Planet Bike Nationals Part 1

Well we made it to Kansas City OK and it's been non-stop ever since. My Dad raced on Thursday and did the Men's B's 45+, unfortunately he had a mechanical in the first lap but after falling behind he worked his way back up and passed a few people. Overall I think he was really happy with his race and had fun! He was thrilled to complete his first mud race!!!!

I raced Friday morning at 9 a.m. and it was like night and day compared to last year. The course was frozen but not nearly as wet and muddy and rutted as last year, thank god. I ended up riding a pair of zipps with tufo flexus tires because we had been told that our edge wheels we're not UCI legal, of course they told us we could ride them right as I got to the start line, but oh well. The course was great, it went up and up and up with some switch backs and then right after a tough little series of stairs and steep hills it became a long descent with lots of off camber turns.

Coryn attacked right from the gun and had about 15 seconds on me from the start, but I gapped the rest of the field and so it was me chasing Coryn for the whole race. I started to make up time on her during the second lap, especially on the up hill, and my the second half of the third and final lap I had the gap down to five seconds when I crashed, hard. It took me a bit to get myself up and back on the bike and by then it was to late. I finished muddy and second about 30 seconds down. It was a fun race, despite the disappointment.

I've spent the rest of the weekend cheering my teammates on to some great results, Kristin had an exciting sprint finish, which she won, for fifth and the final spot on the podium! Diane repeated as the 55-59 national champ, Patti just missed the podium to finish a strong 6th and Bob, despite being sick and having a mechanical fought through a tough field to finish 7th.

I've got to go get ready for the elite race, but i'll try to post pics and more details later!