The actual Chris Cross Report

Thanks to the power of the intraweb(maybe) I got a front roll call up (sometimes you should be careful what you wish for I guess)which helped with my one & only race goal; Get a good start. Well I take that back I had two goals; the other take a beer hand up from Crusty He informed me via Twitter this was in play.
Mark Studnicki has a good vid of the start. I managed to slot in about 6 or so which in the "elites" seems to be a better than average start. Got to work on my warm up routine more I guess. The first two laps were pretty much a suck fest till I managed to settle in. I worked into a group with Marshall, Alex Edwards(KCCX), & T-Nuts. Somewhere along the line Adam Mills worked in with us. Marshall was killing it on the bricks pulling for his boys. I just sat in & caught the free ride.

After some crashtasticness the group was whittled down to Bill -where are my KCCX socks?-Marshall, & T-Nuts. I figured I was pretty much screwed. T-Nuts has about 10 million miles in his legs this year & Marshall was slowing up waiting for the crash brothers. I told Bill do what you have to since I didn't have the means to bridge up to Tom Price. I just start riding tempo & biding my time for the inevitable.

The crash brothers caught back on & waited about a half lap before the volleys started. Mills punched, I bridged up, he punched it, I bridged up, he punched, I was done! Edwards rode across to him. Then Marshall bridged up leaving me to pass the time with Troy. I guess Marshall felt guilty or spent & came back to us. Bill is a class act racer so I knew I'd get no help from him chasing his teammates. I put my head down & pulled for a couple of laps till the finish.

I'll tell on myself here but hopefully I won't get relegated like my teammate did in the 3's race for a beer hand up. I took one with two to go. A FULL PBR. Next time dump some out Crusty. I was going at least 15(UHHHMM kph) up that hill. Perfect handup though. Beer flying everywhere. I took a big swig & hucked it since there was still racing to be had. Turns out KfC took a beer hand up in Cinci after giving a CX clinic in the UCI3. All the cool kids are doing it. Anyway turns out I gave Bill a pretty good shower which explains his comment about the hand up being AWESOME.

We hit the last section before the cobbles & Mills started yelling something. Turns out he was tell Bill he was going to wait for him. Those guys SUCK!(sarcasm before anyone gets panties in a twist) I had nothing left anyway & was lucky to hold off Troy. I'll take 12th since 10th was insight. I'll get my top 10 in "elites" before long.

Jeff Yielding made the trip over. After the race we were chatting & he mentioned how much faster KC CX racing was than the Lou. I've been saying this for awhile now. If you want to go fast come to KC. Right now there are some fast dudes riding the piss out of CX bikes. "elites" this year is a whole new ball game.