Kansas City Cup... A Pretty Good Trip.

I went down to Kansas City for the inaugural race at the Swope Park trails and man, was I glad I did. That's some extra sweet stuff they've got going on down there. Man, you want technical, rough, twisty and oh, did I mention rocks? Yeah, they got 'em. Lots of 'em. If you've ever been to Perry Lake, or Clinton Lake... It's that type of place. Landahl Park doesn't have anything on Swope... It's sweet.

And I was surprised to find that I can actually still race xc! Whaddya know?!! In a race that was fast enough that super honch Cameron Chambers finished second, I was actually able to pull off a fifth place finish overall, and third in the 30-39 experts. But let me tell you, I need to do at least three xc races each season to remind myself that the hardest endurance race start is like a walk in the park compared to a pro/expert xc start. Holy shit. Ironically, I actually rode the second lap faster than the first, because I didn't have traffic blocking my deal and was able to let my Big Mama do her thing (which she did very well, thank you very much, Salsa Cycles!! My bike was a HUGE part of my success today).

Thanks also to Craig, Scott, Jim and all of the folks at Heartland Racing Productions. They put on some of the finest produced events in the Midwest, hands-down. I've said it before and I'll say it again, promoters from anywhere could learn a thing or ten by coming down and taking a look at how these guys put their races on... how they do their raffles, how they set their podiums up, how they take care of their participants. It's really good. You feel how much they care about you. And that's what, ultimately, makes people want to come back, and tell their friends about it... Plus, they raised more than $1,000 for the Swope trails, and that's really cool.

I wanted to give one final shout out and thanks to my bro Rob at Oakley. The Jawbone Transitions SOLFX sunglasses I've been racing with this past month have been absolutely the finest eyewear I've used and today's conditons, where we were going in-and-out of the trees a lot, made the most of the Transitions lenses. It was humid in the trees too, and the vented lenses made a big difference in their ability to keep fogging at bay. I was stoked. Thanks again for the opportunity to race with them. I feel very fortunate.