I really wasnt sure what to expect when I started racing. I thought about joining a racing team and had read a few articles stating that it was a good place to start. The problem I had with joining a team is there are fees to join, then you have to buy their kits to race in which can be expensive and most likely you need to sets. Then you have to volunteer for the club and some clubs require CAT 5 races to attend a minimum number of rides per month to be eligible for benefits. For most clubs the benefits of the club are belonging to a group, getting to talk with people about race tactics and they reimburse a percentage of a certain number of races each month. What I have found so far is that all club training rides are open to everyone. So I can train with the teams and ask race questions without representing them. Some of the local teams have a small active race squad and a larger group of people who used to race or just do fun rides. The training rides have both types of people in them so you never know if you are following the wheel of someone who races or someone who is a little nervous about being that close. For any racer above CAT 5 you have to pay an unattached fee if you are not a member of a club. It is normally 5 dollars which for me is enough to join a team next year.
My next concern about racing was the training. I work full time, I am a dad and a husband, I go to graduate school and I have a house to help maintain. There isnt much free time in my days and I used to be pretty tried when I got home. I would ride on the trainer once a week and then ride one or both days on the weekend. After my first three races I realized that I had to kick up that training program. I started riding 2 days a week on the trainer but with purpose. I started doing interval training and riding longer and harder. On the weekends I still tried to ride at least one day but each time I tried to turn myself inside out climbing, sprinting, and racing my best times. Later as the days got longer and summer school was only one night a week I would ride outside instead of on the trainer. This week with the Tour de France on, I have been riding the training watching the tour sometimes at 530am much to the dismay of Anne.
Although I am skipping ahead of some of the races I realized that I needed to make myself lighter and more flexible. On Mothers Day I took a semi-real deal from my mother in law. She said that we all needed to lose weight and that she would give us $100 for every 10 pounds we lost. I weighed myself that next day and I tipped the scale to 221 and the food habits changed. I quit drinking real soda and switched to diet. I shrank down my portions and quit eating junk food as snacks. I lost 10 pounds by the 2nd week of June. Then I started eating more salad and less meats, fruit for breakfast and a low fat yogurt for a snack. Today I weigh in at 201, 20 pounds in 2 months. My goal is to get back to the Army weight of 175 to 180. I am also starting to add core strengthening exercises on the days that I dont ride now.
I have also learned that one cyclist is normally not good at all disciplines. If you dont want to take my word for it watch the Tour de France any day. The climbers sit in the back on a flat stage, the sprinters disappear on the mountains, and the work horses for teams change daily. On the local circuit there are criterium racers, road racers, and time trialist. Each type of race requires different skills and abilities even though they all involve riding a bike. In a criterium you have to train to be able jump out of the saddle and sprint then sit down recover quickly and then do it again over and over. You have to be able to draft well and recover quickly. A road race requires a little more all around skill. You have to be able to descend, climb and ride a high tempo for a long period of time. Normally you only have to sprint at the end, or if you get spit out the back. A time trial requires a high out put for a short time and money to buy the most aerodynamic equipment possible. This is the only area in cycling that I really think that paying an extra $60 for a helmet or shaving grams off the weight of the bike makes a difference. The spread of 1 through 10 at a typical time trial is normally seconds maybe a little as 100th of a second.
That being said an important aspect that I failed to learn until the Ontario Mid season race and Brea Old town criterium(which will be in two blogs from now) is that you have to be smart in a race. You have to study the course, know where people may attack, know where you may have difficulty, know where the most likely place for a crash will be on the first few laps, and figure out where to recover and drink. This will become more obvious when I talk about my next 2 races.
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