New Wheels

Plans change and things move ahead, and lately I just feel like I'm hanging for dear life onto the proverbial tiger's tail. With some early morning uptown meetings on my calendar today, I got up extra early with the intention of getting in 25 miles or so before 7 a.m. As I dragged my sleepy lycra-clad self into the kitchen I heard it -- the unmistakable sound of car tires on a wet street. Still reeling from the fiscal bloodletting of yesterday's car purchase, I was in no mood for a dirty, wet ride on dark and slippery streets, so I activated "Plan B."

I had left my commuter at Tulane's uptown campus yesterday to avoid making the hot and sweaty ride downtown at mid-day, so in lieu of a training ride this morning I walked the mile and a half to campus and rode the bike back so The Wife could take the "new" car without having to drop me off. The air this morning was so warm and thick and humid you could smell the mold spores.

Yesterday's used car buying experience went OK, but could have been smoother and less aggravating. Granted, when it comes to car dealers, I set my expectations very low anyway. It took a lot longer than I expected for them to get all the paperwork together, the car wasn't very well detailed for us, and there was neither an owner's manual nor a second key. We had to stop in at the Volvo dealer in N.O. to order the extra key, which set me back something like $150. That was a cruel twist of the knife after I had already, however reluctantly, sprung for around two grand for the extended warranty that The Wife insisted upon. Apparently she would rather have insurance than money, and all manner of calm and rational analysis of cost/benefit and alternative strategies just fell on deaf ears. Just another in a long series of painful compromises in the name of domestic harmony. Now I'm hoping that the transmission burns up some time soon so I will feel like it wasn't a waste. I also miss the old days when a key was just a key and you could get them made at the local hardware store for about fifty cents. So anyway, now we have a white Volvo V70 and I'm hoping the clips on my Saris roof rack will work on this one too.

I see that Hincapie's spate of bad luck this year continues unabated - as if the train wreck at Paris-Roubaix hadn't been bad enough. It was bad enough to crash in the sprint of the last stage, but then to lose the GC by one second to the guy who caused the crash was really cruel.