A Working Weekend

The weather this weekend has been awesome, and although it would have been tempting to spend a lot of time on the bike, it was instead time to get some things done around the house. The plan was to do the Giro rides Saturday and Sunday, and spend the rest of the time catching up on some of those "deferred maintenance" chores. There were plenty to chose from. So Saturday morning I unenthusiastically got up in the dark for the last DST Giro of the year. It was about the coldest morning we've had so far this Fall, and although I was dressed warmly, when I hit that cold 25mph North wind it took me only about two blocks to decide it would be a good day for a "rest day." I pulled the ripcord and put my energies instead into making some nice hot coffee. Sometimes it's nice to act like a "normal" person and sit out on the porch with a cup of coffee. Once the caffeine kicked in, I started a long string of chores. There were hedges to be trimmed, things to be painted. I think I checked email once, via the Palm Pilot, just in case there was something urgent, otherwise I was mostly offline all weekend. I even took apart the furnace flue where it ties into the old chimney in the basement to clean out the branches that were down in there thanks, no doubt, to something that had nested up in there. By the end of the day, before I went out to feed my sister's dogs and my mother's dog, both of whom were out of town, I took on the tedious task of repainting the front screen door and other woodwork. I was sore and tired by the time I reset the clocks and hit the sack. Meanwhile, at the track in Baton Rouge, Jaro was riding the district track championships. I had briefly considered going, but it wasn't too hard to convince myself otherwise. I haven't been on the track bike in over a year, had never gotten around to gluing on new tires, and of course needed to take advantage of the weekend to do all that stuff around the house.... Anyway, Jaro did well.

Sunday was still quite cool, but the wind had died down, so I was determined to make the Giro Ride. I knew the temperature would rise by well over ten degrees between 6:30 a.m. when I leave home and 10:00 when I get back. This called for arm-warmers, double jersey, un-D-shirt, DeFeet gloves and DeFeet shoe covers, much of which ended up in my pockets by the time I got home. The ride itself was one of the most civilized Giro rides we've had all year. The pace stayed around 23 mph for much of the way out until finally on Chef Highway Howard couldn't take it any longer and drove it up long enough and fast enough that things came apart. Then, not too long after the turnaround, he and one other rider rolled off the front. As usual, the pack didn't worry about them for a few miles, but eventually we started chasing in earnest. For the last two or three miles VJ got on the front on his TT bike and pulled at like 30 mph until we finally caught. I was impressed. Things eventually regrouped and we resumed our conversational pace. It was good.

Back at home, though, there was more work waiting. While The Wife sanded and stripped 70 years of old paint from the kitchen windows, I took on the re-painting of the front steps. More sanding, caulking, painting, re-painting. My back will be sore tomorrow!