Cold and Flat Season

Up early, I took my time getting dressed for a chilly Giro Ride this morning, stopping before going down to the basement to stick a powerbar in my pocket. I figured some of the guys would be doing the "long ride" today out to Slidell, and wanted to keep my options open. As usual, the first thing I did was check the tires on the bike. Damn! Rear tire was flat. Since I was early, I figured I had time to patch it, so fixed it up, pumped it up and promptly ripped the valve stem out of the tube. Damn again! OK, so now I wasn't early any more, but I had time to stick in a fresh tube and head off into the North wind for the Lakefront. I looked down and I was struggling to hold 15 mph. I was pretty sure I was going to skip the long ride. The prospect of battling that wind out on the unprotected stretch of Highway 90 through the marsh just didn't sound very appealing any more. When I got to the lakefront I stopped with my back to the wind and waited to get a shot of the group as it started out. Of course, there's never quite enough light that early in the morning, and as usual the photo didn't come out too well.

There was a surprisingly large group for the Giro Ride today. Considering the cold and wind, I would have expected more people to stay at home and wait until later. Nobody seemed too keen on hammering this time, at least until we got near the turnaround when the pace started to surge. A gap opened a few bikes ahead and Mark and I went around and caught. Naturally another gap opened as soon as we caught. I went around and started to close, but the pace was increasing the whole time and so eventually I just shut it down.

On the way back the group split into at least three groups, none of which were going all that hard. The group I was with was going pretty easy - easy enough for conversation anyway. At one point we picked it up enough to catch the group ahead of us, but otherwise it was a nice easy ride back. The only thing was - with the slower pace we were starting to get kind of chilly again. It definitely felt like a winter ride today.

Meanwhile, up in Iowa City, The Daughter actually competed Beam today in their "Black and Gold" meet. I guess that means the knee is doing well. She even got her pic on the website story.