Week 9, First Race

In short. The weather was good, The course was good . . . I think it even benefitted my riding style. It just didn't benefit my bicycle setup. Of the 38 starters I took 8th place. Not bad I guess considering I dropped the chain no less than 5 times. I tried using the 1x10 setup. I was using a chain guard on the outside, and a Deda Chaindog/3rd Eye on the inside. Seems to work for everbody else. I suspect the flaw comes in when you combine this setup with a long cage rear deraileur. Look the the picture below.

Look at the slack in my chain . . . (Yes I took as many links as I could out of the chain before the race) . . . the chain came off three time at the barriers. This might be why.

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The course was not kind to those left behind. A lot of the course was narrow, tight, and twisty. It's hard to pass people when it's like this. I didn't mind so much because it was fun. . . . I mean it's a race . . . After the start I was within eye-sight of the leaders. I was working my way up front, but when you drop your chain and have to stop to fix it, you have to let everybody you just past, pass you, then you have to repass those people again . . . x5 . . . you tend to loose sight of the front. I stuck with it anyway, I figured out where I was dropping my chain and took caution. I passed 5 people on my last lap and that was good, keeps me optimistic.
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Well I have to start someplace. It's not a bad place to start because if I get my chain issue figured out I should finish higher. I'm also going to start working on speed and repeated accelerations.
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Next Race
http://www.kansascitycross.com/images/stories/2009DBCCFlyer.pdf
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Week 9's numbers

Week 8

The Cycloscross season opens up this weekend with Swope Cross in swope park. The Cat-4 Race is 30 minutes. I should be able to keep the hammer down for that long. It's just a matter of how fast the hammer will go once put down.
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If nothing else, I'll have more than spreadsheets to post next week.

Week 7 and the Inner Tube Contraption

This is the Inner tube contraption under construction. Once this gets painted up you will see it at Benetti's Coffee shop in Raytown. It will contain Inner tubes, some basic tools, and a pump. Thanks to the Raytown Post who donated this broken paper box that we are going to recondition. We're not sure exactly how it's all going to work. Since there is no bike shop within miles of Raytown, we've decided it's a good idea to have some simple stuff on hand incase of a break down.

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Week 7 in the books. Nothing reallt to note. Saturdays have been simple rides a couple hours long with no real direction other than to just get out and enjoy riding. If you don't get out every once in a while and look around, and enjoy the ride, then what's the point? I'm going to start doing the Lee's Summit Tuesday Night ride. It goes a little long than the 75th street Brewery ride, and with a lot less stop lights. Last week was a good test, a coouple more of these and I might be ready for the first race.