Saturday morning saw the beginning of another season where a certain subset of cyclists awake to do stupid things again. We wake at stupid times to race in stupid temperatures facing stupid levels of risk to play out our lycra-clad melodramas for the viewing pleasure of the insomniac squirrels in Central Park. Of course, I count myself a member of the legion of stupidity, and while I may not necessarily have been eager about the prospect of a race in the 30 degree darkness, I showed up nonetheless.

In my decades of participation in these early morning bike hootenannies, I’ve honed a pre-race routine that I’ve come to rely on to get me to races on time and as ready as I can hope to be. As I’ve mentioned before, this routine is based on my “rule of twos”: get up two hours before the race starts; have two cups of coffee and consequentially, execute “two twos” before leaving the house. I find this routine comforting, and like a favorite song, it transports me back to past races and early morning memories that all have a familiar resonance—why in the name of everything holy am I awake at four-goddam-thirty in the morning?

Saturday’s routine was expanded to include carpooling with neighbor Jodie, who arrived five minutes early and nearly induced two number three when I unexpectedly came upon her waiting quietly in my driveway as I went to get my car ready for the drive to Central Park. I pulled myself together, explained that an early morning shriek was a normal part of my race preparation and we headed east for the city.

This year, we have new members on the Rockstar Games team and that, combined with early season enthusiasm, meant that we had a pretty full squad for doing something stupid in the park. Before the race, in typical bike racing team style, we emailed back and forth about pre-race strategy and developed a plan of action that worked to our strengths and allowed me to indulge in my passion for being bossy.

I’ve stared at the rears ends of more talented racers for a long time now, and as a connoisseur of racer butt, I’ve come to learn a thing or two about what might happen during a race. Bike racing, in many ways, is a pretty straightforward sport. Strong racers are going to do things during a race that play to their strengths, and many times they will do these things over and over because bike racing is a lesson in toil and frustration. For some racers it’s not a matter of whether they will take a shot at the race, it’s a matter of when they take a shot at the race. And if you are a team like us with a good number of riders in the pack, you can send enough bodies after these attacks.

And that’s what we did. We placed ourselves into moves and when the time came, Chris attacked with about two laps to go and he was joined by Chase from Weather Channel and Dominic from Lupus. Chris was able to withstand the pain from the two of them and finished a fine third. A great result for a team with a bunch of fresh faces.

I rolled in to the finish with a stupidly frozen water bottle and the fine feeling that comes after a morning of being bossy. Our team convened after the race to congratulate Chris on a great effort and share our tales of stupidity, because stupidity always makes for better stories than sanity.