Tuesday, July 29, 2008

No, it's not a compliment when you say I look like I'm 33.

A commenter on a previous post asked for more cycling-related posts. This is a little difficult, since I had to retire this season. According to USA Cycling, your "racing age" (the age that's on your license) is the age you'll be on December 31 of that year. So, this season my racing age would've been 30, which would mean that I could race in the "masters" categories. Yeah, right. No self-respecting 29-year-old would do those old man races. No way was I going to line up with guys who's primary concern was that races start early so they can finish up and go do chores around the house. Whatever.

Anyway, there is a good cycling anecdote from a few years back. I was having dinner with some teammates after the criterium at the Seaford Stage Race out in Delaware. One teammate (who shall remain unnamed) commented that he thought cycling made people look younger than they actually were. To prove it, he said that he thought I looked like I was 33. Whoops! This means that he thought I was somewhere around 36-40 years old.

Of course, I was 26 at the time.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

how many watts did you generate while typing this post? what was your hr? can we get a race report from that year at seaford?

Richard said...

My wattage was undetermined, since only 30somethings use powermeters. My heart rate was also undetermined, since my HRM is covered in gross salt/sweat and I don't want it to touch my body. The race report? After a bunch of lolligagging, the whole team ended up chasing down our teammate. Classy.

Anonymous said...

no power meter? whatever! we all know that you've been racing masters races for years and you're just trying to trick your wife and cat into thinking that you're young. it ain't gonna work OLD MAN!

Anonymous said...

you're so old, that you used to do time trials on a funny bike!

Anonymous said...

you're so old, that you used to get dropped while racing the coors classic!

Anonymous said...

you're so old, that you were an extra in american flyers!

Katherine said...

I think that the fact that you had to "retire" from racing makes you sound old. Maybe instead you should say you "took some time off" or are "taking a sabbatical" or are "too rockin' to fit it into your schedule"!

Anonymous said...

or how about too slow to keep up!