Biking "Team"??
 

I've only been cycling for a few months now and today I just bought a new Cannondale CAAD9 6! i previously owned a jamis aurora elite.
Anyways, I'm wondering what it means to be on a bike team. What do you do? What biking teams are there around Union City? And can a noob like me join one? When i attended my first CX race everyone was wearing team jerseys and I thought everyone was pro and sponsored, but I guess being on a bike team just means you are part of a club, basically. am I right?

Around Union City, there is FFBC (which has a club and race team).

http://ffbc.org

You pay the membership, participate in the rides & events, and have opportunities to volunteer.

Being on a team bike means you will be faster than you have ever been! j/k!! I'm guessing (since I've never been on a team) it means you got a hook up on the price of the bike since you got a "team" discount. But that means you promote the team and race under the team's moniker.

There are several men and women on this forum that race so they could probably answer your question better than I... but that's my uneducated guess. :)

Clubs get together and ride regularly in groups with varying numbers of riders.
Race teams here train and compete on the mostly amateur level. They not only work on your speed but your bike handling skills and how to ride in close quarters with other racers. They also teach you tactics.

Club ride schedule:

http://www.fremontfreewheelers.org/M...09Calendar.pdf

Race team site:

http://www.fremontfreewheelers.org/RaceTeam/

Feel free to contact the race team with any questions you might have. They might have some training rides you can go on to check them out.

cool, thanks for all the info.

Some clubs/teams are exclusive, only people invited can join. Others accept anyone interested. Bike racing can be a team sport, in many races teammates can work together to get a higher place for a member of the team. You can train with club mates, but many of the local club training rides are open to non members.

Most local clubs/teams get some sort of sponsorship from bike and equipment makers. Clubs are required to put one race on a year, and members are usually required to work the race or do some other service for the club. Without people to work races there would be a lot fewer races.

According to the strict definitions on the USA Cycling website (www.usacycling.org), only Professionals can be on a "team". All amateurs are on clubs. But, most of us amateurs who are on clubs that race refer to our club as a team.

Like others have said, there are many teams, er I mean clubs in the Bay Area to join. Usually the ones best suited for beginners allow anyone to join, while some only allow riders of certain categories to join. You can search for a club in your area from the USA Cycling website, but the city listed for the club is not necessarily the city or area wheremost of the club members live and train. The city listed is usually just where the club president lives.

Best to ride around in your area and talk to local riders you see with team kits and ask them.

There's "clubs" and there's "Teams." Clubs get together and ride their bikes for fun. All are welcome most of the time. Maybe a fee to join but you might get discounts at your LBS or something along those lines. Nothing competitive, just ride your bike in a group and chit chat.

I see a "team" as a racing team. Generally they'll be knocking at your door, but you need to race to have a door to knock on. Everyone starts at Cat5 and works their way to Cat4, Cat3 and so on. Cat5 is where the beginner racers are so you need to be careful, but also see where your fitness level is.

My best advice:
Ride your face off this year. Ride, ride, and ride some more. Right when you get sick of riding your bike, get back on it. Legs hurt? Ride your bike. Make sure you ABSOLUTELY enjoy riding a bike and BEG for more pain. January is the start of the road racing season so get ready by then. What you want to be looking towards is the Freemont Early Bird Crits. http://www.ncnca.org/road/

I did it once, it was ****ing sweet. Scared ****less, but had fun.

Good Luck! Best thing you can do is ride your face off over the coarse of this year. Build yourself up with an early winter race in mind. It motivates you and gives you a reason to ride besides "to have fun."

Finished reading the whole thread and I just repeated everyone else. Sorry bout that :)

Thanks for the advice. I was thinking of something along those lines, since this is my first season on a bike and I'm obsessed with cycling right now. I went to the early bird crit just to watch once, thats a big reason why I sold my aurora elite for a caad9 6. Seeing those guys corner at those speeds and sprinting that quickly in person really motivated me and made me want to race.

And just out of curiousity, how long does it usually take for someone to move up to cat4 from cat5?

The move from 5 to 4 just requires 10 mass start race starts. The 5s are for gaining race experience. Field sizes are limited so things don't get quite as crazy. Before they had 5s, everyone started as a 4, and races were often crash-fests. It's just men who have to go through the 5s, women start at cat 4.

Check out the various racing clinics offered through the year at http://ncnca.org/clinics.

You can also find the rulebook and a lot of other info on the ncnca.org web site (look at the site map).

This Sunday is Menlo Park GP. You can go and watch. Talk to the ppl. Most riders are pretty nice, except when they have their game face on. ;-). You can watch Pizza man rip the the 1,2,3 up. Personally I will be just trying to stay alive in the 3,4s.

On a side note. Most ppl just cat up at 10 races. I think that is a bit early, if you are Pizza man and killing the fld then yea go for it. But staying a 5 for just a few more races can really make a difference. You see the sprints and go with the action. This is where your bike handling skillls will really improve. A lot a guys just get pack finishes than cat up, some even count races they got dropped, or mech, DNF. You do not need to win to cat up, but get some solid top 10s. Feel comfortable in the race. How fun.

No problems. I was laughing about your spelling of "Freemont". Why? Because we have patches made up for the Primavera Century that we put on, and one year they made the patches with that spelling. I have a souvenir patch with that spelling laying around. They had to remake the patches with the correct spelling.

I don't have it anymore, but I used to have a Freemont Freewheelers jersey ... old orange colored jersey. I was wondering why I got the jersey so cheap.

Man, with typos like that they should be giving them away for .. free?

Lesson learned.... NONE of us can spell "Fremont." I see that word every stinkin day from BART too!

Maybe we're all spelling it right and the city of Fremont messed up.