Heartland Park Topeka Gran Prix

Best course of the year. Finally, we had some soft dirt to ride in!

This race is one of the best races of the year, at least for this area. Someone needs to give the promoter $8k so they can make it uci, it has that potential.

Knowing that this was my only race this weekend, I decided to double up back to back. Haven't ridden since blvd. cup, so I new I wouldn't have much zap in my legs.


I raced my ss with piranha tires, these things are the best tires you can get for clinchers, or tubeless. I ran them at 35psi and they were awesome. Even in the slick dirt they gripped well and just rolled over everything. The tufo primus flexus tires, though very fast, seemed to grip too much on the dirt, and slow down. It took a while to adjust in the open race, I really didn't need to brake at all with the dirt being so slow, but did the first two laps, since in the single speed I had to brake cuz the piranhas were rolling so fast.

I was off the front and caught the 3/4s before we hit the track in the ss race. Slowly worked up to 4th or 5th place behind SC. He was up there just a little ways with 3 to go, but I started riding more conservatively to save some speed for the open race. I won, with 2nd place being 15 seconds or so behind me.


In the open race, we started out flying, I thought I was hurting during the ss race, it was all out in the open. AC and Bill were in front of me going around the track. Finally AC's ultimate power starte gapping us and Bill lead me around, we had 5 seconds on 4th place on the first lap. Then Bill started flying, I couldn't keep up. I road as hard as I could and still finished 3rd. After 3 laps I made the ultimate mistake of shifting down a hill without pedaling into the gear and hit a bump, the chain came off just as I was heading onto the track. Lost a ton of speed and lost Bill. Bills gap went from 10 seconds to 40 seconds and my gap on 4th place went to almost nothing.


The course was wide open, with plenty of technical turns and tough descents/ascents. Lots of power zapping short climbs. Riding at night was the most fun. Can't wait to do it next year.


Road ride today. Come check out the Dogma2. Leaves at 1pm sharp from 39th. Lots of people to be there.