I usually try to find some sort of meaning in my race reports because typing away about a bunch of middle-aged men chasing each other around in bike underwear sounds rather trivial, so on occasion I will try and figure out why we do the things we do. Why do we train for hours and hours to get ready to race? Why do we spend hundreds (or, as far as our significant other know, dozens) of dollars on bikes and entry fees? Why do we think it’s a good idea to wear Lycra in public? These questions may be unanswerable, or the answer could be as simple as “it’s fun” or “the world is a better place with my butt squeezed into bib shorts”. We may never find out why the pursuit of bikes is so alluring to we butt-shoving enthusiasts, but maybe the answer is in the questioning itself.

But back to the reality of racing bikes. Tuesday’s traffic on the way to FBF was a true horror show. I left my home at a time that normally has me arriving at FBF at about 6pm. The first encounter with traffic was with an expired Honda Accord on Route 4. This slowdown was not a major one and did not concern me. I crossed the GWB and there was another expired economy car (when pressed, older cars tend to find their way home to the “Great Junkyard in the Sky” on hot summer days) which was another inconvenience, but still not a trip-ender. The traffic that would put the night’s racing in jeopardy was yet to come. There had been a fiery crash on the Turnpike, which created a chain reaction of snarled traffic on the West Side Highway. I couldn’t leave the West Side because I was pledged to pick up life coach Mihael at our usual rendezvous spot, and by the time Mihael got in my front seat and began taking sips of his “lukewarm coffee in a non-bike-water-bottle-bottle”, we were desperately behind schedule.

After being set free on the Belt Parkway, I began my race against the Waze ETA. There may or may not have been: surging, weaving, desperate accelerations, sailor words and thoughts about urinating into a non-bike-water-bottle-bottle. These things may have happened, but we will never know. Due to the hypothetical race against Waze, we arrived at 6:57 for the 7:00 start. I immediately set about taking a two minute whizz, which left one minute for registration. Amazingly, this all worked out and once again, Mihael and I made it to the start with seconds to spare.

Why did I just describe our drive to the race in such excruciating detail? Because the drive out was the most exciting occurrence of the evening. The night’s racing was another installment of jump, chase and sit. I was in a few moves that came to nothing. Aaron couldn’t shake James, and I jumped just before the corner to try and gap James in the sprint—a tactic that didn’t work. The race came down to a field sprint won by a fellow named Castillo Juarez, who was a dead ringer for someone I’ve seen somewhere before…

And that was all. The furious race to the race, the desperate attacks to gain ground, the whizz against the clock. It all seemed to amount to nothing except for a few moments of butt-shoved excitement.