Unsettled

I'm sitting here on the couch, coffee cup in hand, watching the Weather Channel as the gentle breeze from my 50-year-old Hunter Oscillating Fan fills the room. The hurricane is just a few hours from flattening Ft. Walton and Destin again, and the question now isn't whether my dad's place will be flooded, just how deep the water will be and where the boat will end up. Here in the relative safety of New Orleans, a 4-5 hour drive from ground zero, the weather is nonetheless unsettled, with gusty winds and overcast skies.

I have really been enjoying reading Martin Dugard's Tour de France blog, which he is writing for Active.com. While most of the other TDF blogs get updated long after the day's stage has ended, Martin, who writes for the New York Times, updates his within a couple of hours of the finish, and does so with real style. Where else to you get an insightful summary of a bike race laced with quotes like this:

It reminded me of our daily need for inspiration, and Saint-Exupery’s rant against society’s embrace of mediocrity. “You rolled yourselves into a ball in your genteel security, in routine, raising a modest rampart against the winds and tides and stars. Nobody grasped you by the shoulders while there was still time. Now the clay of which you were shaped has dried and hardened, and naught will you ever awaken the sleeping musician, the poet, the astronomer that possibly inhabited you in the beginning.”

The other interesting one is being written by 14-year-old Alex Trautwig who uses his dad's priveliged access to tell us about what kinds of swag are available to the spectators, how the team logos are put on the yellow jersey, and what it's like in the caravan.

The Discovery team, aka "The Disco Boys," at least stuck together today despite allowing two breaks to go up the road and giving away the yellow jersey. After the big climbs, they got together with CSC and pulled back a few minutes on the break. Perhaps it was a strategic decision. Perhaps not. In my little bike-racing world of short fast and flat races, a three-minute gap is huge, stage races routinely being won by just a few seconds. In the TDF world, though, the time gaps on a single mountain stage are usually far greater, with otherwise strong riders losing 15-30 minutes in a single day. Nonetheless, the situation in the Tour seems far more unsettled than in prior years, and the Disco boys have a real race on their hands this time. I sense that the other teams smell blood and absent the usual fear that paralizes the competition, they all seem quite willing to be agressive.

So this morning I decided to skip the Giro ride and instead do a solo ride along the levee. I left early and found the bike path mostly deserted all the way out to the end. I cruised along, occasionally sitting up to enjoy a bit of tailwind, but generally pushing an easy gear at a moderate pace. On the way back I ran into Reo who turned around and rode with me all the way back through Audubon Park before heading back to the bike path to put in another 20 miles or so. I may end up making a trip to Florida one day next week to survey the damage. We shall see. I don't think the hurricane will cause much of a problem in Biloxi, so next weekend's races there should be good.