RECAP!

For those of you who don’t necessarily follow my antics on a regular basis, let me take this opportunity to enlighten you as to what exactly I do here.

I sit currently on an Air Canada something or other plane, contemplating the good and bad things that have happened to me since starting this blog and subsequently, my adventure in becoming a pro cyclist. Let me tell you there has been a lot of each. To be fair and try to keep you reading a bit longer, I’ll start with all the amazing stuff that this trip has given me the opportunity to do.

Ask yourself these questions. What is your passion? If you could do anything in the world utilizing your skills as a human being, what would you do? Sky is the limit here people so don’t hesitate in your answer because of work obligations or money savings or material commitments, I didn’t. For me the answer is simple. Bicycles. I’m kind of nuts for them. The functionality, mechanical efficiency and finesse of riding a bike might as well be the peas to my carrot. Me of course being the carrot.

Sifting through my confusing analogy which I now regret using, what I mean to say is that on any given day, no matter what I’m doing, chances are, Ill be thinking about the next time I get to ride my bike.

Recently, in the past few years I have taken a huge interest in racing my bikes. Who doesn’t like to go fast? This interest, which started honestly with a friend saying “Hey, you should race Patty.” has exploded into well kind of what I do now...which brings me to the reason I’m sitting on this plane. People don’t really get the opportunity to say they ‘went for it’ in their lives. In the later months of last race season and the last year of my undergrad, I decided to do just that. I saved my ass off working 7 days a week, still found time to train a bit and hang out with my awesome, supportive girlfriend who doesn’t get my attention nearly as much as she deserves, and booked it down to Tucson to train for my first season as an elite level bike racer.

The three months are over, I rode (pardon my French) a fucking ton, and I did my first pro race in California just last weekend and still managed to finish with a smile on my face. Aside from needing a few minor tweaks here and there with my fitness, things are looking up towards fulfilling my goal of racing at the World Cup Finals in New York state this year. I had a total blast on top of that too.

There were a few minor hiccoughs along the way however. On January 20th, I crashed on my road bike in Tucson and broke my left clavicle, pretty bad I might add. It broke really close to my shoulder so simple surgery wasn’t an option as the bone on one side of the break wasn’t long enough to get screws drilled into. This resulted in a full week totally off the bike, cursing the beautiful weather and that I was alone for the whole thing. My week of bicycle abstinence was followed by a week on a trainer graciously sent down by the BEST STORE IN THE WORLD, which allowed me to train enough so that I didn’t completely lose the fitness I had gained previously. How many employers do you know would do that for an employee? That’s what I thought. Once I got the OK from my orthopaedic surgeon in the states to ride, It was back to longer rides pretty quick. I had company at this point so I didn’t just spend the whole ride focusing on my shoulder, which was nice. I cant say that this was entirely why my performance was so poor at Fontana but I don’t mind playing the blame game a tiny bit. That was the other thing I was sort of grumpy about. Granted, it was my first pro race and I had no idea what to expect, I really did think i was going to do better than I did. I thought my fitness was good at the very least but I guess I have a lot of work to do when I get home. This however, I am looking forward to...a lot. The race was the punch in the guts I needed to really realize what it takes to go fast. The sheer volume of riding that I did means that my fitness base is great and I felt that throughout the entirety of the race. I wasn’t going very fast, but my body was up for doing about 10 laps. The thing I need to work on is the punch that will get you into a good starting position off the back of a start line and keep you there for the rest of the two hours. This, I am excited to achieve.

To keep this short and sum up exactly what I have been trying to say this whole time, is that this was by far, the BEST experience I have ever had in terms of reaching goals. Despite those few problems, I can’t help but look on the bright side of this. I got to go ride my bikes in the sun for 3 months, I got to ride with and race against the best of the best in all of North America, and I even got the chance to explain to some curious people in waiting rooms why the Canadian health care system is pretty neat. Oh, and my tan totally kicks ass, you can ask Barry about that one.

I will surely keep blogging away with my learnings on and about the bike this summer and hopefully people stay interested in what I have to say. I know all my family only reads this for the recipes.

Stay tuned!