The return...

OK, this is it. Yeah, this weekend I throw the old hat back into the racing ring. Yes, I'm going to pay some money, pin a number on my old jersey, and ride a race this weekend in Chapel Hill. This will be the first one since July of 2005. I actually feel sort of ready for it. I'm sure that those feelings will quickly be dashed once the actual racing starts and all, but I won't let that sway me. If it comes down to getting dropped off the back of the group racing around the Meadowmont neighborhood, so be it. I'll ride over to the car, re-fill some bottles, and have a nice ride home. I ain't gonna worry about it for the most part. Not the first race back. Worrying about that would just be plain old silly. Now, if I had been racing for a few months, and had some good results so far in the early season of 2007, I would worry. Not so much with this one. With this race, there are a couple of good sized hills out there on the course, but they are power hills. Meaning, you come into hill 1 with about 30 MPH of speed, and can move about halfway up said hill on pure momentum itself. Hill 2, well, you come into that one with a good head of steam as well, and then have to power through the middle and top of that bad boy, and then it's all downhill until turn 1. Flats after turn one, a technical turn 2, and then back up the hills again. Actually, I've never had a bad race on that course, even when racing the Pro-Am stuff a couple of years ago. So, we'll see what shakes loose. Even though bike racing is about winning, this time out, I'm thinking about finishing, and being happy with that for starters. Talking about old glory days, I almost won this race twice before, and cracked on the 2nd hill coming into the finish both times, but hey, I tried. Luckily for me, when I went into USA Cycling to renew the race license, for some reason, my upgrade never got plugged into the system, so they still had me as a category 3, so I won't have to go and beg Chips for a downgrade. According to USA Cycling, and my shiny new license, I'm already there. And just think, next season, I can get out there and race 35+. Now if we could only get Darden out there racing again.

The really bad thing about all of this riding that I've been doing lately though, is that I've developed bike lust again. Yes, it's true. I pine for the days of new carbon fiber and shiny titanium bits and pieces. Last year, when I wasn't riding, I was thinking that my old bike was a plenty fine machine. As I ride more this year, I look around and see lots of other bikes that I now want. Now (if the fiancé is reading this, don't kill me), if I didn't have to pay for a wedding this year, I'm pretty sure that I would have a new ride already. Alas, I do have to pay for a wedding, and that's really more important than a new bike at this point in time. I did finally get some new componentry though for the old frame. Yes, I've made the upgrade to 10 speed finally. A little Shimano Dura-Ace is going on there soon enough. Just have to find the time to take the old stuff off, and slap the new stuff on. It's not so much the installation of the parts, as it is the stringing of new cables and such. It's just a little time consuming is all. And I don't think that this is something I want to do say, Saturday afternoon, being that I'm racing on Sunday. But yeah, bike lust. I've got it bad. If there are those of you out there who want to get me something for my wedding though, a new Giant TCR Advanced would be nice (100mm stem please with 44cm center to center bars). Just in case. Or my Birthday is coming up. That would be a keen Birthday present. Now, I'm not going to hold my breath, but maybe if say, 30 or 40 of you pool your funds together, you could get it for me. Wait, then again, I don't believe that 30 or 40 people actually read my diatribes on here, so scratch that. Maybe the 4 or 5 of you that read this could pool your money together, but that might be cost prohibitive for you, but I'm worth it.