Tease

I woke up about an hour early today. Likely a result of going to bed before 10 pm last night. I wasn't quite energetic enough to actually get up, though, so I just stared at the clock-radio for half an hour and then got dressed and lubed the chain. It's still light enough at 6:30 that I don't need the light, but there was a hint -- just a tiny hint -- of (dare I say it?) Fall in the air this morning. The humidity has been a notch lower than usual for the last day or two, and that's made the morning ride much more pleasant. I'm trying not to get too excited about it, though, because I know it's just a tease. There will be a lot of hot and sweaty weather yet between now and October.

There was a nice little diverse group up on the levee this morning, including one big guy on a mountain bike. I think he's ridden with us before. The pace was pretty steady as usual, maybe just a tad faster than a typical Friday, but even the mountain bike guy stayed with us the whole way. I was feeling like I wanted to go a little harder this morning, so when I was in the paceline I was intentionally staying out in the wind a little bit. I even switched the computer over to cadence mode and kept it at 95-100 most of the way back just for fun.

Mark was out on his new carbon bike. I think his position is actually a little better on this bike than on his old Klein. I know the ride is more comfortable. Mark's small and the one thing about the carbon frames is that they often don't come with small enough head tubes to allow short riders to get their handlebars low enough. We usually end up resorting to deep-drop bars and short stems, and other tricks in order to make it work.

So, on the work front, I finally tracked down that $13 million contract that we still haven't received from the state Office of Community Services. It's still shuffling its way through the state's bureaucracy and is supposed to be ready for its final review and approval on Monday. Nobody's making any promises about when it will actually get signed, though.

So it looks like I'll be near Pensacola, out on Santa Rosa Island, next week, on a little vacation that The Wife and her sister from Dallas cooked up. It is not the best place to ride, and since we will only be there during the week, there's no chance I could get in on a local group ride in the city.