Tuesday, February 22, 2011

2011 Racing

Well, my season will be starting in a little under 4 weeks, which, depending on how you look at it, is either really soon or not-really-all that soon. Perspective! So yeah...

Race Schedule:

March 20th – Hobby Park
April 3rd – SERC Tsali
April 9th – Assault on the Carolinas
April 17th – SERC Stumpjump
May 1st – SERC Ft. Yargo
May 15th – SERC Ducktown
May 29th – SERC Jackson OR 24 H/O Burn
June 5th – Bump & Grind
June 12th – SERC Chattanooga
June 26th – SERC Clemson
July 10th – SERC Huntsville
July 24th - ORAMM
August 8th – SERC Fontana
September 25th – DH National Champs
November 6th – Swank 65 (for the first time ever? We'll see...)
Cross? (I keep talking about racing a full cross season, but collegiate has so far gotten in the way. What will this year bring? Who knows?)

A couple of those are not for sure, and then if there is a really cool event that I want to do, I might just add that in when the time comes. But for now, as you can see, my focus is on the SERC series. The last time that I went for a series overall was my first year of racing in the Cane Creek Cup as a 16 year old junior. Times have definitely changed. I think I got 2nd overall that year, and am one of the few that I raced against still racing today.

Anyway, my season is just about dialed. I'm feeling good on the bike, I have an awesome race bike waiting for me to build it, and an actual season beginning and ending in sight. Also, it looks like I might actually have money to go to races this year, which is good considering how many I'm planning on going to on my own dime.

Finally, I found THIS ARTICLE amusing, and a much needed outside view of our sport...I always forget that we're not as normal as we can convince ourselves we are when we just hang out with other cyclists.

Sunday, February 13, 2011

I'm Pumped on Racing Again. For Realz.

I done the Icycle this weekend. It was real fun. It was also real painful. I guess that's to be expected with racing though. This race hurts more than most though, because your system is never even close to prepared.

Anywho, did 3 laps, 1 of which was fast, 1 of which was kinda chill, and 1 of which was riding with Julia as she stormed to victory in a stacked women's field. Also, between laps 2 and 3 I might have ridden up to our cabin to get a snack. Maybe might have done that.

I'm gonna go ahead and steal an idea from another blog here, so stay with me. See, I have a new, very fast racer bike coming in. It's radically different from anything I've owned before, and I'm really excited. BUT, I don't have any races until the 20th of March when I have a little tune up before the real racing begins. So, since I don't have any races coming up, and I still need to lose some weight, I'm gonna use the promise of a new bike as motivation.

Race weight (about 10lb higher this year than ever before thanks to some heavy time in the gym): 181.

Current weight: 186.5

1.5 months to do it.

Not gonna even open the race bike box until then.