Originally Posted by
nahh
I'm 18, started riding when I was 15 or 16. The best thing I did was quit doing group rides as a newbie. I can do them just fine now, but when I was first starting out I didn't have the muscle to do the climbs and long flat stretches yet, and I had knee problems.
I haven't raced yet, although I might race some CX next fall, and we'll see how things go in college workload wise, but I might start racing my 2nd semester of Freshmen year (so less than a year from now, I need to get a race bike first, and train up.)
so my advice to juniors: Don't kill yourselves, train smart. Don't worry about your bike, you can train on anything. Ride with fast people, they make you fast.
and most importantly, keep those grades up! So far, i've managed to keep my grades high senior year, but I have friends who don't care and are failing. It's not good, colleges don't like to see that.
This is one of the largest limiting factors to my riding. I go to a tuition-paid high school, and in order to repay my parents I take the hardest classes I can. The homework can sometimes take me a few hours of an evening, so getting out during the week is really hard. And then that lack of riding combined with my concern over our financial situation just makes me go insane.
Anybody else in a similar situation?