View Single Post
Old 04-15-19, 07:18 AM
  #141  
burnthesheep
Newbie racer
 
Join Date: Feb 2018
Posts: 3,406

Bikes: Propel, red is faster

Mentioned: 34 Post(s)
Tagged: 0 Thread(s)
Quoted: 1575 Post(s)
Liked 1,566 Times in 973 Posts
Originally Posted by tobukog
To me, it sounds like you need to join a good club -- one that has many active racers -- as you seem to be looking for camaraderie and a social outlet in addition to athletic performance. Being able to talk and interact with experienced racers will also help you grow as a rider.

In racing, it helps to have a strong team -- I could always count on my team mate to nail back a break or increase pace and get me clear of the scrum for the finish, and I could also be content knowing that his chances in a break were really good. However, because we were a dominant "team" of 2, we were always heavily marked and expected to make the race. So being an anonymous individual rider can also be a good thing -- you just have to learn to read the course, the race patterns, and the players. Then your efforts won't be wasted. Remember, in racing there's just one winner and the rest have to be satisfied with getting something -- whether it's just riding hard or a minor result -- so it's good to think about what you're getting out of this sport if you want to last long in this game.
You've hit the nail on the head.

Especially about the club/join part. It'd be a much better outlet than a huge buildup to a very small number of yearly races, just to learn things the really really hard way.

I'd learn a ton being around those folks. I sorely need it. The fitness to stupid ratio for me is pretty skewed towards being stupid.

The hard part, is how to spread my limited time. All the club rides that would matter would cost me some driving time. Maybe time to suck it up with some really early morning workouts and use my one weekly "freebie" to hit up an experienced group.
burnthesheep is offline