Queen City and more

Saturday was a hot one and the humidity was off the scale. I wasn’t racing until late that night so I decided to do the dogs ride in the morning. The fog was sooo thick Sat. morning you could refill a water bottle on the bike just by holding it out in the wind.

After the ride I grabbed some lunch at Chipotle. I had some spare time before I needed to leave for Springfield, so I moved the home theater components into my new A/V cabinet. I designed it and my dad build. He did a great job and it turned out better than I expected. Arts and Crafts style. All quarter sawn white oak. Shelves for components on the left and drawers for DVD on the right, both behind oak flat panel doors. A cubbyhole above for the center channel speaker and two small drawers on either side for CD’s. Throw the plasma on top. I’d post pictures and talk about wiring and IR repeaters, but that’s been done before. By the time I was finished it was time to roll for Springfield.

Two crits. One Saturday night under the lights and one Sunday afternoon in the heat of the day. When I was about 40 miles north of Springfield I could see a storm rolling our direction. The course was 100% wet by the time I got there. Not raining real hard, but hard enough to soak you to the bone on a bike. I was hoping it would pass through by our 9:25 race time, but no such luck. There were several delays between races and by 8:45 they canceled the remaining Masers and 1-2-3 crits due to lightning. I wasn’t really looking forward to racing in the rain, so I was okay with it.

Side note: Downtown Spring field is total hobo town. There were some very unique individuals hanging out watching the races. A couple of them got in a wiener rubbing contest behind the jonnie-on-the-spots while the subject of their argument sat under a nearby tree and casually looked on. A different one proudly proclaimed to me that he had a bike too and asked how to sign-up for the race. I directed him to registration.

Anyway...

The Liningers hosted Phil, Joey and me at their farm just north of Springfield. Nice old place in the country.

Sunday was hot, but the storm had sucked most of the humidity out of the air so it wasn’t as suffocating as the State TT a week before. I employed the new (to me) Bowes Cooling System. Totally high tech (zippy bag of ice in the back pocket). It turned into nothing but a bag of hot water by mid race, but it worked while it lasted. The course was flat with only four corners. Two of them sweeping right-handers. Gonna be a fast one! Phil raced the masters (4th place) then doubled-up by joining me in the P/1/2/3 race. I got in a couple breaks that did not stick before the final break went up the road with Brian, Justin, Tracy and not me. A couple groups try to bridge to them but we could not get it done. Down to a lap to go and I was out of position sitting about 15th. I tried to work my way up but it was too late and I ended up 6th in the field sprint and 9th overall. I did too much work in the early part of the race, but at least my legs felt strong at the end.

Jeff joined me at the Tuesday night crit in Lenexa. We beat the rain and finished about 15 minutes before the skies opened up. The B race got drenched.

Sunday is the State Crit in Jeff City and it looks like it’s going to be another hot one.