I traded road racing for this.

My road racing season came to an abrupt ending when I moved. (I'm writing this in a small coffee shop across the street from the Klondike Casino. Across from me is a cowboy -- seriously, a real cowboy, a rancher in a ten-gallon hat and leather, spurred boots. I'd be lying if I said that wearing a spandex kit in this town makes me feel a little uneasy. Levi Leipheimer grew up about a half hour from here, though. He's legit. Does that make me legit? Nah.) Road racing is a far-behind third to mountain and 'cross racing in Montana. There were only ten races in the state this year. Luckily, cyclocross seems to have a decent following here; there are two-day races every weekend from September 25 to Thanksgiving all within four hours, typically within two. I'm already excited. I've been doing laps around my temporary house: ride, dismount, jump two flower pots, remount, repeat in five-minute intervals.

My shortened race season went really, really well. Two years ago, bike racing was a monthly alleycat; in four months, I raced 35+ races and 1,000+ miles. I upgraded from a Cat. 5 to a Cat. 3 in five weeks. If I hadn't left, I'd be on my way to that girl-impressing Cat. 2 upgrade, now my 2010 goal ... all depending on where I'm living. No races means no upgrade. We'll see where this racing obsession takes me next year: stay in Montana or head south to Colorado ...

The highlight of my race season was a 40-man, Cat. 3 crit. I did in New Jersey. And I finished a crowd-pleasing 16th. My father watched me race. I had to beg him to do it. At the beginning of the season he thought when I mentioned racing I meant alleycats, those "silly, brakeless messenger races." Five laps into the 30-lap race, I made a break with two other guys and we held it for 15 laps. He said we got so far away that he didn't think we'd get caught. Then the field prime. I attacked again with five to go, got caught again, and got caught behind a wreck in the sprint, still feeling like I had enough for at least a Top 10 finish. To hear my father yell my name, encouraging me on every lap to keep pushing it, well, it was great. I've never felt so physically strong on a bike and, more importantly, it was probably the happiest I've ever been on a bike.

Training here, even riding here, is really different. How do you focus your training on a road that's dead-flat, dead-straight for ten miles? You can't recover on the descent when there is no descent. It will take some getting used to. I guess it's all about intervals. It's always blowing around ten miles per hour and consistently gusting higher. I forget that I'm a little over 6,000 feet above sea level. The roads are visually confusing. I road out this highway yesterday into the wind, feeling awful, getting pissed at my poor riding. I was trying to ride to a state park 21 miles out. It was a gradual climb, but nothing even vaguely intense. I turned around at mile-12, annoyed. I proceded to descend the next three miles at a little over 45 miles per hour. Okay.

I hate to admit that the lack of variation can make this insanely beautiful landscape mundane ...

Oh, and now one of my road shoes is held together with safety pins. Either Cody or my roommate's dogs decided to chew the ratchet strap off my shoe. An expensive meal for a dog ...