turned in our favor when Mat came from "almost-getting-dropped" to attacking over the S/F-line along with Hartman and C.Hall. The three rode away and the rest of the break (we already had the field lapped once) took it easy for the last few laps. Mat's group of three ended up lapping a few riders again and Chad gave him a killer-leadout to take the win. I managed 7th while Joseph got 10th. Not bad and we finally got one win out of the weekend.

Next stop: Tour of Lawrence next weekend.