Déjà Vu All Over Again

Man, today's long levee ride seemed like déjà vu "all over again!" There was a big group of twenty or so, and once things got rolling it just kept getting faster and faster. At one point, maybe halfway out, I took a pull at the front and dropped back. The next couple of guys pulled off as soon as they hit the front and so they were dropping back in front of me. Normally, that's a good thing because I'd get a nice draft as I drifted to the end of the paceline, but in this case I guess someone at the front started to accelerate and I knew we were dropping back way too slowly. I told the rider in front "pedal faster" but it was already too late. The paceline was coming apart and we weren't going nearly fast enough. At those kinds of speeds, you can't afford to let any little gaps open up and you especially can't afford having to close the ones that do. It took a big effort to get a wheel after that, and in the meantime a few riders went off the front. Eventually we got re-organized and slowly reeled in the escapees. The last couple of miles, though, got ridiculously fast again (I had a max speed of 33 mph) and the paceline splintered. At least the first half of the ride back was much easier, and even though the pace, and the headwind, picked up, Donald stayed near the front short-circuiting the rotation ahead of him. I think most everyone stayed together.

I hear Robin ended up in the ER last week to have a kidney stone removed. Yeouch!

So I listened to this week's Bicycle Radio.com show during lunch (it's live on Tuesdays, but you can listen to the archive any time) and they had a little interview, after the hilarious Bike Cops segment, with John Howard. Too bad I didn't catch the live show because I could have emailed in some interesting comments. John Howard won the first Tour de Louisiane, back around '72. The writeup on that race is actually on the website. In fact, you can see John in the blurry photo that I took with my Kodak Instamatic camera. He's the one in the white, black and yellow Raleigh jersey. So here we are getting ready for the 36th year of the Tour and John's still doing interviews to promote his coaching business. John was always a little strange. Sounds like that hasn't changed either!