Kanza Report - Part One (Pre-Race)

I am going to start this off by saying that I have amazing and wonderful friends.  There has been so much love and support for this adventure and I am not sure I would have believed in myself without you all behind me 100%.  So thank you.

I even convinced a few lovely folks to go for a chill mountain bike with me the weekend before!

Thanks guys!  (PS - I suck at selfies)

Unfortunately, the evening that the above photo was taken, I slipped in the mud and banged up my right knee pretty badly.  I may have also been carrying a plate with a giant burrito on it that met a muddy fateful end also.  Whoops.  Here is the knee a couple of days later...  Still pretty swollen, with some bruising starting to show.

Ouch...  (And sorry this is sideways, my computer is being silly.)

After dropping off the dogs with my lovely and wonderful mother, I headed home to finalize the packing and get things squared away at work to take a few days off.  Fast forward a couple of days, and...

Welcome to Kansas!

The flight was a little turbulent, but otherwise uneventful.  We met up with Ellen and Ken at DCA and chatted with them for a few minutes before taking off (totally forgot to snap a photo!).  We ended up catching them at MCI as well and rode the shuttle with them to the rental car area.  Spoiler alert, they both had an amazing day at Kanza and finished well before sunset.  Congrats!

After picking up the rental car, we decided to recreate last year's arrival day and had lunch at the same brewery where I waited for Matt, Granite City Brewing.  Amazingly enough, the same bartender was there AND the spelling bee was on!  We had a quick lunch and a beer then headed southwest towards Emporia.

Cheers!

Once we arrived in Emporia, we checked into the dorms and drove to the admin building to pick up my bike, which had been shipped earlier in the week.  This is where the smiles stopped for a few minutes...

When we walked in, the woman in the admin office told us that the box was opened when they received it.  Uh oh.  I had a momentary freakout thinking that all my supplies that I had packed with the bike had been lost.  Hydration pack, tools, CO2 cartridges, tubes, bottles, ALL the things!  Luckily, everything that was supposed to be in the box was still there, but it was apparent that the bike was damaged.  We took the box back to the dorm room and I had to take a quick moment to calm down before assessing the damage.

As we were putting the bike back together, what had looked pretty bad, was actually just a broken derailleur hanger.  Luckily I had a spare.  Unluckily, I only had ONE spare.  There is a bike shop in town that sells Salsa bikes, so I just crossed my fingers that they were prepared for incidences just as this.  Dane was instrumental in getting the bike squared away.  He efficiently removed the old hanger, installed my spare, and made sure the bike would shift through all the gears.  SERIOUSLY glad he was there.

After the bike was back in working order, we decided to explore the town a bit.  I rode very slowly while Dane walked.  I did have to #keepthestreakalive, you know.  We stopped in at Gravel City Adventures and looked around before heading towards the back and asking about a spare derailleur hanger.  We ended up meeting the owner (I think his name was Adam) and he was over prepared and had about 30 hangers in stock.

All smiles again!

We stopped in at the other big bike shop in town to say hi to their shop kitty.  He was still there and loving the attention as always!  We also caught up with one of our local shop's old Kona reps while we were there and got to check out their new gravel bike.  (I failed to take pictures, but it is very pretty and very green!)

So fluffy and cuddly!

After that, we decided to head over to the local brewery and grab a beer or two and some dinner.  I was starving and after all the bike drama, ready for a beer.  On the way there, we found some... uh... ducks.

Fake News!  These are not real ducks!

Dane was pretty impressed with the brewery and with dinner.  He had some Scottish deviled eggs and seemed to be in heaven!

Cheers to a successful travel day.

The next morning, we got up relatively early and headed to breakfast at the dining hall.  Afterwards, Dane went exploring and I was headed out to find the "coffee" ride.  As I was getting ready to head into the elevator, another woman was coming out and asked if I was going to the ride.  I said yep, and offered to let her follow me down there since she had never been.  She introduced herself as Isabel and we chatted on the short ride over to the start.  While we were standing around, another woman asked if she could take a picture of our socks (Isabel and I were both wearing Ridge Supply socks).  She wanted to post them up and let Matt Hawkins (of Ridge Supply) know he was being well represented down in Kansas.  Turns out, it was Maggie Smith, whom had been at Croatan as well.

The GU sponsored riders before the Friday pre-ride. (Hi Rebecca!)

Isabel and I ended up being evenly paced for the pre-ride and rode together chatting about bikes and gravel riding.  She was from Chicago and knows some of the BFF gals that raced single speed last year.  It also turns out that she knows my friend Patricia!  I did not find this out until I was almost back home, though.  Small world!

After the pre-ride, I went back to the dorms to change and headed out to meet up with Dane.  I swung by CVS and grabbed two bottles of Gatorade (ick) to help rehydrate.  It was HOT outside.  Seriously, at 10:00 it was already 90 degrees, sunny, without a cloud in sight.  I drank half a bottle (ick) and then filled it back up with water to dilute it.  MUCH better.  Once I found Dane, we headed over to the Gravel Expo to check things out.

Earlier that morning, as I was changing, I got an email from Salsa Cycles about their new prototype Warbird frame.  I forwarded it to Dane with a smiley face and some exclamation marks.  I love my Warbird, but the frame is too small.  It is glaringly obvious now that I have a properly sized cyclocross bike.  But I did not want to do anything until after Kanza, since I was used to this bike and frame.  I had contemplated getting a Rodeo Labs Trail Donkey for its versatility, but I love Salsa and everything the company stands for...  So I was pretty excited to see the features of the new frame.  I was even MORE excited to find out if they happened to have the frame to debut it at the Gravel Expo.

SO MUCH DROOL!
(2019 Salsa Warbird Prototype)

Well...  Not only did they have the frame for public oogling...  They had several of the bikes and several of their employees were racing on them!  This is going to be an awesome bike.  So many mounting options...  The larger frames have three mountain points inside the frame (the smaller ones just have two...  sad face), mounts on the underside of the frame, the top tube, fender mounts, mounts on the fork, AND top of the sundae...  internal routing for a dynamo hub!  Plus...  the prototype paint job is to die for.  There is a lot more room for wider tires than the current frames, too.  I sent a message to Jan to go ahead and place a hold on a frame set for me!

While we were at the Salsa tent, I got a glimpse of the thing that had me most excited about DK200 this year...  The Chaise.  #chasethechaise

The only thing that kept me going after CP3...

We chatted with the Salsa reps for a bit about bikes and the chaise.  They are really cool and amazing folks.  No wonder I love their bikes so much.  Surprisingly, the chaise was not filthy.  One would think after hanging out at several gravel races over the spring that it would be a disgusting mess.  Apparently velvet sheds dirt and gravel dust pretty easily.

My friend Jamie, who moved to San Francisco over the winter was coming into town for the race, so we decided to meet up for lunch.  She showed up with her wonderful parents in tow and we ate at the same Mexican place that we ate last year.  I had the same gigantic burrito and about 900 glasses of water.  We swung back by the expo and checked out a few other vendors as well.  We ended up chatting with the Industry Nine folks for a while since they had a mister under their tent.  It was heavenly AND battery powered.  I think we need to get one for the Dirty BikenetiCrit in August.

Afterwards, Dane and I hung out at the Historical Center for a bit to get out of the sun and heat while we waited for the DKXL start time to roll around.  Around 3:45, we emerged from our air conditioned spot and headed across the street for the start of the DKXL.

Thirty-four racers at the ready!

 Jim, the race director was pretty excited about this event and gave a moving speech before sending these 34 highly qualified racers out for 350 miles of Flint Hill gravel.  It was almost enough to make me want to go out there with them.  Almost...  At this point, it was about 95 degrees and swealtering.

Velvet hat and a moving speech...

Once the XL racers were on their way, we headed for the pre-race briefing so Dane could see the Grenada Theatre.  He was pretty impressed by the theater.  Afterwards, Dane and I made our way back to the dorms to get my bike and gear ready for take off in the morning.  On our way back, we found some not fake birds snuggling by the admin building.  It was kind of cute!

Duck...  Duck...  Duck... Goose!

Getting my gear together was uneventful and made easier by having Dane there with me.  He was good at making sure I did not forget to take air out of my tires and lube the chain.  After that, I took a nice cold shower and relaxed for a bit.  Dane was starting to get a little hungry, but I was still stuffed from my giant burrito.  So we compromised and headed out in search of some Frozen Yogurt.  After filling ourselves with cold sugary goodness, we decided to head in search of one last beer before turning in for the night.

Final beer before the race!

Mulready's also had some water for me to drink before heading back to the dorms...  They put it in an appropriate container.

Sounds and looks about right...  😉 

As we got back to the dorm, the wind was starting to pick up.  Folks had been avoiding talking about the forecast all weekend, but the temperature was supposed to drop significantly (Saturday was supposed to be about 10-15 degrees cooler than Friday's high of 97) and the wind was supposed to pick UP significantly.  By the time we got back to the dorm and getting the final preparations done, I could see the trees whipping in the wind.

This was going to be interesting...