BikeReg.com servers smoking, 1,000+ register for Tour of the Battenkill

I realized that I was a bit remiss in my duties as chief Tour of the Battenkill blogger (self-appointed) in not pointing out to readers that online registration for the greatest single-day bike race east of the Hudson (Rockies? Pacific Ocean?) opened at 7 this evening.

I checked the confirmed rider list an hour after registration opened, around 8 p.m., and there were already more than 900 people registered. An hour later, the number had bumped up to 1,016. As of this writing, the number is up to 1,130.

Six of the 21 fields are already full, mostly in the lower categories, although one of the two Cat 3 fields is full as of this moment.

The long and the short of it is that the 2010 ToB may very well meet it's 2,000-rider goal, to secure its spot as the largest single-day road race in the country for another year. In any event, I just hung a poster from the 2009 race on the wall I face while riding my rollers/trainer, so that I can once again hold ToB close in my dreams, and in my day-dreams.

There was once a study that showed visualizing success in a free-throw competition over a period of weeks (without physical practice), resulted in more completed baskets during a competition than practicing free throws ad-nauseum without visualization. I think combing positive thinking, visualizing success, and physical training helped me to last year's success at ToB, and I'm planning on a greater degree of success at this year's ToB. I'm thinking the poster -- which was, by the way, a birthday present from my parents -- is going to be a great help in this regard.

However, with all of this ToB excitement, I haven't registered myself yet. "Why," you ask. Well, thus far, there are only 26 racers registered in my field, an additional benefit of being a 2 -- there just aren't that many of us. With a few things still up in the air, I'm going to hold off on registering for the moment, although I'm sure I'll be throwing my name in the hat in the not-to-distant future, especially if it looks like registration in my race is starting to pick up.

So, congrats to Dieter for making ToB such a wildly-successful race. I can't wait for April 10!

On a completely unrelated note, I think the best thing about being Jewish, aside from Gefilte fish and knishes, might be NOT having to go Christmas shopping. L'Chiam!

On a second note, unrelated to either of the notes above, keep watching this page for a very exciting announcement in the coming days.

On a third note, similarly unrelated, I have added a word-verification catcha to the comments page on this blog. I'm sorry for the additional step, but with tens of thousands of readers, managing the spam comments is getting a bit tiresome.