Welcome to Expert?

I recall many years ago a sport racer who won the VA State series. He smoked everyone in the class and was riding up with the experts a lot. At the awards ceremony the promoter shook his hand, gave him is award and said welcome to expert.

Recently I've gotten some good results. 3rd at Massanutten, 3rd in the Mill Mountain Time trial and 1st at the Carvin's Cove XC and 1st overall for the Omnium in Vet Sport.

Last year the results were really good too. A 1st, a few 3rds, 4ths, 5th, 6th. Granted we have some really small fields in Virginia but that shouldn't take away from the level of the competetion, in fact it tends to mean that there is just less pack fodder and more hardcores come out.

I've been racing long enough to be cognizant of the sandbagger phenomena and don't want to be one. Given that I don't destroy the field I'm confident that I'm not one. However the general consensus seems to be 3 top 3s or 5 top 5s as a good indication to move up and give someone else a chance to get called up.

I've been thinking of making the jump to Vet Expert. This is a big deal. Expert really is a whole different world, and the jump from sport to expert is a significantly larger step than from beginner to sport. As my friend Skip says, expert is for real. I was asking my coach Dave Morris about vet expert and gushing over how fast those guys are. He said that by that time you get to that level most of the pack fodder has gotten filtered out.

Racing expert is actually one of my lifetime goals. In fact I pulled out a sheet of paper dated 10/9/96 and the Lifetime goal listed was a top 10 in a regional expert race. Given how small the fields can be sometimes that might be a reality if I just cross the line.

I actually raced expert for a little while right before my first son was born. What a fiasco. I moved up just because I'd been in sport class for so long and wanted to get "more money's worth" by doing the longer courses. I certainly was a mid pack sport racer. It was sad acutally. I pretty much rode caboose every race. Alone, typically last place. Discouragaing. The one upside was that I never quit a race.

It wasn't very much fun actually. Coming back to racing these last few years has been a lot of fun. I'll be the first to admit that winning and getting your name called is great, but the most enjoyable part has been just being competitive with some other racers. To really race and not just time trial.

I think I'd do better this time around, but understand that it is going to be a very humbling experience. The reality is I train around 5-8 hrs a week. I imagine some of those guys put in 15-20+. It is concievable that I could spend the rest of my racing career as a mid packer. The thing I'm worried about is that the jump is going to be too big and that I'll be right back where I was years ago, bringing home the caboose.

This is where non-racers just don't get it.

Jason Sager said it nicely on his blog:
" People forget that if you measure your bike racing success on paper results alone that, well, there's only one winner, and most likely it ain't gonna be you. Enjoy your time in the trenches. That's where we all live, save for the occasional gopher jump out of the hole to check the view at the front."

Think about all those guys that dedicate everything to being a midpack pro. Or our American pros that go to Europe and rarely break the top 20.

Why do it?

If you have to ask that question than you'll never understand the answer.

I'm going to ruminate on it some more.

In some ways it's like having kids. I'll never be 'ready'.

I was plannig on racing expert in some VA-derailer series races just for the training because those courses are real short in sport class. Basically go balls out till I die than do whatever it takes to make it over the finish. I imagine that racing in vet-expert for real isn't going to be much different.