Rain Bike Day

The steady drone of the window unit faded as I closed the bedroom door behind me, but instead of the usual peaceful silence of the morning it was replaced by the sound of car tires on wet pavement. It took a few seconds for it to sink in because I wasn't expecting rain, but a look out the window confirmed my fears. I wasn't ready to throw in the towel, though. The temperature was warm and there was only a very light drizzle falling, so I dusted off the Rain Bike, slipped into my old Sidi shoes, which are now my Rain Shoes, and headed out to the levee. I had looked at the radar and figured I could get in an hour without drowning. The levee, of course, was quiet today. There were a few walkers and runners and in twenty miles I passed only two bikes. One was that guy on the Snow Bike who wears a full-face helmet. The other was a guy with a five-gallon bucket hanging from each side of his handlebars; no doubt he was on his way to his favorite fishing spot on the river. The ride was nice today. I had the levee pretty much all to myself and could ride with my head down for long stretches. Although the light rain continued the whole time, it was never heavy enough to really soak my socks, and thanks to the fenders on the old Pennine I was nice and comfortable the whole time. By the time I was back heading back to the house I was already craving a cup of coffee. There is obviously some sort of addiction-related neurological connection in my brain between rain and hot coffee, and I happily indulged it upon my return. The Wife's doctor has given her an alcohol and caffeine-free diet because of an elevated cholesterol level, so that means all the wine and coffee is for me right now!

So I'm sitting here at work watching the live Giro coverage on cyclingfans.com. I could open another window and listen to commentary in English, but you know, the Italian is just such a beautiful language that I'd rather listen to it even though I can't understand it very well. You can still tell when something important is happening from the announcers' tone of voice, and it's easy to pick out the names of the key riders. It is looking like an interesting race in the mountains today and I'm watching Garzelli working his way up one of the last climbs of the day off the front of a break and a couple of minutes ahead of the "grupo maglia rosa." He just passed one of the Specialized Angels. I know it's kind of a corny publicity thing, but I like the Angels anyway. The CyclingNews live commentary put it particularly nicely, I think, writing "Garzelli hands off his long-sleeved jersey. Now he passes into heaven. There is a special blonde angle at the side of the road." Heaven indeed.

On the way to work every day I pass a little row of old shotgun houses that was flooded pretty badly in the hurricane. They were gutted long ago and I've been wondering if they will get fixed up or torn down. Today I noticed that most of the siding had been removed from the fronts of them, which is not very encouraging for their future. I was a little surprised to see that these houses were built entirely with studs rather than barge-board. A lot of these houses were build with thick solid boards salvaged from the barges that used to be floated down the river with merchandise and then broken up when their loads were sold. Even though these were cheap little houses built on tiny 30-foot wide lots, somethimes smaller, you can still see that the basic construction was pretty solid.