Atypical Morning

I should have known that this morning's ride would be atypical. For one, I had watched most of the Saints game last night in a mild state of amazement (perhaps also inebriation) as they tenaciously held at 20-point lead over the Atlanta Falcons in the Superdome. After they jumped to an early lead, I spent the rest of the night waiting for the other shoe to drop -- the one where they fall apart in the second half and get overtaken late in the 4th quarter. It never happened.

It was cool and dark when I left for the levee this morning, and when I arrived there were only a couple of other riders there. I figured that last night's parties and celebrations might have taken a toll on the morning ride. After all, as I was riding down Carrollton I passed a car with the street-side passenger door open and someone still passed out inside. A few riders arrived after I, and each said that as he had passed the Corps of Engineers' building, which has an entrance road that crosses the bike path, there was a woman cyclist lying on the ground unconscious with the police standing around her. The last rider to show up said they were loading her into an ambulance as he went by. The bike path doesn't have right of way at that intersection, and it's fairly busy in the morning with people coming to work, so it can be dangerous. Not too long ago the Corps tried putting traffic pylons across the bike path to slow the riders down, but of course that caused more problems than it solved. Anyway, that last rider also arrived with the announcement that he had two (2) flats! So we spent a few more minutes changing inner tubes before we finally got going. Eventually we picked up a few more riders, but soon we had to stop for yet another flat tire, so we were already running pretty late. Howard was afoot today, pushing the pace as usual, and as the group approached the Luling bridge, Big Richard sat up and motioned for everyone to slow down as Howard and Ronnie hammered off into the distance. I had to laugh when Howard finally pulled off and saw there was nobody behind him except Ronnie. Apparently we are easily amused that early in the morning.

The ride back was another battle with crosswinds, but was going along pretty smoothly until Ronnie's tire exploded underneath one of the grain elevators. Flat #4. By the time I got home I was a good 20 minutes behind schedule, but the weather was so nice I just couldn't complain.

On the Pro cycling scene, I have to agree with Pat McQuaid's assessment of Dick Pound.

"As chief of Wada, his role is to assist sport in the fight against doping but he doesn't help cycling," added McQuaid. "We've given him presentations and he knows that we do more than other sports, yet he continues to try to kill our sport. I can't accept that. "As soon as he's out of that job, the better."

If Pound were a doctor, his approach to curing communicable diseases would be to kill everyone and sort out the infected ones later.