Monday, June 23, 2008

Slower Then Baby Snot

Sent this below in an email to my buddy Matt.

Was thinking more about my 2 laps I rode for Phil's team today.

When I consider the fact it's been 2 years since I raced in any capacity I didn't do to bad. Hell, my bike still wasn't set up properly as was obvious from the hand issues. Then let's add the fact that I haven't done any night riding lately.

Hydration was definetly an issue. The Camelbak Podium bottles while ok for training suck for racing. When riding hard at race pace and sucking wind it takes too much effort to drink compared to a regular bottle.

Though the 2 laps confirmed 2 other things. The first being that I should actually use a flat bar and a set of bar ends. It's really something I missed while climbing and such.

The other thing those 2 laps confirmed for me is a suggestion made to me in 94 that I should race bikes. It would have been a good idea but at that time in life I wasn't mentally in the right place to give it a proper go. Then 3 years ago Joely after a Duathlon where I opened up a huge gap on others in my age group on the bike said the same thing. Then of course took a 2 year lay off from any type of racing. This year I was looking at doing a couple of races mostly to have something to do. But those 2 laps though at least 10 minutes slower then Tweeks finally convinced me that it's worth giving it a go. So finally 14 years later I'm going to give mtb racing a go.