This is not my limit!

The time has come for me to say goodbye to a year of racing and training, reflect on the good and not so good and look forward to future challenges.

Why this post title?

I heard a fantastic quote from Amber Pierce, a US cyclist who said (roughly)

Cycling is about bringing yourself to the limit,
pushing beyond the limit,
realising it was not the limit.
Your limit is beyond what you thought.
It is a beautiful thing.

This sums up where I am at this moment with cycling, I hope I can stay here as I like it.

Final CX races for the winter season

The Yorkshire winter season ended with some proper winter racing.  Cold, wet and very muddy were the order of the day.  Although these are my favourite conditions, and I performed as well as I could, my results were a little disappointing.  But as I have said before, the performance is what really matters and I left the races happy.

Post Novacross

I have to say that it is races like these that really test drivetrains.  Most races have plenty of broken rear mechs, jammed chainsets, chains falling off.

My 1x setup with a front "keeper-onner" has worked faultlessly all year.  I am amazed how well the gear shifting works regardless of muck, grass, panic and the chain keeps spinning.

The only thing that stops my bike is when there is so much muck between rear wheel and frame that the wheel will not turn at all.

Ilkley Muck and the drivetrain kept working!

Racing Target Met

Although I have said before that results are second iun my priorities for racing I did have a target for the winter season.  I wanted to finish in the top 10 for my age cat.  I am happy to report and reflect that I did succeed in this, coming in 9th.  No idea if this puts me in the money, but I am pleased as it shows good consistency across all races.

Reflections of a racing year

Overall I have raced really well over the last year, both in Summer cross and Winter.  I have become more powerful, faster and technically better.

Where I think I went a little wrong is the amount of racing that I did.  I seemed to go through patches of race, rest, train hard, rest, race.  Start again.  There seemed to be missing some of the fun of being on a bike and doing crazy things.  My mtb sessions have reawakened this love again, as have events such as Aggregate100 which is to be repeated this year.

Next Challenges

This year I will:

• race a little less, become better at targeting races to maximise my performance.
• enjoy training as much as I enjoy just riding
• make sure that I make time to just ride
• ride coast to coast in a day for the fun of it
• ride the Dirty Reiver 200km gravel race in Kielder Forest
• ride The Struggle sportive in Yorkshire
• SMASH the Scotton 100
• SMASH 3 Peaks (Marshalling = guaranteed place!)