Diamond Blackfan Race Report and Pictures

Round #1 of the De Stad Cyclocross Van Kansas Series is in the books. Great turnout with 260 entries. My goal was 250 so goal #1 was achieved. Goal #2 was to get up on the box in the Single Speed class. We had a good field today with 17 SS entries so it was going to be a challenge, especially with working Friday, Saturday and Sunday morning getting ready for the event. Plus I have not recovered from last weekends Redman.

I was able to talk Carolynn into racing cyclocross this season. Today was her first race. Turned out to be a painful, yet valuable learning experience. Welcome to cross honey. I have a nice picture of her, but she said I could not use it. It is a classic for sure. What she does not realize is the Roger has about 50 pictures of her that he is going to post :-)

Christopher also raced after earlier deciding that he was going to sit out this years series. He said he was just not into it right now. I think seeing his Mother racing helped motivate him to suit up and race. Not his best day, especially with him eating peanuts an hour before his race. He got a 5th on the day. He wanted to know if that would earn him a medal. I said no and asked if it this motivated him to actually train. Answer was a maybe. I will see if I can get him out there a couple of times a week. More juniors are racing so maybe that will motivate him also.

For me I had a solid event after a horrible start. Our "call ups" did not go so well today. Just did not have enough help I guess. We will get it right at Chris Cross for sure, but for today I was near the back at the start. I could see that Steve Songer, and the other top single speed guys were way up front at the 1/2 point so I really had to push it for the first to laps to try and stay in contention. Being behind on this course sucked with all the turns. I bridged up to train of riders that included 2 through 5. Songer had already checked out and I started to focus on trying to get up to 2nd. I made an aggressive pass on my ex teammate Garet Steinmetz (sorry about that Garet :-)) because I could see that Theodore Fleming was getting away. Soon I found myself in 3rd and battling with Fleming. I went for the pass on the little gravel section and it stuck this time. I had to put in several attacks before I could get a good enough gap to settle into my own pace. I cruised into the finish in 2nd place. Goal #2 achieved.

I don't really have any specific goals for this years cross races except to have fun and stay in decent fitness for a strong 2010 season. I plan to race SS in the De Stad series and Cat 3 in all the other events.

Here are some pictures that Carolynn and I took. Don't worry, a new camera is on the Christmas list...

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