While I was doing a recovery ride the other night on my road bike, I was joined briefly by people on mountain bikes. At least that’s what I think they were…it’s been so long since I’ve ridden trails, I can’t recognize anything without skinny tires.
It seems ironic that I went pro in cross country racing and immediately switched to road racing, where I am a beginner getting by on luck and the fitness carried over from riding up mountains. I can’t clip in and out of my damn Speedplays, there is always chain grease on my right calf, and I regularly forget to use the drops. Packs of riders make me nervous, I keep instinctively trying to pass the person whose wheel I’m sitting on, and I want to close my eyes in sharp corners to avoid crashing. This was supposed to be the season in which I felt like I was finally on top, and instead I’m back on the bottom.
I love road riding and racing, though, and I intend to stick with it until I’m a successful Cat 1 racer. That’s not to sound overly confident – it’s just certainty that I’m willing to put in the work to get there. When I look at the coming months on my racing calendar, I see crits and road races weekend after weekend, often bumping cross-country events off the schedule.
Which leads me back to the other night, when I saw these mountain bikes. It suddenly felt like I’d betrayed the person who loved trails, muddy bikes, imperfectly coordinated kits, and fat tires. Now I wear cycling caps, match my arm and knee warmers, and obey a list of amusing rules that ‘govern’ my cycling. I had this overwhelming urge to turn off the path and drop into the nearest singletrack, which would have been a problem because I’ve noticed road tires tend to be a bit fragile. Since that night, I’ve been thinking it’s time to get back on the trails, even just for a quick spin to be reminded of how good it feels to ride through the woods.
The big decision right now is whether to do the Battenkill road race or the Fair Hill MASS XC race. Road or mountain. Where do I want to be on April 10th? And where to do I want to be for the rest of my racing career? This feels like an identity crisis. I think it’s possible to be both a roadie and a die-hard mountain biker, but it seems like maybe Rapha is going to have to add some trail-friendly gloves to their lineup.
Do Battenkill… one of the few RR around here…. crits you can pick up almost any weekend.. but NOT RR..
plus if memory serves me.. there is a dirt / compact gravel section on Battenkill, might scratch the itch to be OFF road maybe not… plus if you want to CAT up.. you’ll can grab more points in a RR than in a CRIT..
Here in South Africa, most of the top mtb’ers including Evans (local SA marathon champion) and Stander (U23 xc world champion)are very competitive roadies. I think even Tinker is competitive on road. So race mtb, but train on the road, seems to work well.
“Which leads me back to the other night, when I saw these mountain bikes. It suddenly felt like I’d betrayed the person who loved trails, muddy bikes, imperfectly coordinated kits, and fat tires. Now I wear cycling caps, match my arm and knee warmers, and obey a list of amusing rules that ‘govern’ my cycling.”
Guessing you stopped indulging in the hasheesh…
Don’t forget your roots…. And your rocks, sticks, trees, logs, streams, mud, and dirt. You can ride road year round. Mtb season is short and in need for more participants. And if that complying thought didn’t convince you, let me remind you that “your on thin ice.”