Teams. wtf do i do?

Chrisbnj said:

btw, i ride a good 50 miles every week in a moderately hilly area) my max climb being about 600 meters on a low quality mountain bike

When you get on a team, expect to at least quadruple your weekly mileage. But the USCF has a web page listing affiliated clubs here: www.usacycling.org -- USA Cycling Clubs

Investigate a couple in your area. Ride with them, attend their social and business functions, and see where you fit in. You might want to consider how a club can get the rest of your family involved with you.

Yes, go to bobcat's link, there should be tons of links for new jersey, and if you are serious about joining a team, go ahead and start working on riding longer times and distance. Around 200 miles a week is a good place to be for a young team rider.

It's a good thing you live in the age of the internet. You can just look up a club's website and check out when they ride. After riding with them, you can get referrals from a handful of people on the team and you should be good to go!

Since you're young, you might want to check out developmental teams that cater to youth. You might be racing as a Junior, but if you're good you can race with the older people in the higher categories.

Keep in mind that you don't need a team to start racing. What you need is a license, which you can buy on usacycling.org. From there, you can check out your state's bicycle association website to see when and where the races are. For my state, it's txbra.org, but take the time to explore usacycling.org's website to see when the events are. They usually have an entry fee based on your category. So all you have to do is pay the entry fee online, show up at the event, and you're good to go!

A team helps you tremendously though in terms of training, advice, experience, and equipment. Good luck!

I want to say that I agree with everything that everyone is saying. I found my team by emailing our local USAC representative, introducing myself and explaining my goals. He put me in touch with a team that is just perfect for me. You can try doing something like that too.

Alternatively, you can just go to your local LBS - the one where you do most of your business. They likely have a team that you can join, and even if they don't you can point you to a shop that does. At least in my area, a lot of the teams like young riders because it is a chance to get more and more people into the sport.

Being on a team has been invaluable for me as I have gotten fantastic guidance, camaraderie, skills training, and general training advice from experienced racers.

In terms of training volume - everyone who discussed this above is absolutely right. As you get serious about your racing, your training volume will increase - a lot. My low mileage weeks are 150mi. My miles consists of some really targeted interval workouts, races, and club training rides, and recovery rides.

Good luck with your foray into racing!!!!! Keep us posted on how it goes with finding a team, and, more importantly, that first race :-)

Hanging out with them, you might find a real good deal on an older, but well cared for racing bike too. Don't be afraid of something that's one or two "generations" older than the current models. What was good 6 or 7 years ago is still good now, assuming it's been well cared for and not run into the ground.