Tour of KC

The 2010 Breakthrough Tour of Kansas City featured some really enjoyable stages, very hot and humid weather, and some strong fields. I skipped the Friday race at longview lake due to a late start time and to save the legs for Cliff Drive.

My first KC area race was at Cliff Drive in 2008. It is a fun circuit race, features one steep, winding climb plus a shorter gradual climb, a fun and technical descent, at just under 3 miles per lap.

The Pro/1/2 race was about 50 miles in the heat of the afternoon. I struggled to drink enough during the race. I tried to get into some promising looking moves, but nothing that I was in stuck. I was far too ambitious early, and was feeling the effects of my efforts plus the heat about half way through the race. After hanging in the group for a few more laps, I realized I was not going to be able to climb with the group any more. I rode two "cool down" laps with Matt Baugher (epic) then pulled the plug.

Sundays race, Power & Light Criterium, was a fun, very short (~.5mi), course. It only goes around one downtown block over the Interstate, which is pretty neat. Corner 3 and 4 are super fast at the bottom of a little hill, but the course is wide open so you carry a ton of speed through the bottom half. I got there early to volunteer with Janelle until my race. We corner marshalled at the super fast corner, which provided great views of the action. Our race went by surprizingly fast. At about half way through, Nick Coil (Tradewind Energy) and Jeff Hartman (Big Shark) had already lapped the field. In the final laps, things got even more chaotic. Somehow, I ended up in a small group off the front of another group. We got lapped again by Nick and Jeff, and we lapped Brian Jenson (Tradewind) and Brad Huff's (Jelly Belly) group. Thus, the sprint involved people on three different laps. I really had no idea where I was overall, but guessed that I ended up 10th. (Actually, when the dust settled, I was 8th.)

In all, it was a good weekend of racing. Up next: The Tour of Lawrence.