Ontario Mid-Season Criterium, May 17, 2009: When I first decided I wanted to explore racing, I emailed Jim Langley, the recently-new wrench for RoadBikeRider.com, when I heard he just upgraded to Cat 2 at age 55. I had approached him about how to get started in racing. He suggested I contact local groups to see if there was a decent fit for me with one of them. When I started looking, I found John McKee’s blog on 55+/60+ racing. He is the president of Paramount Racing Team, and he suggested I come to the next meeting. The speakers for the meeting were a Cat 1 racer and his coach. They made the point that if you were interested in racing, you really needed to race crits, because there just weren’t enough road races to get enough experience or to be able to upgrade. Their talk was why I signed up for this crit. It was a 4 sided loop of about a mile in an industrial area. I was curious if I’d have trouble keeping up, but it turned out to not be a problem.
The masters ride early in the day, which is fine with me because you ride when it's cool, and you have the rest of the day after the race is over. The juniors ride even earlier, as early as 7:00 am. When we were on an early lap I heard a very young female (I assume a junior female racer) yell out: "Go Grandpa!" I had to smile, thinking it was probably her grandfather that was racing with my group, and he may have introduced the her to bike racing. How cool is that!
I rode in the middle of our group. With about ½ loop to go I stuck my nose out into the side of the front of peloton, but didn’t like the feel of the air slowing me down, so I ducked back in the pack. I finished in the middle, 8th out of 14.
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