First off, before I talk about my new special girl in my life (BLACK HAWK), I have great news...
After 2 years of racing Category 2 and trying to upgrade, Karel was finally given his Category 1 card! Unlike in triathlons where we all race together but are scored either overall or in our age group, cycling ranks you by category. In order to upgrade (Category 5 is the beginner category and 1 is near the pro level) you must have a certain number of points, based on how you placed in races, how many people were in the race and the type of race. There is a Pro level but that is what you see on versus and on other cycling webpage. Karel was having a great year in 2007 until he got hit by a car and spent several weeks resting his fractured collar bone. It was in 2008 that Karel got his coach (Shawn) and a team (Lidner Capital) and everything started to come together. We spent almost every weekend (so it seemed) in GA for the bigger cycling races and Karel raced almost all of speedweek and every race was important to Karel because he had to place in the top 6 (where Pro and Cat 1 riders were also racing for top places) in order to receive points. You only have 1 year to accumulate points. I am so super excited for Karel cause he can now enter ANY race he wants in the US, rather than asking to race (and being approved) in the 1,2 category. WAHOO!
Right now Karel is in Gainesville for a 50 mile mountain bike ride. OUCH! That is going to be a long day for him but I am sure he is enjoying it!
Ok, time to talk about my new ride and my first ride on Black Hawk.
As far as the bike, it looks amazing and Karel did a great job giving me a bike I never thought I wanted. As I mentioned before, I don't stay up with current bike parts and gadgets....I just want to ride a bike! But now that I see what is on my bike, I can't stop looking at my Black Hawk!
Karel put it together on Friday and did a simple fit for me. I rode it today (65 miles) and although it felt great and shifted amazingly, I can't say that it is any easier to ride 65 miles alone in the wind with a new bike versus an old bike. Although I was loving my new ride, my first time on a tri bike since Oct. had me remembering how much work goes into an IM! After the ride I went for a run. My first brick since...OCT! Campy joined me and I am trying to get him to run longer and longer. He is the perfect running partner but he makes me run faster than I'd like. We went for 20 min. and he smiled the whole time. As for me, I was ready for a shower at about 90 min into my 4 hour workout.
Ok..time for pics!
*we are still working on a good position for me because I am so short. But I really like having the 700 wheels and I feel really comfortable on it.
