Not Cool

I should know better. It happens every Fall. The forecasters tease us with an approaching cool front. Then they start pushing back the date. Eventually they admit that by the time it gets here, if it does, we won't get that much of a change. The air here has been thick with haze for two days now. So much so that you don't really want to be breathing the stuff. Now, it's looking like we won't see any cooler weather until next weekend, if then. I'm just hoping we get a good day on Sunday for Rocktoberfest, since I'll be racing and officiating there all morning. I had been looking forward to turning the air-conditioner off for a while, but I guess that won't happen for a while yet.

I was thinking about that this morning on the long levee ride as the sweat was dripping onto the inside of my Oakeys, making it hard to see. I was a little bit irritated too. At the start of the ride, Donald gets on the front and pulls for a long time at a pretty good clip. That's nice. Finally, we get some nice rotation in the paceline. I take a pull or two, and at some point drop most of the way to the back of the 20-rider paceline so that everyone can get a pull. We're going maybe 25 mph. I look up and Donald is letting this big gap open in front of him - intentionally. Again. He does this all the time. It's like, if he isn't the one setting the pace, then he doesn't want to play. Well the guy on his wheel is starting to get a little nervous. You can see that he can't quite decide if he should bridge, or if Donald is going to close it himself. Someone from behind me comes past and starts to bridge. The gap is growing, and it's not because we're slowing down. The group ahead is speeding up. Luke pulls past Donald with me on his wheel, but he's not making much headway. I come around Luke and look back to make sure he latches on, then I gradually pull us up to 29 mph for a while. We're closing the gap, but not fast enough. I pull off and Luke comes past to take his pull. I take one more pull and we finally catch as the pace up front eases a bit. Next thing I know, Donald is back on the front. Geez! On the way back we had a fairly fast paceline going at the front with a bunch of people sitting on at the back. Didn't see much of Donald, though.

Man, the discussion on rec.bicycles.racing about Joey is getting totally out of hand. This one anonymous jerk who uses "Crit Pro" as his ID, writes this rambling manefesto accusing Joey by innuendo of all sorts of things from drug-dealing to adultery, based entirely on what he could find on Google plus a lot of his own rather warped fabrication. This guy needs a life. I mean, why spend your time trying to further discredit someone you don't even know when they guy's already been suspended from racing for two years?