Tour of Kansas City Criterium Bike Race

First let me explain what a Criterium is. Basically it is a bike race on a closed short circuit (3 mile loop) with a lot of twists and turns which make for a very technical race.



This was my first bike race ever. Yes I have done triathlons and duathlons, but this is the first time for just doing a bike race. I started the day driving to some friends house so we could ride to the race start together. This gave us about 13 miles to warm-up in. They live in the south part of Kansas City off of 83rd and Holmes and we had to ride up to North Kansas City to Cliff Drive and Prospect. This was great in that it also allowed me to do my first Urban ride. . . I saw parts of Kansas City that I have never seen before (maybe never want to again too). It was actually fun riding through downtown Kansas City.

We made it to the race start to see the first race of the day go off (8:30 Master's 40+ Men). It was great to see the race, it was a lot of fun to watch and it reminded me of the Tour of Missouri and watching cycling on TV. About 3/4 of the way into their race it started to rain. . RAIN plus Pavement plus BIKES makes for very dangerous conditions. Criteriums are known for being dangerous without the rain and now throw in the rain and who knows what is going to happend. Within 5 minutes of the rain, the announcer let us all know that there was already a crash. . .It wouldn't be the last. . .

The Category 5 men (beginners) started at 9:30 AM. We all lined up and they had more than one announcement on how to be careful on the first part of the course and to be really careful on the turns and decents. They also said we may want to start letting air pressure out of our tires to be able to create more surface area to grip the road better.

The gun went off and we all started up (our race was 4 laps of the 3 mile course). . within the first 50 yards, two guys go down hard and slide across the road. Right then I knew that staying upright on the bike for the whole race would be a win in my book. The crash let some of the guys in front to open up a lead and with the conditions the way they were, I wasn't anxious to chase on the turns that were coming up.

On the big hill before the finish I was able to catch the main group and pass a couple of people, but going down hill after the starting line onto the second lap was where things got sketchy again. The whole Bike Shack race team pretty much went down, 3 guys went down hard and then the next thing I know a guy behind me went down and clipped my back wheel. I managed to stay upright, but I made an executive decision right there, that I wasn't going to ease off and stay away from other riders and out of danger. Afterall, this was just a 12 mile bike race, and I didn't spend all year training for Triathlons and Ironman to give it all up for a broken bone in a bike race.

The last 2 laps consisted of me riding in no man's land, passing a group of 2-3 riders from time to time and just wanting the race to be over. I could see the main chase group, but the rain and turns and mud that was splashing up on me from the nearby construction, just had me peddaling hard but not pushing on the turns or cutbacks.

When I finished, I was all by myself, I really thought I had come in second to last or very close to it. After I finished, I saw that the main chase group in front or me (which had about 7 guys in it) just finished about 10 seconds before me.

After the race, I was talking with the two guys that I rode up to the race with and they each thought they got 5th or 7th place, which meant I probably got around 14th place or so. .

Final Place: 12th out of 49 riders.

I was happy with my finish and had a good time riding to the race and back, it was just the race that I could of done without. :)

I climbed the big hill for the last time, catching a guy that fell off the main chase pack