Sunshine and Light

Together at Last

When Chris and I first met, I was trying my hand at road racing. And I sucked. Not “I can never get better than 4th place” sucked, more like “Gosh I hope they don’t dismantle the finish line before I get there again” sucked. But I was riding for a team whom I really liked. Laid back, casual, fun people.

At the time, Chris was riding for one of the top local teams. There were a handful of women on the team, and the local mutterings of the local gossips was that the way for a woman to get on the team was to date one of the guys on the team. Which was a little harsh, because the women who rode for the team really were top local riders in their own right. The team director is a good guy who would do anything for his riders, and that included letting them race with their girlfriends. But there’s no doubting the quality of the women that had joined up. After we dated for a bit, Chris asked if I wanted to join his team. But given how bad a racer I am, I couldn’t justify to myself switching, and just adding more gossip to the local racing community and taking even more credit from these talented women. Also, I’ve never been one for “sleep your way to the top” in any other facet of my life. I wasn’t about to start having that type of talk applied to me. And because Chris was riding for a top team with friends that he liked, he wasn’t going to switch either.

After a year and half of having my back end handed to me on weekends and every Tuesday night, I surrendered. I did one sprint triathlon the next summer, and then hung up the bike for awhile. Now I spend race days cheering for my husband with a twinkie in one hand. But my team still keeps me on the rolls, basically because they are super wonderful people.

Chris’s interest in traveling for road races has waned, at the same time the pressure to travel more on his team increased. Bike shop jobs aren't easy on weekend travel in the summer. There was pressure to buy a new team bike when he had existing bikes that he already liked, and we were trying to save $$. So Chris and team amicably parted ways and last summer he raced as an independent.

This year, there’s been a little re-org, and the team I’ve been affiliated with all of these years now has a racing team and a club. Which makes me happy because I’m definitely game to be a club rider. Hopefully there will be some cool rides that I can catch on to, and it will encourage me to get back onto my shiny new bike. And Chris is now racing for the team, while I ride for the club. We are going to be so cute in our matching kit. Or major league dweebs. But it'll be fun!

posted by MyHusbandRules @ 9:11 AM