Diamond Blackfan Cyclocross Challenge

First cross race of the season and my first DNF ever in said event. What a way to start the season off! I had planned on doubling up and racing the CAT 4 race at 10AM and then racing the Master’s 35+ race at Noon. I had volunteered to help Tige set the course up, so I ended up working right until the start time for the CAT 4 race. No big deal, because I had plenty of time to get ready for the Master’s 35+ event. I decided to ride the Ritchey today, with the Matrix Carbon wheels and Tufo Cubus tubulars. The Tufo’s performed flawlessly and hooked up on everything, never once washing out. They are great tires! I definitely won the loudest bike of the day award. Man my brakes were howlers! Everbody on the course knew when I was tapping the brakes. I don’t know if it was the tow in on the Zipp carbon pads or just the crappy braking surface on the cheap Taiwan carbon rims, but something was way off. Anyhow, I was sitting about mid pack on the 3rd lap and starting to gain some positions back, when disaster struck, I clipped my toe on one of the barriers and my chain dropped on my re-mount. So that really killed my momentum. Then I started to notice that my front brake pad was rubbing the sidewall of the tire and when I would get out of the saddle, the tire would rub the fork. Turns out that the skewer handle on my wheel had broken off and my wheel was loose. I did not put my spare wheels in the wheel pit, so my race was done. From here on out, I will have a bike in the wheel pit and not set my brakes up the night before a race, without testing them first. Lesson learned!!
Overall, Cow Town had a good showing. John Wagner won the Men’s CAT 4 race and Chris Locke took 2nd in the Single Speed race. Damian Almanza and Tige Lamb both had top ten finishes in their races. Tige did a great job designing the course and I think I heard someone say that the race had the largest one day turnout ever for a local KC race. Very nice!