While preparing for today’s road racing season opener, curiosity got the best of me and I went to check how many seasons I have been racing bikes in New York City. Turns out, it has been longer than Road-Results.com has been compiling data. But my e-mail inbox had the answer. This is my 16th official season of racing.

Yep, my 16th year of exceptionally early alarms, of questionable pre-race portojohns, of dodging crashes and breathing though my ears while trying to hold onto the wheel ahead of me. Apparently some combination of stubborness and enjoying the intensity of bike racing is enough to keep me coming back year after year. Over that stretch there have been plenty of highs, and a few lows. But there is one thing that no prior season has featured: bike racing on February 10th. But with an ever more crowded calendar for NYC Parks, I’ll take any race day we can get. So even though my fitness is nowhere near ready for bike racing, I lined up this morning with Elbert to kick off season number 16 earlier than ever before.

Unfortunately, my season opener ended almost as soon as it started. Part way through lap 2 there was a touch of wheels midpack and I found myself grabbing a fist full of brake. I stayed upright, but came to a complete stop and by the time I regained forward momentum, the rest of the pack was up the road with too big of a gap for my lackluster early season fitness to bridge.Thankfully Elbert was ahead of the crash and had a strong rest of the race to finish somewhere around Top 10.

While it may not have been the season opener that I was looking for, racing on February 10th - in short sleeves no less! - wasn’t the worst way to kick off season number 16th. Especially given it was followed by an excellent coffee and park laps with some teammates that choose not race this very early in the calendar year.

Here’s to better luck at race number two….