Summer Heat

Man it's gettin' hot 'round here. I'm sure I shouldn't be complaining (yet), because the early morning hours are still rather pleasant, but once the sun came up today it warmed up fast. It's 87F right now. The Thursday long ride was pretty good this morning, with a smaller and more manageable group than Tuesday. We had a very light tailwind on the way out, and the pace stayed pretty steady and fairly fast. Somewhere along the way I almost went down when I hit some sort of big stick or branch that was lying lengthwise in the road. I never saw it, since I was a few riders back. Robin stopped to pick it up, which I didn't realize. I had thought he might, so I sat up for a second and looked back, but it looked like everyone was still riding. Anyway, it was good that nobody went down, but it would have been better if someone had called it out a little earlier so we all could have navigated around it. Just as we got to the turnaround we ran into Matt R., who has been in Europe for a while, I think. Matt's an artist (one of the ones who actually makes a living at it) here in New Orleans. You can check out his website - some of his stuff is really pretty damned good. The return trip started out kind of easy but after a while Rob got uncomfortable with the slow pace and soon we were criusing at 25 mph or so. Just a few of us were rotating at the front, and it was a pretty good workout, I thought. Around the Country Club Matt flatted and I think everybody hung around until he was rolling again.

That crash in the sprint in yesterday's Giro d' Italia was pretty interesting! I don't think Bettini intended to force Cooke in to the barricades, but he certainly did close the door and leave no room for anyone to pass on his left. The officials were right to relegate him. Cooke would definitely have won that sprint if he hadn't gotten slammed in to the barricade. Then again, you won't find me trying to come around an Italian sprinter between him and a barricade!! I think Bettini was just instinctively taking the shortest line to the finish and wanting to keep all of the competition on one side where he could see them.

The Daughter has just one exam left this semester, and of course I've forgotten exactly when it is. Meanwhile, I really need to finish up this blasted PowerPoint presentation and move on to more important things!