Into the Dark Months of Winter

It is happening, as it does every year...the air is crisp and the trees are awash with color. As Chicago marches towards winter I am torn. Fall is my favorite time of year. Not only is my birthday in the fall but it is also is the time of year when College Football is played (my favorite sport to watch). In addition to that I hate the heat and fall signifies an end to that. However, it also signifies the end of the cycling year. As the days shorten, it becomes increasingly difficult to ride to work. For safety, I don't like to ride in the dark on the roads I use to get to work so once it gets to the point where, to get in a full days work, I need to leave in the dark in the morning or get home after dark in the evening I shut it down. We are almost there. I have maybe another week, maybe two before it is all over. As long as it is dry, I will still ride on Saturdays, even if it is cold.
Since the LOTOJA, I haven't done a lot of riding. Two Saturday's ago I rode with Mitchel Merrill on a 50 mile ride, which is a requirement for the cycling merit badge. I have commuted to work on the bike once or twice a week but in general I have not been on the bike that much. Coach Mark has instructed me to basically take October off and we will start my winter program on November 1st.
In the meantime, I will ride a couple of times between now and then. The big to-do on my list is to overhaul my bike. It has nearly 6,000 miles on it and I have not done much maintenance on it. I am going to completely overhaul the drive chain (new chain, new bottom bracket (which I ruined taking it off before the LOTOJA to lube it), degrease everything, new cables, etc). I also need to put in new bearings in the headset. For some reason they are shot and the front wheel "tracks" or locks into the straight forward position (better than slightly to the left or right). It is hard to handle the bike properly so they need to be changed. I will work on this project over the next two weeks and then get into my winter program.
So I have began to think about next year. At this point, my main goal is to get from Cat. 5 to Cat. 3. I will be spending some time seeing if it is possible to accomplish this without competing completely in crits. I am hoping to also compete in time trials and road races but I am resigned to the fact that I will likely be racing in mostly crits.
I will blog again once I get into my winter program, until then GO UTES!!!!