Day on the Road

I took the car out to the lake this morning for the Giro ride. Laura was going to be distributing the new team kit after the ride and I didn't want to have to haul an extra helmet and assorted riding clothes back the hard way. I got there a little bit early, thinking maybe I would ride a few miles before the training ride started, but the wind was blowing off the lake at something like 30 mph and it felt cold - cold enough that I dug around in my bag for an extra jersey. Just before the ride started, Jen was having trouble transferring a pair of Speedplay pedals from one bike to the other, so I was drafted to try and get them off. She had a Spin Doctor pedal wrench from Performance. What a POS! The offset design looks like it would help keep your knuckes away from the menacing chainring, but in reality all it does is cause enough tourque to be applied in the wrong direction to practically ensure that you will twist the wrench off of the pedal flats and, as I discovered, jam your knuckles right into the chainring. Anyway, I did succeed at getting the pedals off, although I'm sure there's still some of my blood on the crankarm. After the ride I had to carefully peel my glove off of my knuckle where it was stuck to it with dried blood.

The Giro ride was pretty fast, despite the wind which was most often a crosswind for us. I was feeling kind of lousy from the start - don't know why really. There were a couple of flats early in the ride that most everyone waited for, but it got fast enough along Hayne to split the group into at least three pieces, most of which regrouped after the turn onto Chef Highway. That didn't last long, though, and things split up again along Chef when the pace got fast again. So after we got back to the lakefront I hung around a while and picked up my new jersey, shorts and helmet, which I'll try out tomorrow morning, and headed home. Just enough time to shower, and then I had to drive up to Baton Rouge to visit The Wife's mom. We checked her out of the assisted living home and took her to the zoo, which was packed. It seemed to be particulary overstocked on large hungry fat women, actually. Well the mom-in-law started getting rather shaky after a while - I'm guessing low blood sugar and/or anemia - so we beat a hasty retreat back, after which The Wife felt an urgent need to buy a spring theme wreath for her mom's door. Of course, we didn't have a clue where to get such a thing in Baton Rouge and went to four or five different places before finding one. Didn't get back to N.O. until around 8 p.m. and then had to go over to my mom's house to dog-sit for the night. At least there's wine here!! I guess I'll hit the levee tomorrow, since this place is right at the start of the bike path, and try and hook up with Tim and Realdo who are supposed to be doing a long levee ride tomorrow morning.