Firstly, I should be clear and describe what I’m eulogizing in this journal entry. Most importantly, I am not dead, so I do not personally require a eulogy. I am also neither quitting bikes nor bike racing, what I am eulogizing is career as a person who types about bike races. I choose to stop writing about bike races because, in all honesty, I really have nothing left to say. And this isn’t due to writers block or a lack of time (well, I do lack the time to write, but let’s pretend that isn’t a reason so it looks like I’ve thought my writing retirement through and I have multiple reasons to quit); I have chosen to stop writing because I have been dutifully recording my race happenings for over a decade and I cannot face the prospect of trying to come up with something new and novel to say about bike races I have literally done hundreds of times ever again.

I’ve raced on the East Coast since 1995. Before moving East, I raced from my home base in Kansas City, but the density of race events in the Midwest in the 90s was such that I would never compete in more than five races per year. There just wasn’t that much racing—and you also had to drive anywhere from three to six hours to even find a bike race. So I really didn’t consider myself a pretend bike racer until I moved to Connecticut. Based in Danbury and Bethel, I was able to exploit my relative proximity (a 1.5 hour drive—which seemed like a grocery store run when compared to a 6 hour drive to the Blaine Velodrome—and I did start out racing on the track. In a city without a track…) to New York City to gorge myself upon the racing available in the city parks. Before the advent of the internet, we used the back pages of Velonews, flyers collected in the parking lots at races and blind faith to find races, but things almost always seemed to turn out ok—even when you mailed a check out to a promoter two states away just two weeks before the race—you still got an entry.

Let’s skip ahead past potential mail fraud, a move to the Bronx (my wife likes to tell people we lived in Riverdale, but we were right next to the Jerome Reservoir, there were no “rivers” to be “daled” there) and dozens of races with virtually no placings to speak of. I joined the CRCA in 1998. It was then that the volume (but not necessarily the quality) of my racing increased. I was afflicted with a desire to abuse myself every Tuesday while I still lived in Connecticut, so I would drive down to race at Floyd Bennett Field—I was single. And because I hated my perineum, I would also occasionally race at Kissena on Wednesdays, making the three hour round trip, because again—I was single. But I digress, I joined the CRCA and embarked upon an utterly unremarkable racing career. I rode my bike to the early morning Central Park races through the dark Bronx (no one bothers to rob a guy on a bike at 5 am, it’s the closest you can get to being invisible), and I would ride my bike out to FBF to race on Tuesdays, getting home after dark after riding nearly 90 miles. (It took me a long time to realize that the ride out to FBF before the race was the reason why I always did so terribly at FBF, I eventually stopped and began driving to the race—and started doing less terribly.) I raced Harlem every year (and never crashed, not even once!), and I would occasionally race somewhere out of town.

This cycle continued essentially for the next twenty years. Race in the parks on weekends, race Tuesdays at FBF and occasionally do the night ride (which is no longer a thing—and probably for the best). I didn’t start writing about any races until about 2004-ish, at which point I was 36 years old and well past any hopes of athletic domination, but I wrote about races anyway because, like any other bike racer, I am hopelessly delusional and actually thought I could offer insight into the races I recorded. A rough estimate (let’s say 15 races a year for 13 years—I won’t count 2018—because let’s face it, I mailed it in) reveals that I’ve described about 200 races, and I’ve enjoyed sharing my race experiences. In the course of documenting those experiences I’ve met so many cyclists and I’ve been complimented, criticized, encouraged, lambasted and physically threatened of course (the less said about that, the better—moving on…). 

Now is normally the time in a eulogy about writing about bike races where I should say what I’ve learned over the years and thank everyone for reading, but let’s not forget that I am a bike racer, and as such, I have to slip in an accounting of my athletic accomplishments. Bike racers are a stupid lot—never forget that.

I’ve won four races in my decades of racing. Four. And that includes racing on the track, where you can practically win just by showing up. I did win two race series, the 3/4ths field at FBF and the 50+ (old) series at Branchbrook this year, but that doesn’t help my narrative of endless futility. My real point in mentioning my palmares (that’s French for “listing all your accomplishments like a douche”) is that I don’t race to win. Wait, what I mean is that I don’t only race to win—I mean, if I have a chance at winning, of course I will try… I think you get my drift here. If I only raced to win, I would’ve moved on to golf a long time ago. (I still pee standing up, so golf doesn’t yet interest me.)

What has really kept me typing these years is knowing that people would take the time to read and enjoy sharing the experience of being a bike lunatic. I’ve enjoyed the experience, but I’ve emptied the well, so I will leave you to consider a theme that I have been consistent in mentioning throughout my journals. Something that long time readers will recognize immediately. So to all of you I say affectionately, my butt.