I don’t enjoy the races in February on the Arabian Peninsula because I like watching other people ride in the sun while I spend my afternoons looking for a sliver of daylight that coincides with some fragment of my day where I don’t also need to work or engage in some other activity. I also don’t enjoy them because I think corners are overrated, nor because I like watching stock-bike time trials, nor because I believe wind is a suitable substitute for mountains.

No, I enjoy the February races on the Arabian Peninsula because it’s the first sign of life we get from the hardmen who will be bending, breaking, and smashing their way over the cobblestones this Spring in snow, rain, or suffocating dust.

Not a bad way to start things, Tomeke.