You know that feeling when you kinda-sorta accidentally join a crit team of rad ladies?
Yeah, that happened.
So, a few months ago, one of my favorite humans from my old stomping ground of Western MA called me and said she had a crazy idea. Christin has just gotten into crit racing the year before, killed it—she has a mean sprint—and realized she wanted the fun of having a crew to race and play with for the next season. She knew I wasn’t around much, but remembered that I used to race on the road a far bit, and she wanted to know if I wanted to get back in the game.
Here’s the thing… I never really thought about racing crits again. I loved them, but since racing for Rutgers, I didn’t have a crew and I was just kind of mehh about the whole road racing scene. But when Christin told me she had a whole lineup of awesome women she had recruited, and I could be a part of that, this light in me just switched back on. I remembered the awesome feeling of staying in the pack, maneuvering around the peloton, going into the final sprint… And suddenly, I really wanted to race again.
We all met up for the first time last weekend, and it was like instantly finding my people again. Eve though on Rutgers Cycling, I was one of the only girls on a dude-heavy team, the vibe of our new BikeReg/Share Coffee crew felt super similar. And yes, of course, Shred Girls is a sponsor of the team. Gotta support rad women in sport! (I’m also excited that we’re going to have a 15 year old mini-shredder, Mira, on the team—she couldn’t make it to the team photo shoot, sadly, but I’m excited to hang with her.)
This season’s schedule is going to be Killington Stage Race, New England Crit Week, and the Chicago Intelligentsia Crits in July. It’s not an insane calendar, but more stuff will be added in, as will some other crazy stuff like a 50KM trail-run in August (!!!). So it’s enough—and what I’m most excited about is having a good reason to a) hang out with rad ladies, but b) really get into some more hard, interval-heavy training, which is something I haven’t done a lot of in recent years. It also gives me a great reason to work on my mental training, hence this month’s Athletic Bookworm pick, Mind Gym.
Umm, but can we pause for a second and talk about the fact that this portrait photo of me looks like I’m about to compete in the Triwizard Tournament at Hogwarts? (And would DEFINITELY be sorted into Slytherin?!)
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bsq8CAMFo-m/
I won’t be doing race reports or anything on this site, unless something really crazy happens, but I’m sure I’ll be talking a ton about training and some of the stuff that I’m learning as I work on my crit racing. But you can follow all of our racing exploits over on the BikeReg/Share Coffee site here!
Huge thanks to our rad sponsors: BikeReg.com, Share Coffee Roasters, TW Metals, SER Exposition Services, CCNS, Shred Girls, Black Rabbit Brewery, Craft Sportswear, Mad Alchemy, Blinders Optics, Kask Helmets, and Highway Two.
