It’s Friday, and with temperatures below zero enough to push the windchill to -30, I’m driving my car to work for the first time all winter.  I started commuting by bike year-round three winters ago, and though I’d caved several times the first winter and a few times last year, I was really disappointed to break my record this time around.  But -30 wind chill?  That’s faster frostbite than my icy commute will take.

…

My name is Elisabeth, I turned 27 on Monday, and I’ve decided that my obsession with riding bicycles — paired with a naturally competitive personality — deserved some attention.  I toured in BRAN 2009, where I frequently paired up with strong riders who had computers on their bikes, and got hours of practice in learning how to draft.  After returning to Lincoln, I spent days in my cubicle looking out the window and mapping post-work rides in my head.  Towards the end of summer, I got in on a series of urban alleycat-style races, the competitive bug bit, and I found myself again at bliss racing through Lincoln streets at night.  In November, while attending the first day of the Lincoln Cyclocross Weekend as a spectator, I was approached by someone I’d heard a lot about.

“Come ride a lap,” Sydney said in an encouraging voice. “You girls will be fine.”

So my friend Melissa and I rode a lap, albeit tentatively, and were convinced to come back Sunday and enter the race.  And we did.  I on a fixed gear.  And though after the first lap I wondered why I had let myself be convinced to do this and prayed for some horrible mechanical disaster to befall me, it was a blast!

So it was with an anxious, early, frigid Saturday morning rise that I strapped my late ’80s Bertoni onto my car and drove to Joyride, this time convinced by that same encouraging voice to try out racing.

Overall, though I thought I would rather puke and die than do that second interval, I’m feeling good about beginning to take training more seriously, no matter what I end up doing.