Taking What I Can Get

Although the weather this morning was far less than ideal, considering that it wasn't raining, snowing, or below freezing, I was happy to take what I could get. I got up a bit earlier than usual for the weekend Giro ride today so that I could ride downtown and pick up Warrington. He is marketing director for The Healing Cycle, which seems to be a non-profit cycling group that works to benefit pallative care at a hospital. He's from Toronto and is in town for a convention. He had emailed a few weeks ago and Robin was able to put a bike together for him to use so he could get the "Giro Experience." Considering the usual weather in most of Canada this time of year, I'm sure our mid-40s air felt positively lovely despite the gloomy grey skies. I had dropped off the bike the evening before so that he could get it set up, so when I arrived at the Riverside Hilton at 6:30 a.m., he was there and ready to go. It was windy as hell today, which was too bad because otherwise the riding would have been much nicer. We arrived at the lakefront a few minutes early, so I was expecting to see the parking lot fairly empty, but I was surprised to find lots of cars already there. I guess the threat of serious rain tomorrow, combined with the lousy weather we've had all week, pushed a few people out of bed today. Despite the rather good-sized group, the pace was pretty slow for quite a long time. A lot of riders were planning on doing the "long Giro" out to Slidell today, and I was even contemplating it myself, depending on how Warrington fared.



About halfway out to the turnaround the pace rather abruptly surged and stayed that way until we hit Chef Highway. When things calmed down, I dropped back down the group to look for Warrington, but word was that he had come off the back. Way back in the distance, though, I could see that Robin had stayed with him, and since we were now on the out-and-back section of the ride, I knew he couldn't get lost anyway, so that was good. The group was still generally reluctant to go hard for any length of time, though, and eventually I found myself off the front with a couple of guys chasing two other guys who had been off the front for a long time. We were only going maybe 80%, and the two riders ahead weren't really trying to keep from getting caught, so after a final surge by Howard we finally made contact shortly before the turnaround.


The return trip was quite civilized except for a brief stretch on Chef where we finally got the full benefit of the tailwind and the pace escalated into the 30s for a while.


Warrington got a little tour of Lakeview on the ride back to my place (to drop off the bike), after which we headed over to the local coffee shop for a little recovery drink and conversation. It sure felt nice to be back on the bike for an extended period, and I guess everyone else must have been feeling the same. The weather for tomorrow is still looking kind of sketchy, and considering the bit Saints championship game in Chicago I really don't know what I'm going to do. If it looks like it will definitely be raining as forecast, I'll have to skip the drive across the lake, but who knows? The weather forecasts have been pretty hit-and-miss lately. I'll have to wait until I wake up in the morning to make a decision. I hate that!