The Early Days of Cyclocross

It is hard to believe that it has been 15 years since I started racing cyclo-cross.  There were not many events to participate in so I made what I consider now an unwise decision to promote an event myself.  That first CrossLogic Cyclocross Challenge was a great learning experience. I worked my butt off to gain permission and create a new event.  A special Thank You goes out to Mark Thomas for lending a hand.  Now I know one reason why he was so helpful back then.  He just wanted to race.

It is hard to believe it but Kansas City grew to be the hotbed of cross in the early 2000's to well we will not go there.....  We had riders regularly coming down from Iowa & Nebraska because St. Louis' cyclocross scene hadn't developed yet.

This might have been one of my worst ideas ever.  A team relay cross race.  I actually thought it would work and that riders would like to race as a team.  I think we only had like 4 teams at the most participate. 

After a couple of good years in Parkville we got kicked out due politics basically.  The BOA were fighting with my key contact for the use of English Landing Park and when it came time to vote to allow our race again we were denied. 

I spent many hours (months really)  searching for a new venue that would I felt make a good cyclocross course.  I had access to a lot of parks which I could of used, but I was not going to use just any park.  I did not want to build just any course.  I wanted my courses to be fun and challenging.  It took many visits to Riverside's City Hall and a couple of presentation but I finally found a good venue in E. H Young Park. 

Every fall my team, family and I would work hard to produce what we thought were good cyclocross courses.  One of my all time favorite sections was the climb out of the river at E.H. Young.  If you were able to ride it (like me above) it was a nice advantage.  Plus is just sucks getting off your bike. 

I always like to put in a wide variety of terrain in my courses.  Sure it was not easy to build these courses, but that is what I felt all the racers deserved.  I made natural obstacles and rarely used things like barriers to force riders to discount.  My belief is to make a challenging and fun course that does not offer an unfair advantage but is best suited to an all around rider.  It did not matter if can from a mountain bike back ground or a road back ground.  You would going to enjoy my course.  Well, at least I hope you all enjoyed them.

 Damian looking good as always.  I think Damian my be the only person who has raced all of the races I have ever promoted.  Does he like my courses that well or is it the free entries?

The Riverside Cyclocross Festival was always held very close to Carolynn's birthday.  In fact, the race even fell on the actual day.   Never did she ever say anything about celebrating her birthday at the race.  Roger Harrison sings Happy Birthday and brough her a cake!

Why on earth did I ever decide to put sand into my courses?  Back then I thought they were cool, but now I just hate sand.  Funny how life works some times.

I guess I got insperation from my first state championship event I ever attended over in Columbia, MO.  Christopher in route to his first ever state championship in cyclocross.  One thing that kid can do is ride sand and rocks for that matter. 

I might have to bring back the beard.  Or maybe at least the chops

That little junior Redline CX bike was sweet.  Christopher earned a closet full of trophies and awardes on that thing.

He won so many that the Kansas City Star even wrote an article on him.  Those were the days....

10 years ago I was all focused on growing the sport especially the juniors.  Looking back I now realize I put a lot of pressure on Christopher without really know it.  That is one thing I would do differently now is to try and keep cycling more fun.

Back to sand.  I have to mention it again because I do really hate it (unless I am riding a motorcycle in it then I just love it)  Sand can be very challenging as you can see by the above picture taken at the  2006 Riverside Cyclocross Festivals.  

I still remember this poor beginner women's cyclocross racers.  She was a trooper and got up and finished strong.  Heck, she even showed up at the next round of the series and paid to race again.

This guy had an awesome handmade bike and he could ride that thing on that Riverside course.  I do miss those old courses and the cool features they had. 

One of my favorite pictures I ever took. Nate in action - they dude could bunny-hop just about anything. 

I can not tell you how much time I put in just to build this one feature.  When I look at most of  today's cyclocross courses I realize just how foolish I was.  Thinking that riders actually cared about the course.

I always like Shadd Smith. He came to most of our events and for many years took home the win in the Cat 1 class.

Mark Studnicki and I traveled to a lot of cyclocross races together for a few years there.  He was one hell of an athlete.   Those were some fun times traveling up to Iowa and Nebraska racing cross.

I was actually in good shape back when racing with Mark and won the Mid-America Cross Cup back in 2004/5 when John Lefler and I promoted it.

The money tree idea was a hit.  At the height of the De Stad Series it was nice feature.  Christopher (during his X-Box years) demonstrates good form.  He only wanted the dollar to buy another game...

I did really enjoy racing cyclocross back then.  Who know, maybe I can regain that passion this year.

Dave looking good in the mud.  One of the best parts of cyclocross is your teammates and the fun times you can have together.   Those good memories will last forever.

I can still remember this battle between Tige Lamb and Mark Studnicki back in 2009.  The final round of the De Stad Cyclocross Van Kansas Series (still love that name) and it was a cold rainy day.  The course was just getting slick and very hard to even ride.  These guys went at it hard and put on a awesome show.  I think Studnicki was a little stronger, but Tige was better in the mud.  It came down the the last lap with Tige Lamb taking the win and title.

That final round in 2009 was epic for me. Everything came together for just a great day. Racing in the mud is what cyclo-cross is all about.  Only wish we had more of those types of events.

We always tried to make the course look as good as possible with the limited resources that we had. 

Some of the best barriers ever.   Even though I did not like to use them, Rich Anderson build up a cool set so I just could not say no.  JP Brocket demonstrates proper form.

One of the most challenging events to hold was one of the Kansas State Cyclocross races held over in Leavenworth Kansas.  There was talk about endangering the riders and  travel concerns.  All I knew is I could not drive any stakes into the frozen ground and had to resort to cones.  It worked and no one died traveling to the venue.

Still to this day one of the best logos ever. Eric Tiffany always came up with some very good ideas and helped us out more than he know.  The logo was great, but the idea to also hold a trail run on the same day as a cyclocross race was not.

This picture brings back a lot of memories.  It is actually at the first Haven's Cyclocross event which is retuning this weekend.  Hopefully Brendan has a course for us with a lot less climbing.  The only thing worse than sand is hills :-)

Part II coming soon....

Old God's Country Results

Found this old report with results from over a decade ago while recovering data from a hard drive.  I remember that day very well and also remember some of the below names.  Good times....

The 2nd Annual God's Country Off-Road Duathlon was a huge success.  With over 150 racers this year.  Everyone enjoyed the cool weather, fun course and great food. 

In the short course, Tim Fisher opened up a large lead on the first trail run.  Chris Locke, riding a single speed,  used his knowledge of the Lawrence River Trails  to close to within seconds of the leader.  Both were in the transition together and stayed close on the run until Fisher used his good running form to take the win.....On the women's side, Jean Lucas used her strong biking skills to open up a large lead on Dawn Clements.  Dawn was able to close it down to within 30 seconds at the end.

In the long course,  the fastest time of the day was turned in by the male relay team of Bill Marshall & Lance Sulzen.  They were closely followed by the overall men's winner Tige Lamb.  Lamb easily won today's event over Nicholas Baldwin.  Glenda Taylor makes it two years in a row.  Taylor, who also is a masters racers, used her cycling fitness to her advantage to win over Laura Cheek.  Cheek ended with second overall - 1st 30 - 39 Female.

Complete results can be found at:

http://multisportmarketing.tripod.com/  or

http://www.transitiontimes.com/localnews.cfm?local=Missouri

Race #	Name	Time	Age-Groug Place	Course
139	Tim Fisher	49.22	1st Overall Male	Short
2	Chris Locke	50.08	1st Single Speed	Short
157	Thom Leonard	53.49	1st 50+ Male	Short
133	Allyn Smith	55.17	1st 35 - 39 Male	Short
138	Carl Bruggeman	56.04	2nd 35 - 39 Male	Short
36	Tony Layton	56.16	1st 40 - 44 Male	Short
112	Jean Lucas	58.06	1st Overall Female	Short
134	Dawn Clements	58.23	1st 25 - 29 Female	Short
150	Mike Lacy	59.10	1st  45 - 49 Male	Short
28	Kevin Henderson	1.00.15	3rd 35 - 39 Male	Short
72	Cody Barnett	1.00.27	4th 35 - 39 Male	Short
29	Peter Henderson	1.01.01	5th 35 - 39 Male	Short
77	Nathan Curtis	1.01.06	1st 20  - 29 Male	Short
132	Allison Adams	1.01.12	1st 30 - 39 Female	Short
128	Steve Obermueller	1.01.15	2nd 45 - 49 Male	Short
122	Brad Storm	1.01.35	3rd 45 - 49 Male	Short
126	Nicole Kirby	1.01.38	2nd 25 - 29 Female	Short
161	Larry Kietzman	1.01.44	2nd 50 + Male	Short
141	Elizabeth White	1.02.01	1st 20 - 24 Female	Short
34	Lance Lane	1.02.24	6th 35 - 39 Male	Short
46	Charles Newton	1.02.38	7th 35 - 39 Male	Short
40	Mike Lynch	1.02.42	4th 45 - 49 Male	Short
47	Karen Owens	1.04.14	2nd 20 - 24 Female	Short
73	Jonathan Bubalo	1.04.48	2nd 20 - 29 Male	Short
24	Zach Hagan	1.04.58	3rd 20 - 29 Male	Short
5	Chad Babcock	1.05.22	1st 30 - 34 Male	Short
140	Christopher Mesekewren	1..05.25	8th 35 - 39 Male	Short
57	Buzz taylor	1.05.59	5th 45 - 49 Male	Short
63	Mark Wolff	1.06.49	4th 20 - 29 Male	Short
52	Judith Russell	1.07.00	1st 40 - 49 Female	Short
129	Clarie Brook	1.07.07	3rd 25 - 29 Female	Short
121	Dave Shultz	1.07.25	2nd 30 - 34 Male	Short
119	Brandi Resa	1.07.38	2nd 30 - 39 Female	Short
6	Jody Bailey	1.07.41	6th 45 - 49 Male	Short
42	Ron Marah	1.08.12	7th 45 - 49 Male	Short
30	Shelly Kampschroeder	1.08.46	3rd 30 - 39 Female	Short
32	Vickie Lamb	1.08.47	4th 30 - 39 Female	Short
75	Jill Chalupa	1.09.53	5th 30 - 39 Female	Short
146	Charlie Stein	1.11.06	9th 35 - 39 Male	Short
65	Brain Wyman	1.11.13	2th 40 - 44 Male	Short
144	Ian Lyles	1.11.15	10th 35 - 39 Male	Short
39	Dale Lybarger	1.11.36	3rd 50 + Male	Short
105	Marti Gooch	1.11.47	3rd 40 - 44 Male	Short
152	Ted Colbryn	1.13.10	4th 40 - 44 Male	Short
108	Katie Helwig	1.13.17	3rd  20 - 25 Female	Short
115	Larry Munger	1.13.18	3rd 30 - 34 Male	Short
59	Brain Weese	1.17.04	5th 20 - 29 Male	Short
153	Scott Mills	1.19.05	11th 35 - 39 Male	Short
107	Julio Grapa	1.19.50	4th 30 - 34 Male	Short
70	Jill  Aleman	1.21.17	2nd 40 - 49 Female	Short
69	Stephan Aleman	1.21.18	8th 45 - 49 Male	Short
51	Alan Robertson	1.22.56	5th 30 - 34 Male	Short
155	Carrie Maclellan	1.23.00	4th 25 - 29 Female	Short
23	Gloria Griffin	1.23.17	6th 30 - 39 Female	Short
151	Nicole Litten	1.28.06	5th 25 - 29 Female	Short
154	Laura Hogue	1.28.07	6th 25 - 29 Female	Short
43	Jean McGuire	1.29.58	3rd 40 - 49 Female	Short
156	Maisie Gibson	1.29.59	7th 25 - 29 Female	Short
89	Bill Marshall/ Lance Sulzen	1.30.24	1st Male Relay	Long
33	Tige Lamb	1.35.47	1st Overall Male	Long
83	Rikki Hacker/Craig Sullivan	1.35.59	2nd Male Relay	Long
80	Mike Goodwin/Gerard Arantowicz	1.36.18	3rd Male Relay	Long
137	Nicholas Baldwin	1.47.39	1st 25 - 29 Male	Long
3	Damian Almanza	1.47.48	1st 30 - 34 Male	Long
76	Mike Classen	1.40.02	1st 40 - 49 Male	Long
142	Greg Dunlap	1.40.09	2nd 25 - 29 Male	Long
120	Hector Rios	1.41.03	1st 35 - 39 Male	Long
145	Eric Nelson	1.41.20	2nd 35 - 39 Male	Long
163	Lyle Riedy	1.44.11	2nd 40 - 49 Male	Long
9	Rich Carstensen	1.44.17	2nd 30 - 34 Male	Long
79	Paul Freeman	1.45.47	3rd 30 - 34 Male	Long
124	Ken Welsh	1.45.58	3rd 35 - 39 Male	Long
27	Rob Hays	1.46.18	4th 35 - 39 Male	Long
78	Jason Fife	1.47.14	3rd 25 - 29 Male	Long
123	Thomas Trusdale	1.47.43	1st 50+ Male	Long
90	Sid Dening/Dave Burnett	1.49.44	4th Male Relay	Long
68	Glenda Taylor	1.49.57	1st Overall Female	Long
147	Ken Giefer	1.50.06	2nd 50 + Male	Long
17	Jason Elsenraat	1.51.33	4th 25 - 29 Male	Long
88	Liz Hellmann/Roland Varga	1.52.36	1st Co-ed Relay	Long
55	Rick Smith	1.52.38	4th 30 - 34 Male	Long
38	Aaron Luffman	1.52.41	5th 25 - 29 Male	Long
86	Nissa Perry/David Pitt	1.53.05	2nd Co-ed Relay	Long
114	James Meeks	1.53.55	5th 35 - 39 Male	Long
50	Mike Robers	1.54.25	5th 30 -34 Male	Long
106	Deron Graham	1.54.56	6th 25 - 29 Male	Long
81	Kevin Allen/Don Austin	1.55.54	5th Male Relay	Long
12	Rober Cordray	1.55.59	6th 30 - 34 Male	Long
10	Laura Cheek	1.56.09	1st 30 - 39 Female	Long
7	Mike Burns	1.56.10	7th 30 - 34 Male	Long
162	Todd Koch	1.56.53	8th 30 - 34 Male	Long
127	Dan Carter	1.57.04	3rd 40 - 49 Male	Long
25	Jeff Hall	1.57.06	4th 40 - 49 Male	Long
136	Chris Joseph	1.57.28	1st Single Speed	Long
8	Wayman Caldwell	1.57.33	9th 30 - 34 Male	Long
158	Dwight Davis	1.58.30	7th 25 - 29 Male	Long
53	Hugh Ryan	1.58.46	10th 30 - 34 Male	Long
143	Richard Johnson	1.59.16	11th 30 - 34 Male	Long
87	Debbie Speer	2.00.04	1st 20 - 29 Female	Long
117	Ed Nelson	2.00.25	6th 35 - 39 Male	Long
31	Steven Carney	2.00.36	7th 35 - 39 Male	Long
135	Eric Struckhoff	2.02.55	8th 35 - 39 Male	Long
84	Phil Kelsey/Paul Small	2.03.28	6th Male Relay	Long
91	Tucker Kelsey/Trent Kelsey	2.03.50	7th Male Relay	Long
11	Jim Christian	2.05.06	9th 35 - 39 Male	Long
62	Kent Wilson	2.05.10	5th 40 - 49 Male	Long
37	Frank Long	2.06.46	8th 25 - 29 Male	Long
74	Casey Caughron	2.07.47	9th 25 - 29 Male	Long
66	Nikki Browning	2.07.51	2nd 20 - 29 Female	Long
110	Brendon Jenks	2.08.15	12th 30 - 34 Male	Long
82	Katherin Mountain/Jamie Boring	2.08.21	1st Female Relay	Long
71	Jeff Allen	2.08.27	10th 25 - 29 Male	Long
45	Ted Moore	2.09.41	13th 30 - 34 Male	Long
149	Bill Longergan	2.10.08	10th 35 - 39 Male	Long
125	Paul Yurchak	2.10.25	11th 35 - 39 Male	Long
19	Ed Fonner, Jr	2.10.56	3rd 50 + Male	Long
56	Jefferey Sutton	2.11.35	6th 40 - 49 Male	Long
15	Tony Dorrell	2.15.01	12th 35 - 39 Male	Long
160	Jay Claussen	2.16.07	14th 30 - 34 Male	Long
148	Christy Longergan	2.16.22	2nd 30 - 39 Female	Long
20	Scott Freeman	2.16.23	7th 40 - 49 Male	Long
113	Kristopher McGinley	2.17.47	11th 25 - 29 Male	Long
61	Graydon Wilson	2.18.21	13th 35 - 39 Male	Long
44	Todd Miller	2.21.13	14th 35 - 39 Male	Long
118	Ron Peterson	2.23.43	15th 35 - 39 Male	Long
159	Mike Laurie	DNF
49	Brent Radke	DNF
41	George Macgregor	DNF
109	Eric Hill	DNF
111	Eric Kirchhofer	DNF
116	Eric Nelson	DNF
4	David Andrews	DNF
13	Kimberly Cowen	DNF
14	David Culkin	DNF
18	Susanne Evers	DNF
21	Jason Gerke	DNF
22	Colleen Gerke	DNF
35	Kirsten Larson	DNS
26	Brayan Hayes	DNS
54	Mark Sims	DNS
58	Sherri Wattenbager	DNS
64	Mathew Woody	DNS
100	Phil Gronniger	DNS