There was a strange wind blowing at Tuesday night’s FBF race, and I’m not being metaphorical here—there was literally an unusual wind. It was coming from a north-east-ish direction, creating a headwind on the finishing straight. This is the exact opposite of the normal direction of the prevailing winds at FBF, and if I were a real writer I would bend this meteorological information to suit some sort of narrative about the race being completely different, but that would be inaccurate—and I’m really too lazy to put in that sort of rhetorical effort.

To be honest, Tuesday’s race was incredibly predictable. Jermaine had a nine point lead in the GC over Augusto, so it was up to Mengoni to try and get Augusto away. Any moves that didn’t have Augusto involved would probably not be successful, as Mengoni would shut them down like a Frito Factory on a Friday. As the end of the FBF series nears, the racing tends to become more about the GC. Teams are either protecting the yellow jersey or trying to gain points, and when you have teams as organized as WS United and Mengoni, it’s pretty easy to see what their intentions are. Mengoni wasn’t going to let Jermaine get away without Augusto, and WS United wasn’t going to let Augusto get away without Jermaine. If you wanted to get into a break, you would probably need both of those riders involved—unless you have the speed to hold off both Mengoni and WS United—then you should be fine getting away by yourself.

Personally I do not possess the speed to hold off two teams of tenacious trailers, so I kept an eye on Jermaine and Augusto. There were accelerations and jumps from both of them, but their teams were able to neutralize the moves. And that’s the way the race rolled, with accelerations and chases and speedy bits meant to tear the race apart. This made for a very fast pace. As an obvious rule of thumb, very fast races usually mean a field sprint, because if the race is going really fast, one has to go really, really fast in order to sustain a breakaway—and riding really really fast is hard.

Tuesday’s finish was no exception to his rule, and with two laps to go, the sprint writing was on the wall. I decided to participate, because, you know, I had nothing better to do. I set about to positioning myself. There’s always a bit of rumbling that goes on in the lead up to a field sprint, as there’s really only one optimal place to be and everyone knows where it’s at. I’m never surprised when I get bumped or shoved a little bit, it’s part of the game, but there was some extra argy in the bargy for the field sprint on Tuesday. I usually don’t report on dodgy behavior in races, as sometimes the dodgy one is I, but I will say that if you need to punch your way to the finish line, that might be a sign that you are boxed in—and should stay boxed.

That being said, I resumed racing after the pre-sprint pugilism, and despite being waylaid by some fisticuffs, I was able to salvage a ninth place out of the sprint. Which is much better than a punch in the mouth.