I'm looking to join a team this summer to help keep in shape, and to have fun. I've found some teams in my area (twin cities) that race more for fun than anything else, but I'm still not sure if I'm good enough to keep up with them.

I've done some MTB racing in the past, but I really want to get into road racing. Mainly because crits look like a blast, but also because MTB racing seems more about beating the clock, while road racing seems like it has more strategy and direct competition involved.

Anyhow, I'm pretty new to racing in general. I just started last summer with a few open MTB races, and I did a bit of collegiate racing last fall. In collegiate, I raced B for XC, and I ended up in the bottom half in the 3 races I was able to go to. In the open races, some of them I did top 25%, but some of them I was closer to top 70%. But those were counting men/women young/old, so take that as you will.

What I'm trying to figure out is if I'm good enough for cat 5 racing, or if I should wait until the 09 season to start. It looks like all the races I want to do don't have open/citizen classes. I want to race, but at the same time I don't want to be dropped or pulled by the 3rd or 4th lap.

I have a set of rollers I've been 'training' on, but the last 2 weeks the reminants of a flu has had me coughing too much to use them. I sprained my ankle real bad right before thanksgiving, so I'm in pretty bad shape right now. I think I'm about 20 lbs over what I should be for racing. Another bit of info which might be helpful, I guess. I could probably have that off in 2 months if I tried real hard, so long as it doesn't involve giving up drinking on the weekends.

So how about it? Is cat 5 as tough as I think it is, or is it more accepting to beginners?