Kirtland Park

Kirtland Park was awesome.

The weather was perfect, there were a ton of people there, the course was really fun, and super dry to boot.

At least on my end, the race went off without a hitch. The course, for the most part seemed to suit my strengths pretty well. Lots of twists and turns, some tricky off camber sections, and I was probably most pleased with the hills! I love climbing, and it's usually in short supply on cross courses. Not here; there were a few nice short steep climbs that proved nice and tough every lap.

With the conditions as nice as they were, and a big A field, I knew the racing was going to be fast.

Off the bat, it definitely was.


I was up in the lead pack going up to the stair runup/ride up. I knew that'd be a spot to get a gap, provided I could beat the bottleneck and make it up.

Luckily I did, and I was able to hang onto the front group. They then promptly worked to turn me inside out. There were some areas, namely the big open grass starting straight that played into my weakness of not having the motor needed to stay on someone's wheel.

So I'd try to stay consistent through all the climbing and other tricky stuff, and try to catch enough recovery to hang on the grass field dragstrip. It worked for maybe 3 laps, then finally I got spit off the back. It wasn't all bad, as I could keep them in my sights, and did so for the rest of the lap; with big hopes of bridging back up.

Then I dropped my chain...

Shit.

It was on the really bumpy downhill right after the stair runup. I went to pedal and nothing happened. Sweet. This pretty much plagued me and I dropped it twice more in the race for a grand total of three times. I'm ponying up the cash to buy a Paul Chainkeeper to make sure this never happens again, because my Salsa guard and thirdeye aren't cutting it.

So after chain drop number one I was able to get it fixed, and get onto Steve Twining's wheel to get a tow across the grass field. We rode together for a minute, then he had his own mechanical issues (course tape in the cassette.) I was in no man's land for another lap, until he worked his butt off and bridged back up. Pretty dang impressive.

We pretty much rode together for the rest of the race.



It was awesome seeing the lines he was taking and all that good stuff. He seemed to gain speed out of turns, which is definitely something I need to work on.

When all was said and done I rolled across the line in eighth place, which I'm absolutely astounded by. I think everything in the cosmos just sort of lined up and I lucked out and rolled into my best finish of the year. Wooo!

And for the obligatory Lake Effect Shoutout. Hot damn everyone did awesome today.

Matt Weeks won (again), Robert did awesome in B's (second behind some pretty serious sandbagger), Shawn Adams, Rudy, Scott Garman on a stomach full of burrito, The Maruts, etc etc etc etc.

Good job to everyone that raced!

States are up next, then the series wraps up in Copley at Boughton Farm.