Originally Posted by shovelhd

I'm 5'10" and 141 pounds, and I'm a crit racer. I love them. Last year I did 31 crits and 6 road races.

Even though you are a Cat4, you have a lot of racing under your belt. If you want to specialize, go ahead, but if you want to progress up the ladder in racing, then you'll eventually have to figure out how to do well in crits, as long as you're racing in this country. My advice to you is to forget about specialization, and spend some time to figure out what your strengths and weaknesses are. Get with a higher category racer or two and develop a plan to address your weaknesses. From what I understand, you're on a strong team, so there should be someone to help you out. Be open minded. Listen and learn. Work hard on your weaknesses. Use training rides and races to test them out. In races, start to figure out who they guys are that get away and mark them. Get in a break and finish in the break. Do that a few times and I bet you'll change your mind about racing crits.