Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Home Stays (and points)

Ladies and Gentlemen,
I hope everyone is as excited for this Saturdays MO state champs as Jeremy and I are.
It's going to be a fast, yet very challenging course as many of you already know from early October. Series points will be posted by the time you are reading this, so that those of you who have been consistently racing the BC races this season will know exactly where you stand going into Saturday's race.
Also, for any of you out of towners needing a place to stay Friday night, let me know. I have room for 2-3 of you at my house. Keep in mind that getting up bright and early Saturday morning to head to the race (and so will you), but if you want a free bed to sleep in you are welcome to it (cycleciytkc@yahoo.com).
Let us know if you have any last minute questions before this weekend.

Pre-registration Update

Dudes,

SportsBaseOnline has updated the registration menu to allow people who want to register for their age group category for the MO State Champs races. Registering like this will also allow you to be properly entered in the correct Boss Cross Age Group (i.e., you register for the 40-44 Champ category and you're racing in the 40+ Boss Cross race and eligible for those prizes). This should only affect a few of you. If you're a MO resident, and you're here to race for a championship, register using your age group category. If you're not a MO resident and are going to pre-reg, then use the BC category. Got it? Cool? Thanks!

FLYER AND HOTEL INFO REVISED

All,

Review the flyer below, it's been revised!

Friday, November 26, 2010

Boss Cross #4/MO State Champs Update

Dudes,

A few vocal people have identified some inconsistencies in our callup procedures which apparently favor people who live in the KC area. This isn't really true, but there was a bit of unintended bias toward people who race the Boss Cross Series, regardless of their residence. Shame on you STL for thinking that only KC area riders race this series! Just kidding. But really, good ideas were presented regarding our original flawed callup procedure, so now it's been changed. See the updated post below for the details...

Also, we are moving the women's open race to 10:00 am in order to accommodate for larger fields that we are anticipating. A revised flyer is posted below.

If you are traveling from out of town and need a place to stay, the race venue is located to our local den of iniquity, the Argosy Casino and Hotel. I've stayed there on a couple of occasions. The rooms are great. If falling asleep to the lullabye of slot machines isn't your thing, there is a Super 8 hotel (800 Nw Argosy Parkway, Riverside(816) 505-2888) across the street from the Argosy. There are several hotels located 10 minutes away in North Kansas City, just to the southeast. As I am not aware of how many of you out-of-towners to expect, i have not contacted the hotel to save a block of rooms or anything. If someone would like to take ownership of this task, let me know and we can do something like this. We will definitely consider it for next year depending on the response. The hotels, like I said are directly adjacent to the race course. Not only is the venue there, there is a cool gravel levee trail that you can take for a ride. It's a good spot.

We will not be setting up the course until 2:00pm on FRIDAY 12/3. This is at the request of the City of Riverside. We would ask that any pre-riders do not ride while we're setting up the course. this is like someone coming over to skate the 8 feet wide section of the new miniramp that just got masonite put on that afternoon... I understand that some of you out-of-towners need to check out the course before race day. We are using 90% of the course from the season opener of Boss Cross 2010, and there should be remnants of the course visible on the grass. Also, I will be out there most of the day trying to figure out a way to make the setup process more efficient. Which means that I can give some guys a tour of the course before we start staking and taping. Anyway, that's the deal. Keep the questions coming. email me at jhaynes74@gmail.com or call me @ 816-695-8608. I'm slow on the reply sometimes. Other times I'm not. Talk to you later.

Friday, November 19, 2010

EH Young Park Location


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Missouri State Cyclocross Championships - Flyer and Info

I have to preface this post, as I do most of my screeds, by apologizing to you racers for taking so long to present to you the flyer and information for the 2010 MO State CX Championships. As most of you know, I travel a lot for work, and I just completed a 6 week stay in Northern Michigan. I came home a couple of times to put on Boss Cross 3 and visit the fam, but mostly while I was away, I was pretty isolated from the rest of the world living in a cabin 20 miles from any town... So, I didn't get this information posted, and I received more than a couple desperate emails from people who aren't familiar with my ineptitude and lax manner of taking care of business requesting details regarding callups, classes, and all that stuff. In response to these guys, and the silent majority, we'll get to that.

First, I would like to say how excited that Joe and I are to be hosting the MO State Champs. It's been a goal of mine since I started promoting cross races in the 90s to bring the state champs to KC. I never got around to it, and others did it first, and probably better, but I'm still stoked.

The venue is bitchin. EH Young Park in Riverside. Boss Cross 1 & 2 were there in October. Anyone who showed up knows how badass the park is and how good the course was. Most said it was harder than it looks at first glance. We are using the course from BC#1 with some modifications. We will be changing the starting area and a couple of other minor features, but you get the idea.... Our sponsors have come through with some great prizes, we have John Lefler providing PRO race calling and announcer services, probably a DJ or two pumping out the tunes, and chili/pasta that Joe and Kathy do so well. Roger will be there cranking out the super enthusiasm and pictures. I'll be there drinking beer provided by Boulevard Brewery.

Procedures:

There's been alot of constructive criticism regarding our original callup plan. That's good. There have been some accusation about our west-side bias.... This is wrong. As much as I want our KC guys to keep the jerseys on our side of the state, there was no inherent stacking of the deck to forward that advancement. The original design was borne of one thing. Not only is this race the State Champs, it is the Boss Cross Series Final. That means, that not only bragging rights and a sweet jersey are up for grabs, but cash, prizes, and a sweet jersey are up for grabs. My intention was to make it fair for participants in both races (the meta race?) to be competitive. This maybe wasn't the best way to do it. No big deal. We're flexible and want to look fair, as much as we can... So, here's what we've come up with to be as unbiased and efficient, while still getting people lined up where they need to be. Also, in order to extend our hand across the state, we heard that this race is also doubling as a double points race for the Bubba Cross Series in STL. Cool. So in order to kick you State Champ contenders in the nuts just a bit more, we will be lining up the Bubba Cross points leader in the front as well. So... without further explanation here is the revised callup procedures:

FIRST ROW: Defending State Champs, 2010 Boss Cross and Bubba Cross points leaders, Pre-registrants by order of registration at www.sportsbaseonline.com.

SECOND ROW: Preregistrants and everyone else. This should be amenable to everyone.

Scoring/Champs:

As you probably know, only MO residents are eligible for the MO State Championships medals and jerseys. In addition to the champs, 12/4 is also the Boss Cross series finale, which will be run concurrently with the champ races. We have added a 30-34 and 35-39 mens race at 10:00 in order to accommodate all of the USAC championship categories. Prizes for this race will only be medals and State Champ Jersey. Also running as a Championship-eligible race is men and women singlespeed, which will entail the Boss Cross-standard prize list as well as State Champ jersey/medals.

Additional clarifications:

*One day license holders are not eligible for state jersey/medal.
*No medals awarded in Men 4 40+ race
*Women Open race is championship race for Women 1/2/3. Women Open will race at 10:00am instead of their normal 11:00am time.
*Men Open race is championship race for Men 1/2

And as far as anyone who's used to racing w/A,B,C categories, it's up to you to figure out where you fit in.


Flyer:Bc10 Mo State Champ Flyer

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Boss Cross 3 Results and Wrap-Up

Ladies and Gents,

Thanks for making the 3rd round of Boss Cross so badass! The racing was great... tons of strong efforts, displays of amazing cycling skills, and lots of crashes! Several of you said that the course was harder than you expected. Awesome. Here at Boss Cross, we try to challenge each and every one of you racers to learn something new during the race. I think that this last weekend showed that even some of the most subtle features can make a race... and some apparently intimidating features aren't so bad. And sometimes going fast through a section is not the best way...

Anyway, we learned something this last weekend also... Bike racers use the toilet a lot!! We've got to apologize for the appalling crapper situation. That was lame for us to not think of getting another port-a-john out there. Next time we will. Promise.

Now, back to you racers. Again, the racing was awesome. We saw a change in the Verge Boss Cross Race Leader's jersey in at least one race, and in others retaining the jersey was a hard-fought battle. Thanks for doing Boss Cross and Verge so proud in your efforts to get that leader's jersey! Not only was the action on the course good, the party was bitchin as well. Boulevard totally came through with a keg of the BRAND NEW Amber Ale, which went down pretty well judging from the lightness of the keg during loading back into my truck.

We're dialing in our calendar for 2011 as we speak, but for the most part, you will find Boss Cross during the same weekends you've seen us in the past and in this year. Start planning now.

Results:BC03 Results

We'll see you at the Missouri State Champs on December 4!

Don't forget Joules Cross and Vet Cross this weekend!