Racing?

Well, today was an interesting day.  Earlier this year, I decided I was feeling pretty good about myself, cycling-wise.  I was feel strong in the club rides with Lifetime Fitness, and on various event-rides I had been doing, like the Triple Bypass.  I had noticed that I always seemed to be leading out the group on the Lifetime rides, with maybe one or two others riding with me, while the rest of the group stayed behind.  It's not that the rides aren't challenging or fun, but I've been hoping for something more.

I decided to think about racing.  As may have seen in an earlier post, I looked around for races I could enter, but it's pretty late in the season and there aren't many road-type races left.  We're getting into cyclocross season, and road events are drying up.  I managed to get myself into a time trial, which was pretty fun.  And I was pretty happy with my results, considering it was my first racing event.

After that time trial, I started thinking about next year, and races I could enter.  I could just enter races unaffiliated with a team again, but I thought it would be cool to actually get onto an actual team, to get race training and advice.  So, I started looking around to find out what I could about local race teams.  I started by finding all the Colorado teams by looking at the USA Cycling web site.  From there, I narrowed it down to teams that were somewhat close to where I lived.  That left me with about 5 or 6 teams.  After that, I looked at their team rosters on USA Cycling, to see if it was a big or small team.  I was hoping for something with a decent-sized roster, so there would be a variety of people, with lots of ability levels.  Basically, that narrowed it down to just one team:  PSIMET/Zilla Racing.

I sent them an email to see if they were looking for new members for next season, not knowing that they had just posted an entry to the BRAC site saying they were looking for a few new riders.  They emailed back the other day, saying they were having a meet-up and ride for prospective members this morning.

This morning, I got up and headed over to Two Rivers Coffee in Arvada, where I met four current members, and two other prospective members.  We headed out on a 40-mile ride in the Arvada/Golden area, then back to the coffee shop.  We sat around and chatted for a bit over some delicious smoothies, asking and answering questions.  Basically, I'm in.  Just need to pay the membership dues and order my team kit.  I should be getting a team handbook soon.  This should make for an interesting year next year.

Hey, look!  I figured out how to embed Strava rides instead of the Garmin Connect version.  I like Strava better. 


After getting back home, my daughter and I went for a ride, with me pulling her on the trail-a-bike.  The ride was actually pretty difficult, considering:

• I had already ridden 40 miles today
• I was riding my mountain bike, still with big knobby tires
• Some rain started rolling in, along with a lot of wind.

Aside from all that, it was a good ride.  It's nice to get out with the kids one-on-one every once in a while for a good long ride.

That's all for today!