yesterday i raced in my first mountain bike individual time trial since 1997.
self-classification is funny, as i was torn between "beginner" and "sport". i don't consider myself a beginner rider, since i've been doing trails pretty regularly since 1994, but i haven't raced in 13 years. also, one of my friends registered as beginner and i wanted to have the same trail conditions as him, since there was rain in the sky. so i registered as a beginner, age 40 - 44. in a time-trial format, they release one rider every 30 seconds. my buddy started at 12:27:30, and i started at 12:31:00. i did not catch him, but i passed 6 or 7 people, which was cool. jerry finished in 51:54.5 and i finished in 50:31.0. there were 21 dudes in our category, and i finished tenth.
if i had registered in sport, my time would've put me in 8th. i guess self-classification brings out the cheater in us all. 
