Yesterday's long ride started out pretty cold, but there was a big group of around 20 and everyone was pretty much on the same page. Although the general level of aggressiveness won't reach its peak for another couple of months, you can already sense some of the guys wanting to push just a little bit harder now and then. We were about half-way back, maybe more, when the long paceline blew through a little patch of mud and gravel that one of the grass-cutting tractors had kicked up onto the asphalt. Ronnie said he felt his rim bottom out on a rock, and shortly thereafter he pulled out of the line with a flat. We were toward then end of the paceline at the time, so the front part of the group never knew there had been a flat. Six or seven of us stopped to help and save Ronnie from a solo ride home, and half a mile after we started riding again we came across Jay who was just finishing fixing his flat, probably caused by the same bad patch of road. With the nice and rapidly warming weather I took the long way home, riding through Tulane's nearly deserted campus.
So I ended up spending some time driving around running errands - tracking down a couple of picture frames for The Daughter (she had asked for some "New Orleans" sketches for her Iowa walls), and picking up a couple of new light fixtures for the kitchen. By the end of the day I had re-greased the hubs in both of my training wheels, installed a new chandelier light fixture in the kitchen, a pendant light in front of the pantry, and sliced my fingers in two places because I was too lazy to go find the wire-strippers and used my Swiss Army Knife instead. I wonder if the Swiss Army goes through as many band-aids and I do. The light installation was a real pain because this old house had a barely-attached pancake ceiling box screwed into the old plaster lath which was beneath a layer of sheetrock. That meant I had to install a new box with appropriate bracing, re-route the ancient wiring, and re-engineer some of the mounting hardware to accommodate the new but very non-standard dimensions of the sheetrock/ceiling. It all turned out fine and looks nice, although of course the wiring in this house would give an electrical inspector a heart attack. We're talking cloth-covered copper with ceramic post-and-tube insulators. I try to think of it as an interesting construction detail with historic significance.
Wednesday Morning
This morning we had a nice group up on the levee. I had decided to try out my new Christmas present - a Pearlizumi Kodiak jersey. As always, it is a little bit on the roomy side, since here in America guys my size are apparently relegated to something even below "small." Try finding a pair of pants with a 28 or 29 waist in a men's store some time. Been like that all my life and it's a pain in the arse never being able to buy clothes that fit right off the shelf. I guess what bugs me the most about it is that if I was some huge 6'8" guy with a 48 waist, I could take my pick of "big and tall" shops. Ever seen a "small and thin" shop?
Anyway, the jersey is great, and the little extra material around the middle isn't really much of a problem in the winter. This is a kind of heavy long-sleeve jersey with a brushed interior - very cozy. I may finally be able to retire my old Performance winter jacket.
On the ride this morning, Rob was feeling kind of jumpy, wanting to keep the pace at a reasonable level, which was fine, since it never got out of hand or anything. I did a fair amount of work on the way out, although by the time we got to the turnaround I couldn't see a blasted thing through my fogged-up clear glasses. The last 5 miles or so were through a fairly thick fog - thick enough that I flipped on my headlight for a while. The return trip today was a long steady ride with The Donald pulling practically the whole way at 22-23 mph. He does that sometimes, which is OK and has the added benefit of being both safer and cheaper than Prozak! One of The Wife's sisters, who lives near Atlanta, is on her way here right now, having visited various other relatives in Baton Rouge yesterday.
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