...and with a **poof** my season is actually over.

Thanks to the raging fire that is currently, uh, raging over in the mountains outside Ketchum (and inside Ketchum), my season is officially over. Something about this Ketchum Crit seemed a little too good to be true: a $10,000 purse for an hour long race with a field limit of 80 racers: 40 cat 3's and 40 1/2's. I don't even remember the last time I raced a crit that was only an hour long, or with less than 100 guys in it. Unfortunately, this Castle Rock Complex fire is a natural disaster of monumental proportions; mother nature has made her point loud and clear: there shall be no easy money criterium in Idaho. Those Sportsbaseonline.com guys better give me back my entry fee, I'll tell you what! I'm not exactly devastated – crits haven't exactly been my best friend this year, but it would have been fun to race in front of my friends and family one last time this year.

Even though this has been a good season, there is something destabilizing about being done early, not unlike a carpet being whisked out from underneath one's feet, or suddenly stepping ashore after months at sea. What on earth am I to do now? I still have one more adventure before I can settle down for good (read: more than two weeks); I have to go to Chicacgo (again), and care for my 14 year old cousins while their parents are out of town. The important thing is however, the racing is over. It's shocking, but I don't need to ride every day if I don't want to. Best of all, I can do things I wouldn't normally for fear of hurting myself: fly my power kite, go surfing, try break dancing, etc.

What is a bicycle racer who doesn't race? Just a bicycle?