2007 season in review

2007 was a season full of ups and downs. My race results were absolutely pathetic, save for a couple of time trials. It was nice though, watching my new team mates have great success over the year.

Toward the end of 2006, I transferred from Team Dayton to Project Velo, following 5 other team mates. Most of the people on Team Dayton were great guys, but it seemed like there was a complete lack of any team unity. I guess that goes hand in hand on a team with open eligibility. For reasons I won't go into, I was prepared back in July to leave Team Dayton and ride for myself in 2007. I was offered the last spot on Project Velo late in the year and decided to take it. Closed eligibility of hand picked riders is a nice change! It allows team management to keep the egos, the jerks and the people that think they are owed something that are all to prevalent out.

2007 started with a couple of indoor time trials in Centerville, then it was straight off to Mentor for the first race of the year. 20 degrees was not an ideal racing temperature. The OVR spring series brought quite a bit of success to the team and made our guys (and gals) watched riders.

By the time summer rolled around most of the development riders had their own agendas and goals so a lot of times I was racing by myself. I did most of the Ohio Cup races as a Master 3/4/5, and I'm the only rider on the team who qualified for that field.

This year, there was no time trial series in Casstown, but Colavita's local chapter picked up the slack with a 20k TT that was held once a month in Greenville. Although I did not have great results (speed wise), I was able to win the season series in my age group by being pretty consistent over the entire series. That was the highlight of my season.

Toward the fall, the races tapered down with a two week vacation to Scotland and the planned surgery. I ended up doing 36 races this year in the time available.

Hopefully with a new game plan, I won't have a repeat of 2007's struggles. My aim is to be 20 pounds lighter at the first race of 2008 than I was at the first race of 2007.

Time and hard work will tell.