Well, as the title of this blog entry hints, things have changed lately. I took a job at a new shop over on the east side of town; it's called Cycleast. It's as popular as it is young, and thus far, it has operated out of a tiny warehouse space. The owner of the shop, Russell, has planned for a while to move into larger digs, and when he heard I was leaving Orange Seal, he asked me to come and talk about my plans (which meant I had to pretend I had plans, when at best, I have a rough outline). We decided that our hopes and dreams were fairly similar, so I'm working there with a loosely defined role while we get situated into a new space.
I decided to skip all but one of the fall cross country mountain bike races - that one being Huntsville. It's a fast race, and I won it as a Cat 2 last year. When I decided to do Huntsville, I had a little over a month to try and get back into race shape - not super easy while trying to start a new job. I'm trying to avoid some mistakes of the past, so I'm getting in a little yoga, along with mountain and road riding.
...which brings us to the next change. I went to a Cycleast weekly shop road ride, called the Heavy Breather. I used to do it every week (until they canceled a couple times because of weather and I got grumpy about it). There was a guy on the ride that had come into the shop and asked a couple of us if we are going to race with them in the spring. The "them" he was referring to is a new ametuer road team getting started in conjunction with Cycleast called Phenom. My response to the question was, "I only race mountain," but after I put the hurt on during the road ride, he said, "don't bullshit me. What's it going to take to get you to race with us?"
I was still really on the fence. I'm not all that interested in racing road, but I know that's what got me fast in the first place. I decided to really give it some consideration. I really like racing for my buddy, AJ, but it's going to be hard to work at one shop and race for another (and to be honest, once the Peddler team expanded beyond the three or four of us original members, I stopped feeling like I fit in). I went to a Phenom team meeting, and they have a list of sponsors - the main sponsor (Analysys Labs) actually provides moneys for registration fees and compensating for travel expenses. It's nothing huge, but it's a better deal than I've ever gotten on a team before. I guess I'm 90% leaning toward joining.
wheelies at the Dirt Debry
Dirt Derby and UrboCross have both started up again. Three weeks into both and so far at Dirt Derby I've gotten 2nd, 1st, and 2nd in the open mtn race. The first UrboCross, I wasn't going to race, so I showed up on my road bike. But then, I tried anyway. It went kind of okay, but I quit to get out of everyone's way. The second and third weeks I got 2nd and 1st respectively, so weeknight, unsanctioned racing has gone well.
This weekend, I'm going to do my first official cyclo cross race, and I'm borrowing a friend's CX bike. I'm doing the 3/4 race. I'm not sure how I'm supposed to handle it. The USA Cycling rules say that my new pro XC license translates to a CX Cat 1, but since I've never done a USAC sanctioned cyclo cross race... ? I'll see how Saturday goes.
Next weekend is Huntsville. Hopefully all the racing helps, though it's guaranteed to be two hours long, and I haven't done a solid two hour effort in weeks. I'm sure it's going to hurt.
P.S. I've gotten a few good naps in on the new sofa. It's seriously the best thing I own.
