Summer Pattern

It was quiet and cool this morning as I threaded through the neighborhood to the 6:15 levee ride. I arrived early and waved to Rob as he went by on his Time Trial bike talking to Chad. I knew we'd see him later. The group came together as usual and Dan and I found ourselves at the front of a long double paceline. Everyone was talking and the pace was easy. After a few miles Dan looked over at me and asked how long I thought we keep the pace this slow. I had to laugh. By then Rob was back in the group, along with Robin and Luke and Eddie and at least a couple more guys on TT bikes, so I knew our time at the front was nearing an end. Soon, Rob and somebody else on a TT bike rolled off the front. The group didn't react at all, so Robin eventually went past on his TT bike and made the bridge pretty quickly. Back in the group the pace started to lift a bit, but not enough to keep the trio up the road from continuing to pull away.

On the way back, Rob, Dan and I were rotating up front as we went past an oncoming woman rider. Apparently just after we passed, she freaked out a bit when she met the pack and locked up her rear wheel, blowing out the tire or something. We never heard a thing and didn't realize that the pack wasn't right behind us for quite a while. The group stopped to help fix the flat. Robin told me that they used an energy bar wrapper as a boot to keep the tube from coming through the hole. Anyway, it felt good to be back on the bike and by the time I got home it was already warming up fast.

It took me a couple of hours to update the LCCS points using the results that Adam sent over last night. The Giro de Brandon, I learned, still had not awarded the omnium prizes!! Adam mentioned in his email that he would have done them but nobody ever told him what the points schedule was (he was the official). I swear, I will never understand race promoters who don't feel a sense of urgency in getting the results done! Luckily, we don't use the omnium results for the LCCS rankings. I still haven't been able to get the Tour de La website updated. Maybe tomorrow, I hope!

Looks we're back into he typical New Orleans summer weather pattern where it gradually heats up until clouds start building up and by 3 p.m. we get a few thunderstorms passing over. We're trying to get a Northshore training ride organized for Sunday. Maybe we can do the Tour de La road race course.