The Last Minute

We did a nice easy Friday training ride this morning - strictly conversational pace - although Robin was out on his TT bike getting psyched up for this weekend's Triathlon relay event. It seems that a number of local cyclists have been recruited to ride the bicycle legs of this thing, so it's going to be pretty competitive.

I ran into Kenny B. this morning. He's been AOL for quite a while so I asked him if he'd gotten thrown in jail or something. He said that he spent a couple of weeks in Destin FL at a friend's house, and has been otherwise training by himself. He was also out of communication for a while. Seems he answered a cell phone call while out training on Highway 98 in Florida and he fumbled the phone. It landed in the highway, got hit by a car and knocked into the other lane where two 18-wheelers in a row ran over it. Anyway, he's headed up to NJ later to day for one of the big Wachovia Pro Tour criteriums. He somehow talked his way onto one of the pro teams for the event since it's invitation-only.

I'm going to see if I can hitch a ride with somebody up to Monroe for the RR tomorrow. Naturally I've waited until the last possible minute. It's a pretty long drive, so it would just be a waste to have to drive up there alone, and if it comes to that I'll probably have to skip it, but some of the team is definitely going. I just need to get on the phone and see where I might be able to squeeze in. Charlie D's our team captain and he should know who's going when, so I'll check with him first. I suppose if absolutely necessary, I might have to stay over and do the Time Trial on Sunday, or maybe I could just whack my head against a brick wall instead! It should be a nice race on a challenging course. I just wish I felt like I was really in shape for it. Oh well, that's never stopped me from going before!

I just finished listening to the live audio from the Giro on Eurosport.com. It's pretty nice to have that available at work. They usually have a little video clip after each stage too, which is nice. If I have a little time, I can also check beelinetv.com later in the afternoon and see the tape-delayed video stream from the day's stage. Between cyclingnews, eurosport and beelinetv, I don't feel very deprived for not having digital cable at all, so a big thanks to those folks!