Originally Posted by
HawkeyeCubs34
The others participating were a little too serious and introverted for my humorous and jovial personality (it's okay of you are too serious, but I just can't be). These events seemed more like work obligations than recreational enjoyment. That was when I told myself I needed to tone it down a bit, keep cycling fun, and not let it become "an obligation."
Is anyone else like this? Anyone content down it Cat 5 and keeping it simple?
I'm similar. I know i'm never going to be a professional cyclist and that's not my goal. I do like to succeed and I thrive on competition. Although training does give me the ability to be competitive that's about the extent of how serious I take the sport. Sportsmanship (like bike handling, racing protocols, and overall not-being-an-assshat rider) I do take more seriously because that can effect others, such as crashes and reputations. The only issue I found with the Cat 5s were the wide range of people in the races and the start times... The start times were actually why I upgraded to the 4s as at the time I didn't really take bike racing that seriously. I thought the 4s would also be better for the bike handlers, but the changes weren't that significant. Now i'm looking to move up to the 3s because the riders there seem to ride smoother and more predictable, but that would require me to get stronger and race smarter now. (if only I could race the 35+ fields...)
My issue with the seriousness of racing is a little different. I enjoy group rides, I enjoy riding hard, but I don't want to be told what to do and I don't want to feel like I NEED to do a specific workout on any given day (I also don't want to pay for that - ie: a coach); that's not fun for me. With this, I'm having this issue with the level of seriousness and financial dedication with the power-meter and training. I like the fancy numbers, I like the power curves and seeing what I can produce, but I don't really use it for training very often (only during the winter, really). I realize that if I trained more precisely I could become much stronger, but again comes the 'fun' issue. I have an older powertap now, but with the money I could spend on a fancy crank-based power meter I could buy a new bike frameset and some components (and that's exactly what I did). It was all because I finally talked with a teammate about it. He's a cat2 racer who doesn't use a computer, doesn't train with anything other than RPE, and I'm leaning toward his way of approaching riding and racing. He's fast and he has a lot of fun on the bike and seems pretty happy in general. He doesn't get caught up with the numbers, with Strava, the distances or any of that, his fun comes from competing, attacking, and generally helping other teammates in the 1/2/3 race as he mostly races masters races for himself (no other teammates in his field).