I am definitely going to try to finish the CTR this August. But after a lot of thought...I'm not sure what else I wanna shoot for. I've considered quite a few things. Cross country mountain bike racing doesn't really interest me any more. At my best, I was a mediocre cat 3 on the road. I know I never earned one point towards a 2 upgrade. As a cat 3, you're getting your ass handed to you by 2's and 1's at a lot of races. Even at the smaller races that do have a 3's only race, you're in there with enough dudes that are legitimate 2's that they make it quite difficult. I never knew what I was doing and rode like a mountain biker and always wasted more energy than probably anyone else in the field (unless there were other bonehead mtbers there too). It truly is a pleasure to watch someone like Dan ride a crit. He is the most non-chalant guy before the race. No warm up. No stretch. Just sits there. He starts mid-pack and then works his way up through the field at key moments and he's never in a hurry. I think back to when we were both 4's and I'm gonna guess (never really asked him) that he was just stronger than most of the riders b/c I don't believe it was just natural talent. I'm also gonna guess that now he doesn't have to rely on his fitness quite as much (not to say that a 1/2 race is easy by any means) because he knows how to race intelligently. Mentally, I feel tougher than I was when I raced years ago. I'm much more patient. I've got more time and I've got some tremendous resources that I think would be willing to help me out. This is the reason I think I have decided to devote the majority of this year riding crits and road races. I enjoyed crits but it was not unusual for me to get mad at myself when things weren't going my way. It's quite easy to pull the plug in a crit too. At Gateway Cup this year, I raced/finished all 4 crits and I never did that before. I did one crit before getting on the plane too so I had no more education than before. I may get embarassed but I don't think so.

The new frame that's coming will provide a bit of inspiration for me. It's gorgeous and I have to thank Ghisallo Sports for making this happen with Cannondale. I'm super excited to get it and build it up. Here it is: