Since moving to Arizona, I've changed my athletic focus a bit. I've become a bit frustrated with running due to persistent knee problems (hooray for a life of competitive swimming for making my feet, knees, and hips weak) which have prevented me from running more than 6 miles at a time. So, I decided to take a break from swimming and running (and needless to say triathlon in general) and focus on cycling.
Needless to say, this decision was made right around the first snowfall of the year, which combined with my San Diego weather cycling attire meant a mad dash to find warmer cycling clothes and a lot (a lot!) of indoor trainer rides. While this sounds horrible, this has forced me into several new skills, equipment evaluations, and life related realizations which will be expanded upon in the future.
Since I'm new to cycling, I'm forced to start at the bottom of the pecking order and navigate my way through Cat(agory) 5. It seems simple, 10 mass-start raced with no benefit to finishing place and/or time. The key here being "mass start" which basically boils down to time trials don't count. Bummer, but I guess I can deal with it. Theoretically, I've been told that I can petition Arizona Cycling to be upgraded before 10 races, but I've gotten mixed feedback about whether this actually works or not, so for now the plan is to complete all 10 races. A few comments about my races so far:
1. Crits
My first experience with crit racing was hearing horror stories from friends: Marc striking his pedal (twice) and claiming "never again," and Chris dislocating his finger in a wreck that he couldn't avoid. Not promising. All I can say is that they really are the most frightening cycling experience I've ever had and there really was nothing that could possibly prepare me for someone hitting my handlebars with their elbow in the middle of a fast corner from the inside and then bouncing off the person on my outside, or maybe it was the guy on HED Jet 90s who decided that a 30 mph sweeper in a pack was a great time to take a drink of water... Either way, it's scary because your well-being is subject to the stupidity of the people around you and there is ofter little you can do to control them.
I'm not fond of crits, but to be fair I've only done 3. I think the realization I've had, already, is that I'm not brave enough, or fearless enough, to stick myself positions that I need to be in to do well. I'm not willing to shove my front wheel next to someone in a tight corner to assert my position because the cost of either of us screwing up is too great. Thus, I've not been successful, always trying to use my cardio strength to wear people out over the whole race, rather than sitting in the right position to take advantage of drafts and positioning at the finish.
2. Road Races
This is where I think I excel (or where I hope to excel in the future anyway). Road races are a fun combination of strength, stamina, and tactics that allow for a lot more room and time to adapt to the actions (dare I say stupidity) of the other riders around. I've had great success making sure that I'm in the front, but not taking the wind all the time, and identifying the riders with whom I can ride fast and safe.
On the other hand, I've also realized that I've got a lot to learn. This boils down to the same rookie mistake that I keep making (albeit knowingly) during the large, fast, group rides I do: I always jump too early. I have too much confidence that I can use my stamina to stay away and I'll go for a break from a group too early or with too much warning. This nipped me in the butt on one of the stage races I recently did that finished on a 5 km steep uphill; I felt great and dug in with about 3 km to go only to blow up 1.5 km later only to limp to the finish in 5th. If I had been smart, and just waited another kilometer before I jumped, I'd be the proud winner of the race... but lesson learned.
3. Stage Races
So far these have been the most fun I've had. I think it's because these races have been a combination of a few different events, so I get the chance to rock a TT and have fun in a road race before having to suffer through a crit. I'm hopeful that I'll get the chance to do one in the future that's just road race stages and just eliminate the crit entirely, but I realize the feasibility of this is low because the economics of putting on a crit stage are far, far, better than anything else.
The biggest downside I've found to these races is that they take a lot of time. And not just the racing time each day, but the fact that you have to travel for a few days, and in between stages there's not exactly a ton to do since I've generally been reluctant to go off and do a lot of crazy hiking or walking or exercising in between so as to save my energy for the next day. In a general, it's a lot of fun though, and I think these are the best combination of everything if you can justify spending the time.
That's it for now, more later possibly involving a wheel hub rebuild and/or a fun picture of me falling during my first attempt to ride rollers.
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