Retiring

Well, I never thought it would happen. I have decided to "retire" from cycling. After about 3 years of road bikiing, and 2 seasons of training for races, I have decided that this is probably not the sport for me at this time in my life. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love the sport, but it does have it's disadvantages, the two biggest ones being money and time:

Cycling is an expensive sport. Yes, the bikes are expensive, but if that were the only cost involved, that wouldn't be so bad. There is everything else that goes with it: The clothing, the maintenance, the racing license fees, the race entry fees, the food, etc. Not to mention the fact that if you have any sort of mechanical failure (as I experinced this summer to the tune of $300), you can be out a whole lot more. This is fine if you can afford it, but I can't, and I don't want to be frustrated about never having any money for cycling, or anything else.

Cycling takes a lot of time. Just as an example, a very short ride is considered to be 1 hour, anything less than that, and it's not worth it. A typical long weekend ride starts at about 2.5 - 3 hours. And that is if you are just starting out. I know people who put in 4 hours+ easily on any given day on the weekend. Not to mention the fact that in addition to the time it takes to ride your bike, you also need to maintain your bike. Going out for a ride in the rain means that you are going to have to spend at least a half an hour afterwards cleaning your bike up and lubing it for the next ride. If you get a really rainy week, you can spend a lot of time performing maintenance tasks. I have decided that I don't want to give every spare moment of my life to cycling just so I can barely be competitive.

So, in summary, I think that this is a good decision for me. It has been one of the hardest decisions I have had to make in a long time, because I have gotten so many good things from the sport (having great fun at group rides, getting involved in the community, meeting new people, having motivation to get up early in the morning, etc.). I spent nearly a week deliberating over this, but I have now made the decision, and I feel at peace about it. It's now official, as I have placed all of my cyling gear up for sale on eBay.

I am going to spend more time power walking, and weight training instead. I am looking forward to this, because Renee has joined me in the weight room as well; we are hoping to develop a common activity that we both enjoy doing together. We will let you know how it goes!