Back to the Levee

Man, I was useless yesterday. I mean, more so than usual. This morning, however, all was well. The legs have only a slight lingering heaviness and the lungs are about back to normal thanks to the warm humid air blowing in from the Gulf of Mexico today. I had wanted to change out the headset on the Cervelo last night and install the King one I got from Robin, but by the time I got home it was nearly 8 p.m., the fridge was empty and I wasn't in the mood to be the creative chef, so we put in a call to The Italian Pie for a pizza. After that and a glass of wine, I decided sleep was more important than a fully functional headset. Funny how wine can make you think crazy things like that.

This morning's long levee ride had a pretty big group - maybe 15 I guess. There was a little bit of a tailwind on the way out and so the pace stayed fast. I was seeing 27 mph pretty steadily. When we hit the little bump at Williams Blvd., it was enough of a jolt to eject someone's little tail light, which exploded upon impact sending batteries and the lens and other bits and pieces flying. Todd's buddy Robbie from Lewisville (basically part of Dallas nowadays) was riding with us today.

There was some excitement today as we went under the pipes at "the dip." This is where the bike path drops down from the levee and runs alongside the river road for a few hundred feet to get under some large pipes. The paceline usually spaces itself out along here because of the ever-present gravel and other debris down at street level, and so if you're anywhere near the tail end of the group you feel like you need to make an extra effort on the way back up the levee to close the gap. The bike path weaves around a bit just before it climbs up the levee, and just as I came through that section I heard a lot of screaming ahead of me. I couldn't see what the problem was until the guy in front of me suddenly swerved to his left. When he did, I was confronted by Bob B. and his bike, at a dead stop, directly in front of me! I pulled the ripcord and bailed out to right onto the grassy slope of the levee. Whew! That was a close one. Bob hadn't tightened his rear quick-release enough after returning from last weekend's race and I guess that when he stood up to climb the levee the wheel moved enough in the dropout so that it wedged itself firmly against the chainstay. Basically, his rear wheel locked up and he skidded until the tire wore through and the tube blew out the hole, all of which took about two seconds. So after we all figured out what had happened, Bob limped back to Justin's car on the flat while the group continued on.

The ride back was uneventful. The pace stayed reasonably high considering the light headwind. Realdo and a couple other guys met the group just as we started the return trip. I was feeling pretty good, considering.

So it looks like "Game Over" for Tyler. If you want to read up on the actual USADA report, including the comments by the dissenting panelist, it's on the USADA website. By the time his suspension is over he'll be able to ride in masters races. Meanwhile, Lance made the unsurprising announcement that he's retiring immediately after the TDF this summer. I can't say I blame him under the circumstances. There seems to be a long line of people trying to take him down lately, either by way of litigation or innuendo.

I put a bunch of my lousy photos from last Saturday's criterium on the website yesterday evening. Hopefully we'll get a few really nice photos from Malcolm later that we can use to replace them!

Hopefully we'll have a nice turnout for tomorrow's Wednesday training race. I was really feeling my lack of interval training during last weekend's races. I mean, my recovery time sucks right now, and I know that one sure cure for that is a lot of races.