National Cyclocross Championships

This past weekend was the Cyclocross Nationals held in Kansas City, MO. The venue was near the KC airport and people from all over the country would be coming here to find out who the best of the best was for 2008. This was also a huge opportunity to get visibility and points towards the selection process of representing the US at the Worlds competition in late January 2009 in Hoogerheide, Netherlands.

The trip from Colorado to KC is only a 9 hour drive so there was a great representation of Colorado. The course was hilly and muddy, nothing like what we see in Colorado. Despite the conditions and terrain everyone from Colorado was impressed with their results and some even made their way onto the podium.

Highlights were: Skyler, age 14, made the podium in two different classes. His father Jason was super proud and is sending him off to Belgium next week for a skills camp and an opportunity to race internationally in Belgium. Brandon Dwight , a Boulder bike shop owner and one of our team sponsors made his way to the top step of the podium for a National Champions jersey in the Open 30-34 race. Newly married to his bride this was a wedding gift that could not be topped.

I had intentions to race Singlespeed but the late entry and other fees would make the registration a bit steep so I played support for some friends and it was a good decision in the end. We had a fire drill at 7 am on Sunday on our way to the venue. The wind gusts (up to 50 mph) had ripped a my friend, Rob's bike off the roof of his car and broke his fork. We whipped the car around and headed back to the hotel to get some parts off of some other bikes. This was the fastest fork, brake adjustment in the history of time, and in only 15 minutes we were headed back to the venue. We luckily had 25 minutes to spare before the start which allowed Rob to get warmed up in time for the 8 am start. During the race Rob then snapped his seat post which we think was a result of the high speed bike accident earlier in the morning. Bad luck for Rob but he managed to finish the race.

Just before the Women's race in the morning a huge gust of wind blew down the hill and dropped the temperature 30 degrees in 10 seconds. The Arctic blast that was making its way towards us had finally showed up and the rest of the day it was a struggle just to stay warm.

My old coach, Katie Compton, won her 5th consecutive National Champ jersey in the Women's Pro category and on the Men's Pro side, it was Ryan Trebon who took his 2nd National Champs jersey.