license upgrade

last year i argued with myself periodically as to whether or not to ask for an upgrade from a sport class license to an expert. the problem for me was that i felt strong enough to race expert in iowa but i was doing enough racing in minnesota and considering a few in wisconsin and felt that i belonged in the comp class there (which iowa doesn't have and wasn't an actual license category). upgrading to an expert license would have meant jumping from sport to expert in those races and getting my ass handed to me. i decided to ride out the year without the upgrade then do it over the off season and take this coming year for what it will be racing expert at the bigger races. learn from it, hurt because of it, get faster, get better, move forward. then usa cycling went and changed licensing formats to be similar to road racing and now we have numbered categories. cat 3 is for beginners, cat 2 is the new sport class, cat 1 is expert AND semi-pro, and then you have your pro category. by combining experts and semi-pros into cat 1 it means that my upgrade would be an even bigger jump in strength of competition (or so my understanding of all of this goes). long story short, i renewed my license and was carried over into cat 2 and decided to ask for my uprgade at the same time. just found out that i got it. which is cool. certainly not life changing, but cool. in the middle of winter surrounded by snow covered trails and ice covered gravels its nice to have little things like this happen that help justify all the hours, all the suffering. really, anything to help me swing a leg over my bike when i could just as easily stay inside where its warm and safe is more than welcome. so...here's looking forward to a new year, bigger races, faster classes, longer distances, getting ridden into the fucking ground repeatedly by myself and my competition and hopefully doing well enough from time to time to smile when its over.