Road Racing 101

I've decided to expand my racing endeavors and enter some road races this season. When I began racing mountain bikes, I really felt like that was the sport for me. Truth be told, I was really burned out on the road bike by that time. I had been doing long-distance rides and swinging a leg over a road bike signaled drudgery for me. With the love many of us have for cycling, you know that's a bad sign when saddling up means work, not enjoyment. Since I did jump into a couple of cyclocross races this year, I felt my racing experience would not be complete if I didn't at least give road racing a 'look see.' Therefore, I've put Froze Toes and Hillsboro-Roubaix on the roster for 2008.

I know Froze Toes is a training race, so that will be a great way to dip my toe into the water, so to speak. Let's just hope my toe doesn't freeze as the race name would suggest. I am cautiously optimistic. I've been training hard for the past 4-5 weeks. I signed up a coach, Andy Gibbs, and have been following his workouts religiously. Some of you may know Andy from the local race scene and a few others have trained under Andy's guidance. You know the benefits. For others, let me say this. With roughly 5 weeks of Andy's structured training under my belt, I think I would be faster than I was at any point during last year's race season. I have dropped another 15 pounds and will hopefully have another 15-20 pounds gone by time the season gets under way in March. From what I've seen in the Sport class, I'm going to need it too. The Sport class is going to be intense this year.

In order to have something of a suitable road racing bike, I needed to get a new road bike. In my workshop awaiting the buildup is this beauty:

Gone are most of the road bikes that once littered my workshop. In fact, the only road bike I have left is an older Lemond Zurich I purchased a couple of months ago as a bike to keep on the trainer. The new bike will give me 1 race worthy bike and one to keep on the trainer. (I don't count my commuter s/s road bike as bike. It's a vehicle, to me.) Completely built up the new Giant should tip the scales at roughly 16.5-17 pounds and that's not using extremely light parts. I'll post up some pics when this bike and the new Intense mtb bike is done and ready.

That's it for now. I'm limited on time today as I'm getting ready to jump on the trainer for 1 hour and 40 minutes of isolated leg training. Pedal or Die, baby!