Nanci, if I could do it, anyone can. You just have to make yourself be brave enough. I am not a 'racer type,' whatever that is. I don't think of myself as a racer or even a very strong rider, just average. Our average was 20.9 mph. I was 23rd out of 36, sort of in the middle of the main group.

Yellow, I believe it counted as a road race because the laps were so long (7 miles). I think a crit has much shorter laps, and a larger number of them. (Anybody out there want to define a criterium?) I did it with a TRIPLE, and if anyone laughed at me, I was unaware. Who cares? We had to have a USCF license. There were all types there. The men raced in lots of categories: cat 5, cat 4, cat 3, and the pro-1-2 group. They lumped all the women together, regardless of category, so there were some teams, but also a bunch of individuals. As a woman you get to start out at cat 4.