GC Cycling: Season Two (Episode 1)

Well shucks. It's been a year. Looking back, it was pretty rad. I've got a few races under my belt, completed some of my fairly arbitrary cycling goals from my blog's first post, and met some pretty cool people. I met my goals of doing a century ride and Hey, I even got a medal, and in a stage race at that. I still get real excited every time I think about that solo break move I made with three miles to go.

On the other hand, I wasn't very confident in the criteriums at all. (Criteria?) Getting behind a crash in Salem at the Witches' Cup Criterium and then getting dumped off the back in the Saco Bay Criterium savaged my moral a bit. Criterium-specific training is going to be a major part of my training this year, including hard criterium-style group rides (we're looking at you, Slouch Potato!) and Criterium Sprint training, that is to say sprinting around corners, like on the Pease Bike Lanes.

Also, it seems that my epic trackstand abilities have left me unable to clip in to the pedals with any degree of grace. I fumble around trying to clip in like it's my first time riding a bike. It's because I learned how to trackstand on my old rattrap pedals, so it's no unusual to only clip in once per ride--I just trackstand at traffic lights. Impressive? Perhaps. Useful in a race situation? Not at all. Another one of my training objectives is to practice clipping in till I am confident.

So that covers some of my more-specific training objectives. For general season goals, I'm going for the win, overall at the Working Man's Stage Race. The Central New Hampshire Road Race is, I believe, two weeks later, so I figure I might as well race that one too. I did course reconnaisance for the Central New Hampshire Road Race in Bow last year, but didn't race. It was real hilly though, so hill training will be important. I'd like to make the break and finish top five, on that one.

Here we go, Season Two!