It was an exceptionally smooth and steady start to the week up on the levee this morning. I had only Joe for company, and after a few miles he dropped back and settled into my draft as he often does. The weekend's rides were still in my legs, though, and so the plan for me was a low-gear, low-intensity ride. With the flags hanging limply in the still air and a thick haze filtering the sunlight, the weather made it easy. I rolled along, spinning a 39x15, all the way out at a steady speed that probably never varied more than half an mph from 18.5. A quarter mile from the turnaround a little bump betrayed a softening rear tire, so at the turnaround I stopped to change the tube. The return trip was just a mirror image with 1 mph tacked onto it to keep me on schedule. Even the woman in the big SUV who started to coast through the stop sign without even looking in my direction couldn't spoil such a peaceful morning spin. It would take something else entirely.
Although I had an 11:00 meeting uptown, I decided to go ahead and ride downtown to work first and then take The Wife's car back uptown to the meeting. I was running a bit late, but there was plenty of time and this way I could sort through the morning email and prepare for the meeting at the office. It was a plan. The tires on the commuter were a little low, so I topped them up with my trusty old blue Silca floor pump and hit the road more or less on schedule. Half a mile later my leisurely commute was rudely interrupted when the front tire exploded. It was obviously a case of casing failure. I turned around and limped back home on the rim. Now, if I had built up that second new front wheel like I had planned, this wouldn't have happened, but I handn't, so when I got back to the house I checked the tire and found the tear in the casing near the bead. Not really fixable - on to Plan B. The front wheel on the commuter is an old 27 inch one, so although I'm well stocked with used 700C tires, there's not another 27-incher to be had. Readily at hand, however, was an old 700C front with rusty spokes that I had rescued from someone's Katrina debris pile a couple of months ago. It was holding air, but it had a big dry-rotted "hybrid" tire on it that wouldn't fit inside the fenders on my commuter, which was actually designed for 26" wheels. So I decided to swap out the tire with one of the narrower 700C tires I had lying about. However, I would need a narrower tube to go with it, and since I had already flatted earlier that morning, I had to patch one. So I did all that and went to mount the new tube and tire and realized that the rim was drilled for Shraeder valves rather than Presta. Did I have any Shraeder tubes that would fit? Nope. I briefly considered rigging something up, but now it was getting seriously late and my meditative calmness from the morning ride had already become a distant memory. I tossed wheel number two aside and moved on to Plan C. Plan C, of course, was to use my nice newly built training wheel with its nearly booted and repaired Michelin Pro Race tire off of my Cervelo for the day. Yeah, it hurt, but whatchagonnado? I finally arrived at work just in time to turn right around and get a ride back uptown for my meeting.
Just for the record, here's the latest on the University. Total estimated revenue losses including operating losses ($100M), property damages ($155M), research asset losses, library and art losses, and hazard mitigation: $390 Million. Total received to date from FEMA: $0. Total received to date from federal government appropriations: $0. Time we have been working on recovering something through FEMA and the federal legislature: Eight months. Anxiety level: High.
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