Pantani 2022 - 10 AM on Sunday, February 13th

 I have some bad news for you.  Pantani 2022 is exactly one month from 7 hours ago.  

That's right, 7 hours ago you still had a month left to peel your saggy haunches off the couch, don the bibs you used to fit into, pile your candy cane mutated posterior onto a real bike, and get your heart rate above 75 for any reason in the entire universe besides Zwift, but now you don't.  Now you have 7 hours less than that.  The window is closing on you, just like it's closing on me, closing on all of us.  

Still, there's cause for hope I guess.  At 10 AM, Sunday, February 13th, when the proverbial shotgun blasts and Richard Serton goes screaming up the road like he's been shot out of some kind of man-weapon, there's still a chance you won't stink up the scene with your lethargy.  Maybe you'll have pulled it together over these four weeks, four weeks that will fly by from this perspective, annotated mostly by your excuses.  Snowstorm.  Power outage.  Another snowstorm.  Covid scare.  Actual Covid.  Failure of the public internet.  The list of reasons you won't be riding between now and Pantani is long, long like how much time it'll take you to climb simmons in your granny gear, long like the odds of you finishing before dark, but short by comparison when you stack them up against the list of reasons you didn't ride around the holidays, or October, or whenever it was we last saw each other in costume, got drunk, and didn't really race.  And we stunk then too.  You, me, most of us.  We all stink now.  Mostly you though.  

If you want my advice, which you don't but I'll give you anyway, I suggest you find yourself a proxy.  A scab.  A stand-in.  A more prepared rider than you.  Then, go way, way out of your way to create a situation where she has to ride Pantani while you X.  And, by X, I mean manage the kid's violin recital that you've never given two shits about until now, or coach a kid's soccer team you've never even met, or attend a paint-by-numbers class you've been DYING to get into even though no one has ever heard you say it, and a spot just opened up.  ANYTHING that you think will get her to take the fall for you.  Beg if you have to.  I CANNOT BARE THE IDEA OF CRAWLING UP BROKENBACK WITH MY CHAMOIS ASSAULTING ME LIKE IT'S A THONG THIS YEAR I JUST FUCKING CAN'T DO IT.  And anyway, look, she's been riding a ton.  She's been disciplined.  She's worked hard.  She is, I'll say it, WAY faster than me.  

Please, will you ride Pantani for me?

I think she'll say yes.  Like the day out above all the singletrack in Sedona, from the saddle, when I got down on one knee and hoped, prayed, asked her to make my life a lot better, and marry me, because maybe I could see the future and I knew right then that a) I couldn't go through life without her and b) in the year 2022 this thing called Pantani was going to ruin me.   

She'll say yes, I think.  I am counting on it. 

More details forthcoming, but mark your calendars and take notice.   And, as always, PRINT the map.  

Up, up, up.