Thump, thump, thump

Yesterday morning my legs were pretty sore from Sunday's epic, but I figured I'd better get out for a little spin anyway, so I headed out to the levee (it was still good and dark at 6:30 - what was Congress thinking??) and did a nice easy 20 miles just to keep the legs moving. Then, at 3:15 my PalmPilot alarm goes off reminding me about a 3:30 dentist appointment I'd conveniently forgotten about, so I rush out of the office and hit the interstate out to the 'burbs where my dentist's office is. Two blocks from his office I hear "thump, thump, thump," and immediately know I have a flat tire. The Michelins on the car have 55k miles on them, and the one that's flat had a nail hole plugged a few months ago, but I was surprised to have it just go completely flat on me like that. I'm just glad it didn't happen as I was screaming around the exit ramp five minutes earlier. Luckily the neighbors invited us over for a little casual dinner last night where there was ad libitum wine availability.

So anyway, this morning I'm sitting here at the PJ's coffee house in Clearview Shopping Center, waiting for the lackadaisical Sears automotive folks to install four new Michelins and siphon something in excess of $600 out of my account. The tires were on sale, but of course the price they gave me at the Sears store was $20 higher (each) than what was advertised on the web, so I whipped out the copy of the pricing that I had printed out for just such an occasion and they made the correction, grumbling something about the website advertising people not telling them about the sale prices. Like I believe that.

So this morning I was out at the long levee ride at 6:15 where the only light was coming from the moon, the stars, and the blinky LEDs on the bikes. This shifted DST thing is crazy. We nonetheless blasted down the bike path in the pitch dark for fifteen miles before it was light enough to see. Believe me, I was leaving a little more space between the rider ahead and myself than usual. I was glad that my legs felt generally OK, except that I could still feel an occasional twinge in my right calf where it had cramped up near the end of Rouge-Roubaix last Sunday. Rob and Wes didn't seem any the worse for wear either. Rob said that after he had crashed he ended up with the group that was chasing my group and that they were just hammering the whole time. He knew it would be bad when they caught us just before the dreaded long gravel climb at around 65 miles.

Much to do at work today. Hopefully I can get to work on the new LAMBRA LCCS rankings tonight...