A sort of Homecoming (Prologue)

And you may find yourself living in a shotgun shack
And you may find yourself in another part of the world
And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile
And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife
And you may ask yourself-well...how did I get here?

Tuesday night, at the end of a group ride, I was asked if I raced. After confirming that I did, I proceeded to go into great detail about how I hadn’t raced since October, how I hadn’t been training enough, how I had let myself get far too fat, how I hadn’t yet renewed my license, etc, etc, etc. Excuses. All of them.

Regardless, the guy who asked, told me about a stage race, the Mississippi Gran Prix Stage Race, that was taking place over the weekend. I thanked him for the tip, and wished him good luck. There was no way that I was going to start my season with a stage race. No way. A couple of hours later, after drinking a few beers, I sent an email to a teammate of the guy, asking if I could travel along, maybe share a hotel room, split the costs, etc. I expected a polite “thanks, but no thanks” reply, that's most likely what I would have done. What I got was a “sure, come along.”

So there I found myself, on a Friday afternoon, a passenger in the back of a minivan, loaded with 5 bicycles, and 12 sets of wheels, with an 18 year old baby-faced assassin at the wheel, driving well in excess of the speed limit, in torrential rains, with next to no visibility. Bike racing, there’s nothing quite like it.