Racing Age: 40

Racing Age: 40.
It's a somber moment, I can tell you.
Not bad, really.  Just earlier than I expected.  You always assume you have more time on this, because you actually DO have more time.  Your birthday isn't for a few months.  And yet, January 1, as a bike racer, you are 40.  Racing age.  Not real age.  Thanks for the early punch in the gut, USAC.

But then again, your real age, if that were somehow a measure of your mileage, would be way, way older than 40.  Look at you.  Your knees pop and creak like an old wood floor every time you stand up.  You pee every 7 to 10 minutes, like an over-hydrated golden retriever puppy.  You haven't stayed up past 10 PM in at least a year.  No indeed, racing age - 40 - that's being generous.  Take your 40 years and shut up.

In 2003, I raced the Firecracker 50 in Breckenridge, back when MTB categories were still Beginner, Sport, Expert, and Pro.  On your calf at registration, they marked you with a black sharpie - E2 was an expert in his 20's.  S3 was Sport 30's.  And so on.  As an S2 at the time, I was humbled on lap two to be in the mix with a lot of E5s and E6s.  By "in the mix" I actually mean "remorselessly dropped and left for dead."  More than an asskicking, these guys gave me pause, encouragement - I had some good years left.

And I still do, I guess.
So do they, I imagine.  One or two of them might even be an E8 by now.  Wow.  I imagine if "racing age: 40" gives you a jar, then "racing age: 80" will make you shit your pants.  Or by then, you'll be over it anyway.

It would be my honor to take that asskicking again, if they were so inclined.  Maybe I will get back out to Breck someday.  Maybe I'll do so as an E6 myself, look over on the paved road back up the mountain on lap two at some S2 spinning way to small of a gear and tell him, with no hyperbole, "you're pedaling like my grandson."  Maybe he will actually be my grandson.

We should all be so lucky.

Up, up, up.