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.