If I weren’t so lazy, I would rummage through my old posts about bike racing and calculate the average date when my enthusiasm wanes. This happens every season, and the slightly maddening thing about this state of ennui is that my enthusiasm wanes as my fitness grows. As I get faster, I become less interested in being fast. It’s a situation brimming with irony and I place the blame for this athletic paradox squarely on the shoulders of people.

You see, people like doing things, fun things. And they like it when other people do fun things with them, so they invite other people to engage in these fun activities—which is fine if you are people—but can be terribly frustrating if you are a bike racer who should be living the structured life of an athletic automaton. Enjoyable people things like barbecues, parties, beer and beaches are the enemies of fastness, as they are not riding bikes. These social activities keep bike racers away from the toil required to become mighty, but I will let you in on a secret.

Sometimes I like being people.

Yes, occasionally I will succumb to temptation and stay awake until midnight or drink more than one beer or eat my body weight in sausage. I can’t help it. I still have some people left inside of me, and try as I might, this people-ness won’t go away. It’s a shame really. But on a positive note, I’ve been able to avoid enough joy in my life to feel some form coming on.

For instance, at FBF on June 21st, I was able to do bike things with a minimal amount of effort. At the Maltese cat 3 race, I decided to not be the type of person who sat in and waited to sprint for 25th place at the end (also known as “being a cat 3 in a cat 3 race”). My goal was to race in a way that gave me the best chance at actual success, and I planned on doing this by either: attacking super early (mission accomplished, got away on lap 1.3, lasted for a lap or so, got swallowed by the peloton anaconda), attacking before the sprint because the aforementioned 25th place. Neither strategy worked, but it did feel like I was racing bikes.

My last race was at FBF on June 28th, and those feelings of competency that I’ve been referencing were present. It was a moist (not rainy, but still wet) evening, with a middling crosswind blowing between turns 2 and 3. Those of us who have raced over 5,000 miles at FBF were sneaky enough to be near the front in a crosswind section like this, and when the fast people in the race decided to ride fast, I followed them.

A break of seven racers soon formed. This move included young strong person Bill A, series leader Ismael C, Jermaine B, ex-teammate Erik the Swede, Juan S and a few others. We worked hard to get a gap, and I contributed. Ismael flatted out of the break, and we were down to six with a whole lot of laps left. The break was now established and at this point I should’ve started thinking like a bike racer, but for some reason, I was still taking hard pulls at the front. On lap seven in the crosswind, I took a pull, pulled off and Bill A attacked, taking Jermaine with him. They stayed away, with Bill winning. I was gapped immediately by Bill’s move and was 50 meters behind the rest pf the break for about a half lap. I tried to catch back on but the gap wasn’t shrinking. I was dropped. I will now utilize gifs from the Simpsons to describe the rest of my night.

Here I am in the break feeling good, with misplaced hopes for victory.

Here I am getting dropped and seriously thinking to myself the I might be able to hold a gap over the race for five more laps.

Here I am getting caught by a chasing group of three (which include series leader Ismael, who caught back on after a flat).

My free fall down the chase groups finally ended when I joined Jesus M, Ismael and Ricky L. We rolled together but didn’t catch the break, and I finished a predictable 10th out of the 10 riders away. Which was a good result for a person, but not a great result for an automaton.