Sweet Day!

It's pretty nice down here today! Temperature around 61F, breezy, dry and clear. It wasn't quite so nice early this morning before the cool brisk North wind blew the last of the grey clouds away. Joe F. and I did what is becoming a pretty routine Monday morning ride where I pull at a steady but easy pace on the way out, and then we ride back mostly side-by-side talking. We ran into Luke and Richard on the way back and they turned around and rode in with us. We were all a little bit surprised not to see more riders out this morning because Sunday had been so inhospitable riding-wise.

The bike computer is begging for a new battery and this morning I really couldn't read it at all. It was kind of wierd riding without the speedometer and trying to keep an even pace. Not that it was all that hard to do, it's just that I kept looking down to check my speed and coming up blank. Afterwards, when I took it off and brought it upstairs so I could write down the battery type, the display was much darker. So what's that about?? Anyway, I guess I'll probably go get a new battery anyway.

I see that Tim Reagan (Herring Gas) was 36th at Pace Bend, so I guess the Herring boys had a hard race while the Mercy guys got their guy across the line first. Must have been one tough race. Jason Sager has a few comments about it on his blog.

Beth (from D.C.) sent a nice thank-you e-mail when she returned home yesterday. I think stories of Robin's legendary tire-fixing services have now expanded to include the greater D.C. area! Right now, there's a collegiate rider coming in from Penn State who we're trying to fix up with a bike. Of course, he's coming in for Spring Break, so it will be interesting to see if he is able to get to any of the early morning rides after spending the typical collegiate night in the French Quarter. I should probably offer to give him a wake-up call.

Marathon Day

Today was the Mardi Gras Marathon here in New Orleans. I went out in the cold early morning drizzle to meet Robin at the Superdome, where the race begins. Robin organizes the "lead bicycle" contingent for this race, and a number of us help out each year. It's been quite a few years since I did this, but I clearly remembered how cold you can get riding for three hours at 10 mph, especially when wet, so I dressed as if I were heading for a ride in 35F weather rather than the 50+ weather we actually had. It was a good decision.

The race broke up quickly with a 3-person group that included only one full-marathon runner opening a pretty big gap. The other two were half-marathon runners, as was the next rider who I ended up leading. Once I got to the half-marathon finish, I waited around for literally minutes until the second full-marathoner appeared. I helped Brian lead that guy the rest of the race. It was easy work until we got to the park where the course doubled-back on itself and we really had to work to make sure this guy didn't get run into by stray joggers or other racers going in the opposite direction.

We were really lucky with the weather. It had been storming most of the night but by the time the race started the rain had stopped, so at least I didn't have to wear my non-breathable rain jacket very long. It was rather amaing to be riding back home nearly three hours after the start and seeing runners (or walkers to be more accurate) wearing full marathon numbers who still hadn't gotten to the half-marathon point. They would be out there for maybe six hours today.

I don't know if I can count 30 miles at an average speed of about 10 mph as training, though!

The Herring Gas riders had a pretty good day in Texas yesterday at Walburg with Troy taking 4th and Frank 6th in the Pro,1,2, race. I think they may be doing the Pace Bend RR today in Austin.

The Iowa GymHawks had a good meet last night in Milwaukee, and even though they didn't quite win the meet, they had their highest team score so far this year and were pretty stoked about it.

Went Long

On the way to the Giro ride this morning I came across a pickup truck stopped diagonally across the road with a big chunk of concrete lamp post under it. The airbag had deployed and the front end was totalled - coolant spilled out onto the street. There was nobody around, so I checked to see if there was anyone inside, but as I expected the drunken driver who had failed to negotiate the little curve on the otherwise straight street had taken off. Better to be cited for leaving the scene than for DWI, I guess.

There was a big group for the Giro, but the pace stayed fairly reasonable. As it turned out, a lot of riders were planning on doing a longer ride out to Slidell and back. Charlie asked me if I was "going long," and my reply was "got any food?" He said he had some cash, so I figured I go ahead and do the long ride which would give me a 93 mile day. After we passed the usual turnaround there were about 15 riders who continued on toward Slidell. Unfortunately only a handful knew how to deal with the crosswind. I tried with limited success to get a second eschelon going, since there wasn't room for everybody to get a draft without blocking the whole road.

After a remarkably tasty Little Debbie marshmellow filled cake thing that Charlie got me, we headed back. I was already getting cold and rolled off the front a little bit trying to keep warm. Bob came up to me and started taking long and slightly faster pulls so we rode together until we got to the Fort Pike bridge over the Rigoletts. We slowed down and waited for the pack to catch, and I was surprised when Rob and someone else came blasting past by themselves. I looked back and saw the pack and figured we'd all come together in a minute, but as it turned out the pack had just split too. So I ended up in a small group of four chasing a lead group of four of five. I'm not really sure because I never saw them again! We chased pretty hard for seven or eight miles, but every time we would start to close the gap our group would start to come apart and we'd need to slow down. After we got off of Chef Highway we waited up for the rest of the group and rode in at a pretty decent pace. So my legs are a little sore and I noticed that my odometer passed 40,000 miles at some point over the last week while I wasn't looking.

I think tomorrow I'll help Robin with the Mardi Gras Marathon. The club always provides most of the lead bicycle riders for the full and half marathon groups and besides, the forecast for tomorrow looks pretty lousy. I figure if I'm going to be riding in the rain at 10 mph, I can dress pretty warmly.

Dropped my sister and her husband off at the Port of New Orleans cruise terminal today. We'll be taking care of their dogs for a few days while my mom takes care of their kids.

Easy Friday

A cold front moved through overnight and it was cool and windy this morning. I had spent the night dogsitting at The Mom's place, and was kind of wishing I had thought to bring my tights this morning. Robin showed up on his track bike and towed us most of the way out and back today as I lounged in his draft looking at the scenery. We spotted a nice red-shouldered (or maybe red-tailed) hawk this morning; probably the same one I saw a couple of days ago in about the same spot. It was a nice easy and uneventful ride along the levee with only the blustery North wind to contend with. The Daughter heads off to University of Minnesota today for a meet Saturday night. For some reason their "inside stuff" website that I handle has been inaccessible for the last day or two, so I sent an e-mail out to my only contact there to see if I can get some info on that.

One of the tri guys e-mailed me yesterday night asking if it was legal to ride a Softride in the upcoming 2-person time trial. There is always a little bit of confusion about what bikes are legal since the UCI's rules and the USCF's rules don't currently match and riders often don't really understand the distiction between the two organizations. Although the UCI has extremely strict technical guidelines as to what constitutes a legal bike for road racing purposes, the USCF's requirements are much more flexible. The USCF is gradually moving toward bring their rules into agreement with the UCI rules by 2007, though. One sign of that is the recent rule change that requires bikes used for olympic or other international qualifying races to meet the UCI guidelines. Of course, any USPro or Pro,1,2 race that is sanctioned by UCI rather than the USCF would require UCI-legal bikes. For now, though, bikes like the Softride that don't have the traditional "double diamond" design (but are still within the USCF dimensions) are perfectly legal in regular USCF races, and it may be that they will always be legal in those kinds of races. Softride is definitely not happy about the UCI rules and has a page on its website explaining the rules and soliciting its customers to complain to the UCI.

What the USCF says now is pretty simple:

"Dimensions. Bicycles may be no more than 2 meters long and 75 cm wide . . ." and "Bicycles commonly known as recumbent may not be raced in USCF races unless there is a separate race for this category of bicycle, and then may be used only in that category. "

The UCI, on the other hand, has a long technical section on bicycle specifications that includes:

"the frame of the bicycle shall be of a traditional pattern, i.e. built around a main triangle. It shall be constructed of straight or tapered tubular elements (which may be round, oval, flattened, teardrop shaped or otherwise in cross-section) such that the form of each element encloses a straight line. The elements of the frame shall be laid out such that the joining points shall follow the following pattern: the top tube (1) connects the top of the head tube (2) to the top of the seat tube (4); the seat tube (from which the seat post shall extend) shall connect to the bottom bracket shell; the down tube (3) shall connect the bottom bracket shell to the bottom of the head tube. The rear triangles shall be formed by the chain stays (6), the seat stays (5) and the seat tube (4) with the seat stays anchored to the seat tube at points falling within the limits laid down for the slope of the top tube."

Not Raining

The Daughter's AIM Away Message today: "If you see me...pass me a cup of strong ass coffee, back away slowly and you might survive the encounter!"

The Weather Gods smiled on us this morning and although it was cloudy and the road was a bit wet, it was NOT RAINING! We had a good group of about a dozen for the Thursday long ride this morning, and I was packing two freshly patched tires and riding on another, hoping to avoid a repeat of yesterday's adventure.

As we headed out today, I noticed Howard and Jeff (I think that was Jeff?) were repeatedly drifting off the front. Eventually, I saw Eddie C pull his TT bike out of the line and start motoring up to them, so I figured I'd get on that train. Like the other day, Eddie lit the afterburners and I had to make a pretty hard effort in a way too big gear to finally catch his draft. Howard and Jeff latched on as we went by with Eddie on the front in full Time Trial mode. I heard Jeff and Howard talking at some point but didn't catch what they were saying, but next thing I knew it was just Eddie and me. Turned out Jeff was getting a flat and I guess Howard dropped back to help. I hung onto Eddie's wheel and pretended I was motorpacing for the next five miles or so until he had gotten in his workout and sat up. The thought of coming around him and actually taking a pull never really crossed my mind since we were already going so fast. We rode the rest of the way to the turnaround pretty easy, and since nobody caught us it finally dawned on me that somebody must have flatted behind us.

I was glad to see that Beth from D.C. was with the group when we all finally got back together for what eventually became a somewhat disorganized paceline ride back. The bike is a real mess after the last few days of riding on wet roads covered with worms, horse manure, mud and other debris, but the forecast is still decidedly on the wet side for a while and I guess I'll just hold off on the cleaning duties, except perhaps the chain, until it improves.

When I got back home I grabbed a can of black spray paint and painted over the black part of the fire hydrant outside the house where someone had scrawled some white graffiti. At least it wasn't the garage door this time! Ahh, life in the big city. We are constantly picking up other people's trash that they throw out the car windows; everything from fast-food containers to empty vodka bottles.

Beth was asking about bike shops in town, so I gave her the run-down on the local favorites. Since she has a rental car that she is exchanging for another rental car today, she said she would probably stop by GNO cyclery. I often recommend GNO to folks from out of town because it is probably most resembles the typical larger suburban type bike shop a lot of people are used to, but since Beth is familiar with the inner-city shops in D.C., I'm sure she would have been just as comfortable an Todd's shop or Bayou or even Bicycle Michael's. I think GNO just seemed to her to be the easiest for her to find since she had already ridden down St. Charles and could picture where it was. I wonder if the bike shop folks ever know about the people that I send to their shops? Probably not, I guess.

Strike Three

Woke up a bit early this morning and was rather surprised not to hear it raining outside. After searching for the TV remote, which had fallen underneath the bed, I finally checked the weather radar. No doubt I'd be getting wet, but it wasn't cold and the heavy stuff wasn't likely to get here for a few hours so I put on an extra jersey and light shoe covers to keep my shoes from getting too dirty and headed out. As has been the case almost every morning lately, there was enough fog near the river to make me want to keep my flashing headlight on for most of the ride. Since I was early, I rode through the Carrollton neighborhood and got up on the levee bike path around the Corps of Engineers operation. Just before I got there I saw a rider go by, so naturally I had to chase. It was a woman in an unfamiliar jersey, and I was figuring it was probably Beth M. from D.C. who had e-mailed me recently about where to ride while she was in town for a Physical Therapy conference. She looked over at me and said she had been in touch with somebody named Randy and did I know him? Small world -- especially at 6:30 a.m. Anyway, we were still a few minutes early, so we rode out to the Jefferson Playground, and turned around there, riding back to meet the group at the "pump hill." I was surprised how many guys were there this morning because we were definitely going to get wet.

Beth turned back just past the Country Club when the raindrops started falling, but most of the group continued on in a light off-and-on drizzle, riding just a bit faster than usual for a Wednesday ride. On the way back I could feel my rear tire going soft and finally had to stop and fix it while everyone waited.

Strike One.

I checked the casing and pulled a couple of pieces of rock out, and ran my finger along the inside pulling out another piece of glass or rock before sticking in one of my two spare tubes. If you train on worn-out tires like I do, you quickly learn to always carry two spares! Well, I only made it a mile or two before that one went soft, so I told the rest to go ahead, not wanting them to have to wait around in the drizzle again and get cold. Richard H. stuck around with me while I changed flat No. 2, and Joe F. turned around at the Playground and rode back with us too.

Strike 2.

Now I was wishing I hadn't left my cellphone at home, because I was now out of tubes and might want to make a call to request emergency extraction. Two flats in a row like that could mean only one thing. There was still something stuck in the tire, and I probably wasn't going to find it in the rain without a magnifying glass or somebody with much younger eyes!

So it was now the bottom of the ninth with two outs and two strikes, and a tube with four patches on it was at bat.

I almost made it home! When I made the turn off of Oak St. onto Carrollton, I could feel my rear tire squirm around a bit like they do when they are almost flat, but seeing as how I was now out of spare tires and the patch kit wasn't going to be very useful with everything soaking wet, I switched over to a smoother street, stood up to take the weight off of the rear wheel, and hoped for the best.

Strike Three.

Didn't make it very far before it bottomed out, but I kept riding, basically on the rim, with the wet tire and tube squirming around underneath me. It was kind of like riding the gravel sections of the Rouge-Roubaix course. By the time I got to Neron Place, the tire bead had come out of the rim and so the tire was catching on the brake, so I was reduced to walking the last four or five blocks home. Happily, it wasn't cold enough to make it too uncomfortable, though.

On the plus side, we have a staff meeting today which means .... Free Lunch!! Whoo Hooo! I went for broke and ordered a Muffaletta!

Looks like I'll be patching tubes tonight.

It's not about the points . . .

Finally a morning without significant fog! The temperature this morning was in the upper 60s, but for some reason I was feeling cold anyway, which is probably not a good sign. I am hoping that I didn't catch some sort of airplane bug last weekend. There was a big turnout today for the long ride, and with guys like Rob, Todd and Eddie pushing the pace it stayed fast. For some reason I am still feeling a little sluggish since my trip, so although I was taking my pulls on the way out, I was keeping a low profile this morning. We had a new guy on the ride whose name I never got. Looked like a pretty good rider who I understand moved here to attend Loyola Law School recently. He was nice and stable and comfortable in the paceline.

The "base" pace today was around 25 mph, although depending on who was on the front we were spending significant time at 27+ too. When we got about a mile from the turnaround Eddie came to the front and put the hammer down. I was on the "new guy's" wheel, who was on Eddie's, I think. Rob might have been up there too. When the pace got up to about 30, the rider in front of me started to crack and eased over out of the paceline. The gap wasn't too big yet and I thought I could just gradually close it, but I think Eddie and Rob were still accelerating. I finally blew after a little while at 31 but by then the rest of the pack was shattered too so I just spun in the last bit with Bob B. who had also gotten surprised by that final surge. Still, there was at least a dozen riders that made the whole ride. The return trip was pretty fast too, but I think a bit more steady, and I didn't complain when I dropped all the way to the back and ended up out of the rotation for a while.

I finally got the Louisiana/Mississippi LAMBRA points series standings updated. Whew! I spent about two hours fooling with it last night and then another hour or two this morning. Once I get the results from the race promoter, I have to plug those riders and their placings into a big spreadsheet to tally up their LCCS points and rankings, along with totals for the club standings, and then convert the Excel workbook to HTML format. After that I have to make separate HTML summary pages for each Class/Category, and update the home page with the top three in each group, and then upload it all to the server. I'm sure it will get faster and easier the more I do it, but I was wishing for a spiffy database application like the TxBRA has.

After negotiating with my dentist this morning about payment options (this guy doesn't take credit/debit cards and as far as I know doesn't even have a computer in the place - just a little old lady with a black appointment book and a telephone), I'll be heading out to have yet another worn-out tooth ground down and ultimately capped. Damn, I hate going to the dentist. I may soon decide to dump this dentist, who I've been seeing since some time around 1975, because Tulane's new FSA arrangement gives me a debit card to use for these sorts of expenses, which means nothing out of pocket until I use up however much I put in at the beginning of the year. With this guy, I will have to pay him first, then submit the bill for reimbursement, which they won't do until whenever the next monthly paycheck comes out. Seeing as how The Wife pillaged my bank account last weekend buying things for The Daughter, which isn't really something I can complain about too much, this can be a problem. Not to mention that I still need to get my '05 USCF racing license and official's license, hopefully before the first race, and pay for my jersey and helmet, etc. Good thing the USAC finally got online licensing working!!

Now the next big decision: Do I enter Rouge-Roubaix or not?? The "Rouge" is a 100-mile race with quite a few miles of dirt and gravel roads. If you don't know about it, you should definitely check out some of the photos from last year. A few riders went up there last weekend and rode the course, and reports were that there is a lot of sand this year. This is one race where you always consider how hard it will be to run, or walk, uphill in your riding shoes.

Warming Up

Got back to the Crescent City late last night after a rather long layover in the Cincinnati airport. The weather in Iowa City was dismal on Sunday, so I never got motivated enough to get any exercise. The fact that I never really had more than a couple of hours free didn't help either. We always end up making trips to the grocery store, Wal-Mart, etc., plus I broke into the attic at their house in order to turn out the light that some workman had left on.

The Daughter's meet went fairly well, even though they didn't win. The team looked good and they made very few big mistakes, which is more than I can say for the guys running the lighting and sound at the Arena (the lights went out completely for a while during warmup and there were a couple of very obvious audio blunders). The Daughter's ankle is still restricting her to beam only, although when one of her teammates twisted an ankle on the first event (vault), they almost put her in the Bars lineup. Anyway, check out those quads!

Just a few guys up on the levee this morning in the thick fog (again!). The weather here is quite warm right now - mid to upper 70s - but the forecast has lots of rain in it. A Cat. 2 woman from D.C. will be in town for a conference later this week and she's looking for some training rides. Hopefully she'll be able to work around the mid-week rain. On the way back from the levee this morning I spotted a Performance wind trainer that someone had put out for the trash. It looked to be in good condition, so I scooped it up and lugged it home. Damn, that thing got heavy!

Gina Voci got an excellent 12th in the Pro/1/2 Women's crit at VOS, and her teammate Paula ended up 9th on GC in the Cat. 3 race. In the grey-haired division, Tom Bain took 2nd on GC and George Heagerty placed 22nd in the 45+ age group. Perhaps the Defeet Team Blog will have more detail later. One of the Team LaS'port riders who lives in Flower Mound, TX (Dallas suburb), Shannon Koch, did well too, placing 16th in the Women's Pro,1,2 race. Quite impressive - mixing it up with the big girls. There are some pics on the Cyclingnews.com site.

I haven't gotten a report on the NOBC team training camp that I had to miss, but I heard the weather was awesome on Saturday so I'll bet they had some great training rides.

Iowa City

I went out a little early this morning and got in a bit over an hour before I had to get home and make tracks for the airport. I'm up in Iowa City now where I just returned from a little dinner for the Big Ten Academic All-Americans. Tomorrow it a meet with Iowa State.

Got a brief update a little while ago from Gina who is riding the Valley of the Sun Stage Race this weekend. She said it rained for the time trial today and wasn't looking good for tomorrow either. She flatted shortly after the turn-around and so had to ride about five miles on a flat, but at least she finished. My sister's daughter, the soccer player, had arthroscopic surgery this afternoon on her shoulder, which she had dislocated. Sounds like she had a torn labrum, which means a rather long recovery time.

The weather here is cold, but not too bad. Hopefully I'll get myself over to the fitness center tomorrow for a little while. I'm really sorry I can't be at the team training camp this weekend. I hope the weather turns out OK for that because last year it was a lot of fun.

Bad Boy

The long levee ride was characterized by grey skies and strong winds today. After an early-morning ethnic-engineering session involving aluminum foil and a piece of metal cut from a Look cleat mount, I got my tail light working again and rushed out to meet the levee ride group. The turnout was low today, and about half turned back after the airport, leaving only four of us. I was really needing a good workout today since I hadn't had a really decent ride since Sunday. To make matters worse, the upcoming trip to Iowa City was going to leave me with three days of zero mileage, so I was pushing the pace just a little bit.

It must be armadillo season, because we spotted two of them up on the levee this morning, but today's real excitement came when we were surprised by a dump truck coming up the road across the levee. John was in front and although he was looking for trucks at that crossing, this one came up the levee so fast that he didn't see it until it was practically on top of us. I was on his wheel escheloned over to the left, so I couldn't see a thing in that direction. I heard him holler and simultaneously swerve to the left and didn't really know what was going on until we were past the intersection. I ended up on the edge of the asphalt, and when I looked back I saw Jenn way off in the grass. I'm sure a few riders ended up in the grass on that one, but luckily nobody went down. Anyway, we got going again and all was well except that Richard was pissed that John hadn't warned about the truck earlier.

On the way back, Carey and I split off from The Donald and Jeff (I think that was Jeff!) for a while, but eventually Carey, who was recovering from the Flu, dropped back. I figured I'd just do a little time-trial effort since the others weren't really into it today, so I got down, and I mean WAY DOWN on the drops and rolled on at about 80% effort. It was hard to hold 22 mph most of the time with the relentless crosswind. Just after Williams Blvd., I came upon a whole grammar school class walking along the bike path. I slowed way down, of course. It was like trying to ride through a herd of cats. The kids were everywhere and the teachers sounded worried as they warned them of the "bikers." I hate that term, BTW. After that we all came back together and eventually The Donald rode up to me to complain that I was surging when I would come to the front. I wasn't really conscious of that, since we're talking about 22 mph rather than, say, 27 mph. But anyway, I guess I was a Bad Boy today in the paceline.

Short

Another early meeting at work. My little Cateye tail light was running out of juice yesterday by the time I got home, so I charged up a couple of NiMH AAA batteries I had and went to put them in this morning. When I pulled the old batteries out, one of the metal contacts broke off. The blasted light is practically new, damnit. So I fiddled around for a while trying to rig it up so it would work because the fog outside was like pea soup, but nothing would work. By the time I headed out I was already late, so I could do only a very short ride. By the time I got to the levee, drops of water were already dripping off the front of my helmet onto my nose. It was not much different from a ride in the rain. Rushed home, rushed to work, etc., etc. Not a good day.

Frame of Reference

An early meeting this morning meant I'd have to miss the usual levee group ride and saw me heading out well before 6 a.m. To say the fog was thick would be an understatement. I was determined to get some reasonable training time in despite the darkness and the fog and the time contraint, and I felt I did. The whole way out I was in a dark tunnel of fog and none too comfortable with a speed above 21 mph or so. When it's foggy like that you lose your frame of reference and it's really kind of strange. You can't see any of your usual landmarks, or your speedometer for that matter, and it makes it hard to gauge your effort. I expect that if the levee wasn't so flat, you'd even have a hard time knowing if you were riding up or down a slight incline. A rabbit and I startled each other about half-way out and the cute little bunny almost became a speed bump as he darted across the road right in front of me. By the time I was heading back, though, the sun was starting to come up and the fog was lifting, and I ran into Eddie C. who was on his way out to meet the group.

The Cat. 3 LAMBRA issue has reared it's head again, but no time to deal with it today, I'm afraid.

Worm Mines

The rains started Sunday evening and continued most of the night, but by 6 a.m. it was looking better and although the streets were still quite wet I went out for a quick 20 mile spin on the levee.

It appears to be earthworm season. The bike path was covered with millions of earthworms. Most were 4-6 inches long, but there were a few that were easily a foot long. The White Ibis (Ibises?) down on the batture and the Robins up on the levee were having a real feast as I tried to navigate my way through the slimy minefield. It wasn't long before I gave up, though, and resigned myself to hosing down the bike when I got home.

The Daughter in Raleigh, NC last weekend for a "quad" gymnastics meet. They had a rough time on floor and only managed to place 2nd, which was a little disappointing, but Joey D., who lives there had a few of them over to his house, which I think they enjoyed.

It looks like we will add Collegiate categories to the upcoming 2-Person Time Trial at the request of Brooks (UNO's team). That should be interesting.

Weather . . . or NOT

The forecast for Sunday morning was not looking good, and so I wasn't expecting much interest in the North Shore training ride. When the alarm went off at 5:45 a.m., I was just a little surprised not to hear rain. The streets were dry, so I checked the weather radar. There was a lot of rain from Baton Rouge West, and it was moving in our direction. Problem was, it might not get here for a couple of hours. And the North Shore was guaranteed to get it earler than the South shore. So I waited around, agonizing over whether to gamble on the North Shore ride, where there would definitely not be much of a turnout (like, maybe just me), or blow it off and do the Sunday Giro ride. Finally, a little bit too late, I decided that getting in the miles was more important than the scenery, and if I was going to get wet I'd rather not have that long drive between me and a warm shower. So I headed out to the lakefront, arriving shortly AFTER the 6:45 a.m. Giro ride had left. I rode out along the Giro route, figuring I'd meet the group as it was on its way back down Chef Highway. ALong the way I ran into a guy named Christian who had just started training a couple of months ago and was still trying to figure out how to keep from getting dropped when the pace got fast. We had a nice conversation and I tried to give him some useful tips, also explaining the USCF category system, which is always rather confusing. About half-way down Chef Highway, we saw the group coming toward us and I made a quick U-turn. That meant getting dumped right into a 28 mph paceline, but it was OK. I was feeling pretty good and went for the sprint on Chef Highway and again at the tops of the bridges. On the return trip down Hayne Blvd., a couple of guys, Matt and Noel, were way off the front, there was a triathlete chasing, and so a couple of us took off in pursuit. Along the way, we passed Todd (at least I think that was he) standing on the side of the road with his jersey pulled up and his gut stuck out as far as he could over his bib tights. I'm not exactly sure what that was about, but it was hilarious. We finally caught the escapees around the base of the first bridge.

The temperature was warm and humid, but I was quite surprised that we never got rained on during the ride. I rode another 10 along the lakefront after the Giro and headed home, where I checked the weather radar. It looked practically identical to what I had seen at 6 a.m. In fact, it's 2:30 p.m. right now (like 4 hours after I got home) and it still looks that way. Obviously the front had practically stalled somewhere between Baton Rouge and New Orleans. I felt just slightly vindicated because it was probably raining on the North Shore, so if I had gone over there and tried for 60 or 70 miles, I would probably have gotten wet.

My cross-training activities for the day involved cutting up a 20 foot long, 8-inch diameter pine tree branch that broke off of the tree across the street. Someone had dragged it (and some other branches for company) onto the neutral ground where it has been irritating me for the last two weeks. Do they think that the city has people driving around looking for stuff to pick up?? Give me a break. If I hadn't cut it up and put it out for the trash man it would have been there until it rotted into dust. As if that wasn't enough to do a number on my inadequate back muscles, I also spent a couple of hours working on the car, cleaning out the flame trap so there is at least a little bit of vacuum in the crankcase instead of the positive pressure that's been blowing oil out of various seals for the last few months and making a mess.

Good Legs

Rode out to the Giro ride this morning under clear skies, looking forward to a fast ride. There was a large group by the time we hit the end of Lakeshore Drive. I'd say around 50 riders. The word circulating around in the pack was that a bunch of riders was planning on "going long," which is Girospeak for an extended ride out to Fort Pike or Slidell. With the forecast for tomorrow looking pretty rainy, a lot of guys were trying to get their miles in today.

The pace took a little while to ramp up, but it did, and by the time we reached the end of Hayne Blvd. it was pretty fast. I looked over to see Warren (the big guy in the center of the photo) up near the front. He stopped racing a few years ago after having a couple of heart attacks but he's been showing up at the Giro ride lately.

The group came over the I-10 overpass where we have to merge with interstate traffic for about a mile, and as usual a few of the lead riders cut across in front of a couple of cars. The rest of the group waited, but the drivers slowed down and let the group cross in front of them. (Boys and girls, don't try this at your home interstate highway.) It always seems that the size of a group is inversely proportional to its aggregate intelligence, and here again was incontrovertable proof.

Once we hit Chef Highway and got past the stoplights, things really picked up. I took a few pulls and then dropped back for a while, moving back toward the front again a bit later. My legs were feeling pretty good and as we rounded the last curve before the turnaround sprint at Eden Isles, I moved up near the front. A few riders went by at 28 or 29 mph., but it was way too early. I was sitting on Carey's wheel in the second group. The riders who had surged ahead started to fade and our group caught them just as a few riders came by on the left. I saw Branden's green jersey out of the corner of my eye and caught his wheel. He was on Noel's wheel and we pulled clear. Branden came around and started an early sprint and I switched over to Noel's wheel. Noel went past Branden and, thinking he was safe, started to ease off, but when he looked over his left shoulder he saw me smiling in his draft. I clicked it down to the 12 just as Noel stood up and went past him pretty easily since I hadn't realy been out in the wind at all yet. It felt good be able to stand up in the 12 again. A group of about a dozen kept going straight but I turned around with the group. The return trip was mostly at a good pace, but definitely more restrained than it was on the way out.

After the ride I hung around in the parking lot on Lakeshore Drive for a little too long. The skies had started to get cloudy and now I was getting cold. Ronnie walked over and gave me a Fire Department T-shirt he had (couldn't find anyone else who could fit into a small, I guess). Luckily I had worn my vest on the ride out to the lakefront, so I pulled it out of my pocket and put it on for the ride home.

Hopefuly the rain will hold off for a while tomorrow morning so we can get in a few miles on the Northshore . . .

Pretty, baby.

This morning was crisp and clear and sunny and the wind was finally a non-issue. It was also the first morning that I've gone out to meet the 6:40 a.m. group and not needed a light. After so many cloudy mornings, it was a surprise to find how much we've tilted back toward the sun over the last couple of weeks.

I've been meeting up with this white and tan dog every morning lately as I ride down Short Street to and from the river. He'll come running out from nowhere and run alongside me, barking now and then in a very non-threatening way. Poor guy just wants to play. I talk to him to keep him occupied so he doesn't try to run across my path (they all try to do that for some reason). He'll run alongside for a couple of blocks until I'm out of his territory and then let me go.

Despite the pretty weather, it was only Rob, Joe and I this morning. In fact, the bike path was rather deserted altogether. Rob was feeling a little tired from yesterday and neither of us wanted anything but an easy spin, so I pulled most of the way out at 19-20 mph and enjoyed the scenery. We rode back even easier talking about not much of anything, with Joe in tow.

I sent our LAMBRA president a possible compromise proposal on the Cat. 3 issue last night, but am already having second thoughts. Maybe we should just do what Texas has done and eliminate the combined Cat. 1,2,3 ranking, replacing it with separate Cat. 1,2 and a Cat. 3 rankings, but let the promoters decide when to combine the groups. The downside would be the not insignificant difficulty of scoring the races deeply enough to get the top 10 - 12 Cat. 3s, and the negative impact it might have on the actual racing ("we're not going to help chase that break because they're all Cat. 2s and we're just want to be the top Cat. 3s."). I dunno. I would rather have Texas' problems which lately involve things like how many separate Cat. 5 fields you can run to accomodate the 150 Cat. 5s who want to race.

Windagain!

The cold front that came through yesterday left us with clear and sunny skies, once the sun came up, for this morning's long training ride. Although a few of the usual suspects were absent, we had ten or so riders for the first section. The fierce North wind and resulting eschelon granted shelter to only the first three or four riders, and the rest hugged the edge of the bike path searching for the scraps, but the rotation was good and most of the guys were civilized today, so the suffering was limited. Even The Howard's pulls were relatively steady, which is to say that he only surged by a couple of mph when he came to the front.

At the upriver end of Kenner, a bunch of riders turned around, leaving only Rob, Bob, Justin and myself to make the whole trip out to Ormond. Actually, it rather improved things to have only the four of us because the pace was more even and we could get some decent shelter from the crosswinds at the back. There were lots of times when I was getting the best draft with my front wheel about even with the guy in front's crankset.

The return trip was a good workout, and it was hard to maintain 22-23 most of the time, although there was one nice section where the river turns South where we finally got a good tailwind. Anyway, the old legs were feeling it every time I'd hit the front today. Small guys and strong winds don't mix very well and I spent a lot of time down on the drops because I feel a lot more stable in that position.

For all those science geeks out there (and I know you're out there), check out this new collection of blogs from a bunch of particle physics labs called the "Quantum Diaries."

So I think The Daughter is heading down to Raleigh, North Carolina for the Hearts Invitational meet this weekend. I hope they do well!

Ash Wednesday

The Police made their usual midnight sweep down Bourbon St. last night, marking the official end of the Carnival season. It is truly symbolic how they do that. At midnight a solid block of mounted police comes down Bourbon St., pushing the people off into the bars and side streets, followed by the big street-sweeper machines that scoop up the considerable debris from the gutters and wash everything down with water.

So, what to give up for Lent? Today it was a training ride. After flatting yesterday morning and of course forgetting to patch that tube, I found the bike this morning with another flat tire. Not wanting to risk going out spareless, I stole a tube from another wheel, put it in my rear tire, got all dirty since that was the wheel I rode in the wet on Tuesday and opened the door. I was already too late to meet the group and my motivation was already lagging. Outside it was damp and foggy again, albiet warm. I almost turned around right there and went back to bed, but I figured that in the true lenten spirit, I'd skip the extra sleep and put in a few easy miles. The closer I got to the levee, the colder and foggier it became, and when I finally got there I was already cold, the streets were damp, the fog was thick, and I was feeling lousy. OK, I can take a hint. I hit the "abort" button and went for a little sightseeing spin over to the park and headed home, probably with under 10 miles. Maybe I'm coming down with something; maybe I shouldn't have finished that bottle of vino last night; who knows? Meanwhile, The Wife is supposed to be starting a "detox" diet of some sort, similar to what The Daughter had done a few weeks ago. At least that should mean more pasta, ice cream, coffee and wine for me!!

Fat Tuesday

(click on the picture to see my Mardi Gras album)
Mardi Gras in New Orleans! The Weather Gods were kind to the Big Easy today and we had warm and mostly dry weather for Mardi Gras. First things first, though, and a dozen of us met up at 6:15 a.m. for the Tuesday long ride on the levee. It was foggy as hell, though, and there were a few nervous moments when the lead riders would suddenly see something coming the other way. At one point, Jeff was on the front and he mistook one of the access roads for the bike path and a few riders almost followed him down the levee. Seven of us did the whole ride at a pretty steady 23-24 mph, so it was a good training ride. The road was a little wet from all the fog and so naturally I got a flat, but at least it came right at the end of the ride. I could feel the tap-tap-tap of something in my tire and I tried to brush it off with my glove, but it wasn't coming out, so I had to stop. It was a big piece of sharp rock, and when I pried it out, the air came out with it.

The Wife had planned to run over to Audubon Park for the Royal Run, but she woke up a little bit late and by the time she got there they had just given out the last of the official Rex T-shirts.

By the time I got home, the truck floats were already starting to line up along S. Claiborne Ave., which is basically right outside my window. There are always a few that are playing mardi gras music, so things seem real festive around the house from about 7:30 a.m. on. The riders on the truck floats, of which there are literally hundreds, spend hours waiting in line until they actually get onto the parade route. They were still rolling around 3 p.m.

So I loaded up a backpack with the essentials and we rode bikes down a few miles to Napoleon Avenue where we caught the Rex parade. This area is very family-oriented. Lots of kids and a very relaxed crowd. I was successful in acheiving my primary goal, which was to collect at least one string of official "Rex Beads" and a Rex Dubloon. After the parade passed, we jumped back on the bikes and rode down a mile or so to Washington and St. Charles where we locked the bikes. From there we walked alongside the parade downtown. By the time we got near Jackson Avenue, Rex was at a complete stop. As usual, the Zulu parade was holding things up and Rex had to wait from Zulu to make the turn onto St. Charles before continuing. While we were waiting there, we spotted Boatner Reily, a big Tulane donor and prior king of Rex, all decked out in his tuxedo and top hat, running up to one of the floats trying to get some of the prized little "fatted calf" stuffed animals. There's a photo of him in the photo album. Finally, we made our way through the crowds to the other side of St. Charles and walked downtown via Prytania St.

The French Quarter wasn't too crowded, since it was so early. Things don't get really packed until around 4 p.m., and the interesting stuff doesn't start until around nightfall, but on the plus side, the portable toilets were still nice and clean! We made one trip down Royal and Bourbon, taking a bunch of photos, and then stopped in at Ralph & Kacoos for lunch. After that, I deposited The Wife on the Moonwalk by the river and spent another hour or so taking more pictures. When I got back, we got a little rain shower and headed off to make the long walk back uptown when it eased up.

Not Raining!

Although the forecast for today and Mardi Gras had been looking pretty bleak, it now sounds like the weathermen are backing off a bit and have lowered the chance of rain quite a bit. Based on an earlier forecast, I had been expecting it to be raining this morning, but instead it was wam and windy, and the streets were dry. I knew I needed a rest day today, so I went out a little later than usual (the University is closed today and tomorrow for Mardi Gras) and rode for about 90 minutes in an easy gear. I was glad that my legs didn't feel sore at all, although I generally felt a little flat from yesterday's ride.

I don't know what I'll be doing for Mardi Gras. If the weather is decent, maybe I'll ride down to the Quarter and take some photos for a new Mardi Gras album on Ofoto. Perhaps there will be an actual training ride in the morning, or maybe I'll go out to meet the little-known Royal Run in Audubon Park. This highly informal "event" was started many years ago when the King of Rex (aka King of Carnival) was a runner and decided to have the limo stop by and meet the usual early-morning group in the park. They handed out a bunch of Rex T-shirts, and had a big king cake too. I think that there has been a Royal Run every year since, although sometimes the King hasn't shown up. I took The Daughter out there on her little 24-inch wheel bike one year (there are usually a few bike riders who accompany the runners) and she still has the extra-large gold-colored T-shirt with the offical Rex emblem.

Long and Hard

Miles: 80
Powerbars: 2
Coffee: Grande

The Northshore ride today (I know what you were thinking!) was long and hard. As I left the Morning Call this morning, where I was the only person to show up, I passed Randazzo's bakery, which is just around the corner. Although it was only 7 a.m., there was a line of people out the door, across the parking lot, and half a block down the street waiting to pick up King Cakes. King Cakes are a Mardi Gras tradition, and are technically supposed to be baked between 12th night and Mardi Gras. Some of them are pretty good, especially for breakfast, but the best ones I've ever tasted are the rather rare original French style with almond paste, no purple, green and gold decoration, and a porcelin "baby" inside.

So I drove across the lake alone, listening to some sort of alternative music on Tulane's WTUL radio, which was the only station not running the usual Sunday morning talk show c&$p. The girl acting as the DJ sounded like she was half-asleep.

Although we started out with 5 riders, Charlie and one of the northshore guys turned back at 30 miles, leaving Jay S., Richard and me to do battle with the relentless wind. The plan had been to ride easy paceline for the first 30 miles to Enon, then to step it up a notch for the hilly 25 mile loop, and then to roll back to Abita Springs at a more moderate pace. As it turned out, we had an occasional tailwind on the way out and so of course things got a little bit out of hand now and then. By the time we arrived in Enon, our little 5-man group had averaged well over 20 mph and I was already feeling my quads. The loop North of Enon was great, though, even though a few of the climbs had us all begging for mercy, and we stuck to the plan, keeping the pace and effort level fairly high. As a reward, we had a nice tailwind for the final 7 miles from Plainview to Enon, and we didn't fail to take advantage of it, pushing the pace up to around 30 at times.

By the time we got back to Enon, the strain was definitely starting to show. We negotiated the Watchtower Hill at a steady pace, since nobody was really up to the usual contest for the top. At one point on the way back, after cresting a particularly painful little hill, Jay looked over at me and said he was about ready to concede the Abita Springs sign sprint! "Yeah, me too," I replied. Richard started falling off the back on some of the climbs at one point, and Jay and I were more than happy to ease up since we were hurting too.

The ride was really just what I had been looking for, since I had been planning on a good hard weekend.

Looking like Carnival Time

After dogsitting last night at The Mom's place, I was up at 5:30 a.m. to ride the commuter bike home in time to change and get out to the Saturday Giro ride. Broadway Street, where most of Tulane's frat houses are located, was still going strong. There were lots of students wandering around, including one who was standing in the middle of an intersection with his pants down around his ankles. His friend had both hands on his shoulders, trying to keep him upright, I suppose. You would think that for the $33,000 or so it takes to send your kid to Tulane, they would at least teach him how to drink!

As I rode out to the Lakefront down Carrollton Avenue, there were literally hundreds of people out on the neutral ground, where they had obviously spent the night, staking out their terriroties for tonight's Endymion parade that starts at 6 p.m.

The weather was nice today and there was a pretty large Giro ride group. I was surprised to see The Great Balded One, as Kenny B. calls him, in town to join us. Frank had gotten up at 4 a.m. to drive in from Brookhaven, MS, and just barely caught the group as it was heading out down Lakeshore Drive. The group seemed a little less animated than I would have expected, given the nice weather. Perhaps it was because I spent most of the headwind section along Chef Highway safely tucked in the back of the pack. When things started to ramp up for the sprint at the turnaround, Frank ended up towing me off the front, and then looked back and said "where to we sprint to?" Good question. This is one of those sprints that kind of ends whenever the rider in the lead eases up!

We do a sprint on the way back down Chef Highway as well, and since I was feeling pretty good, I moved up near the front finding myself on The Howard's wheel. Howard glanced back at me and patted his butt - the universal sign for "get on my wheel." He immediately accelerated around to the left and pulled us past everyone, pulling off about 100m before the Goodyear sign (aka the finish line) and motioning for me to come around. Man, if I had leadouts like that all the time I'd be the guy Mario was pushing into the barricades at the real Giro.

On the return trip down Hayne Blvd., Brett Reagan and I traded pulls way off the front as the pack rode in at an easier pace. Afterward, Tim, Charlie, Frank and I rode downtown with the guys who were taking the ferry over to the West Bank, dropping them off and then heading upriver on St. Charles Avenue where folks were already waiting on the neutral ground for the noon parades, still a couple of hours away.

Later in the day, after running some errands, eating a broiled catfish po-boy al fresco at the Saltwater Grill, and walking the two miles over to The Mom's house to walk her dog, I took a little 10-minute nap. We were walking back home through Audubon Park and Tulane, when I discovered that The Wife had tricked me into agreeing to go to church with her, which I swear I don't remember, probably because I WAS ASLEEP when she asked me! So we walk over to the little chapel at Tulane, which is a pretty laid-back sort of arrangement where they swap out the crucifix for the star of david depending on who's using the place that day. The priest walks in with mardi gras beads around his neck, and I immediately have this image of the guy, dressed in all his robes and stuff, in the middle of Bourbon Street yelling "show your tits" to the girls on the balconies. I guess not much of that catholic grammar school and high school religion really stuck!

So right now I'm sweating out the not-quite-live scoring of The Daughter's meet on the University of Illinois' website and looking forward to tomorrow's ride on the Northshore, hoping we can get in 75 miles or so, with 30 or 40 at a good pace. Oh, wait. The meet's over and Iowa won! Finally a good meet. Even better -- The Daughter won Beam!

Better Weather!

The hourly forecast for this morning had called for clear skies by around 5 a.m., but they were off by a few hours. Our small Friday ride Krewe labored under more grey skies and strong winds, but now, little darlin', here comes the sun ("and I say it's allright.")

The ride was pretty decent despite the wind and gloom. Rob and I traded pulls most of the way out while Jeff and Donald hung about 5 seconds back for some reason. I can't say I was feeling real good, though, and it took a little discipline to keep my pulls up to speed even though I wasn't taking more than 50 or 60 strokes. So I got in a pretty good workout, which was OK for this Friday since I'm really short on saddle time this week after missing three whole days because of rain.

The Daughter will be off to Champaign, Illinois this weekend for a meet with the University of Illinois that I know will be a tough one for them. Illinois is ranked quite high this year, and there might be a little bit of a revenge attitude at this meet since Iowa beat them at the Big Ten championships last year. The Daughter is still having problems with her ankle. They took some MRI images yesterday, so we haven't heard what they showed yet, but at any rate it's not improving like she would want. Add to that the fact that most of the team was sick with a nasty stomach virus last week and it will be tough for them to be at their best, which is where they need to be against this team.

We're supposed to be heading back up to Iowa City in a couple of weeks for their home meet against Iowa State, which should be fun except that we can't really afford to be travelling like this. Of course, I'm expecting another blizzard will come through that weekend as usual . . .

Levee Insurgents

Finally the streets are, mostly, dry! The skies are still grey and it's a bit colder, but conditions were pretty decent for this morning's long ride. My computer pickup cable transplant was successful and the Ergobrain now has fully restored sensory input, which means the speedometer is working again, so there' s one bit of good news.

The news at the levee pump hill was a bit more disappointing this morning, though. I would have expected a bunch of ride-hungry guys, but there were only Rob, Bob and myself this morning. Bob's the rather tall guy who moved here last Summer to start law school at Tulane. He doesn't usually make the morning rides and this morning he was running late and wasn't sure if he should stop when he saw me coming up the levee from River Road, but he did. A moment later Rob showed up and we hung around there in the gusty wind for an extra five minutes, but nobody else materialized so we finally rolled. We were soon joined by Jeff, Ronnie and Donald and settled into a paceline for what we knew would be a windy ride up the river.

The river, BTW, continues to rise. The businesses that are located on the batture, between the levee and the water, have all had to move their equipment and cars and things up closer to the levee, and this morning the infamous riversand operation, where there is often a line of dumptrucks blocking the bike path, had the heavy equipment out trying to build up their access road which had been flooded by the rising water.

Soon enough Rob got uncomfortable with the group's moderate pace and rolled up the left side past The Donald, who was on the front at the time. Donald, of course, held his pace, so Rob gradually rolled off the front listening to whatever music or motivational recordings he always has piped into his ears when he rides. I thought about riding up to him, but it was nice and comfy in the group and he wasn't going away very fast. After a while, Bob went off to bridge up to him. Right about that time, I noticed something lying across the road ahead of us. It was still a bit dark and it looked like maybe a 2x4. Easy to bunny-hop, so no worries, right? Well Donald, who was on the front, thought it was just a dark patch of asphalt and didn't realize until he was on top of it that it was one of the metal "Yield" signs, complete with steel signpost, that had been pulled up and laid completely across the road. No doubt someone, probably one of the truck drivers who we often battle with, intentionally placed it there. Donald got over it OK but Ronnie plowed right into it. Jeff managed to squeeze past it on the left edge. I had been all set to hop over it, but when Ronnie hit it, it flew up about a foot and so I ended up hitting it pretty hard. Lucky I didn't go down, actually.

Naturally, Ronnie's rear tire pinch-flatted immediately. I turned around to go move the blasted thing and just as I did, my rear tire went too. All I can say is I hope whoever did that was watching and got a good laugh out of it. Good thing we didn't see who did it, because I have a feeling that nobody would want to mess with an Angry Ronnie!

After I fixed my flat, I rolled up to Ronnie who was just about finished fixing his and he was fuming about Rob not having warned us about it. Rob and Bob were probably 200m ahead of us at the time, so there's not really much they could have done except to stop. At any rate, they never knew what happened and continued on to up the river.

After all of the delays everyone except me decided to turn around early at "The Dip," so I kept going at an easy pace and caught Rob and Bob on their way back near the Luling bridge. We rode back at a good pace, though, and got a nice stretch of 26 mph tailwind between Williams and the Country Club, which we soon paid for after making the bend and riding directly into the wind, struggling to hold 22, most of the way back to the playground. So I got home a bit late today.

When I got to work, the staff were all excited because some vagrant had just strolled right through the office from one stairwell to the other, holding a plastic bag in one hand and his pants up with the other, his face marked with bloody cuts. Of course they called Security but by then the guy was long gone. We had been told we couldn't lock the doors to our suite up here on the roof because of the fire code, so I guess we'll just have to buy a few automatic weapons so the secretary can defend herself, right?

It was a dark and foggy ... morning

It rained again all last night. Not the light drizzle folks in many parts of the country think of as rain, but the heavy, wake you up from a sound sleep thunder type of rain. I lay in bed at 5:45 a.m., as my always optimistic alarm went off, considering whether I was actually desperate enough to break out the mountain bike and try to get in an hour in the rain. I visualized what I might wear - that way-too-big rain jacket I have, the neoprene booties, helmet cover. But it was pointless, really, and would have served only a personal discipline role, catering to some sort of deep-seated neurosis involving fear of death, or worse - Droppage. It has always been the case that my personal statute of limitations for lack of riding doesn't run out for three days. After that, it's either a ride in the rain or, heaven forbid, a sweaty torture session on the trainer.

So I will wait yet another day in this uncomfortable and unsettled state, substituting caffeine for endorphins, and telling myself "It's only January," despite the road race results already starting to filter in from SoCal and the impending Spring races now just a month away. I could drag myself over to the Reily Center, which BTW has the world's slowest-loading homepage, for an indoor workout of some sort, trying to make do on those ridiculous exercise bikes with the easy chair seats and wire racks to hold your copy of People magazine, but frankly I'd rather be riding in the rain.

Which is exactly what I will be doing tomorrow morning if this isn't over.

Drip, Drip, Drip ...

6 p.m. update: This is SO depressing. It has not stopped raining for at least 24 hours and the forecast for 6 am tomorrow is still calling for a 70% chance of rain. I don't think I've seen the sun since Saturday. I hear the indoor trainer calling me. Noooooo! Not that. Anything but that.

---

The sound of rain and wet tires out on the street was bad enough this morning, but what I really didn't need was the drip, drip, drip of water leaking through the hallway ceiling onto the floor. Yeah, yeah, I know I've had that little leak for years, but the last time there was actually enough steady rain for it to drip onto the floor was during a hurricaine about four years ago.

Needless to say, there will be no riding today. It has not stopped raining since around mid-day yesterday. After work yesterday we stopped at the grocery store to pick up some dog food. It was pouring down rain, and I guess my first mistake was to drop The Wife off at the door, thus sparing her the mental picture of what it would be like loading and unloading the car. By the time we got out of the Winn Dixie, to the tune of $200+, we had a full shopping cart, of course. So I ran out to get the car and drive it around so it would be near the door. The parking lot was now pretty much under a few inches of water in some places, one of which I promptly located with my right foot. By the time the car was loaded up, I was pretty well soaked, and of course by the time we got the groceries into the house I was both soaked and angry.

At least we had some nice Gumbo left over for dinner! I'm hoping for better weather tomorrow, because the thought of breaking out the indoor trainer is giving me a headache!