Another Year
Year three of the post-Katrina era started with a cool northwest breeze and clear skies. Up in Iowa, The Daughter's birthday marked for her another year as well. I was already running a few minutes late this morning when I grabbed the bike off its hook in the basement and dropped it onto the floor. The springy bounce as it hit the concrete told me I had a problem, and a quick thumb check confirmed that the rear tire was down to, optimistically, 20 psi. Since there was no way I was going to get to the levee on time if I stopped to fix it, I grabbed the nearby floor pump and pumped it back up to 120, hoping that the leak was a slow one.
Today's ride was fairly routine with the speeds staying mostly within the realm of reasonability. For some reason the group split up a bit both coming and going, but for the most part things were normal. I had skipped yesterday altogether and was expecting my legs to feel refreshed today, and so I was rather disappointed that they felt, well, terrible. I really don't know quite what to make of that. The big red three-inch diameter lump near my right ankle from Tuesday's bee sting was itching, but I doubt it was responsible for the sluggish legs. Despite our moderate pace, we got back to the start a bit before 8 am because we got rolling right away after the turnaround. All the way back I could tell my rear tire was getting softer and softer, and by the time I rolled it back into the house I could push the tire all the way down to the rim with my thumb. Not really a big surprise, I guess. The real question is whether or not I'll remember to fix it tonight, because you know it'll be totally flat by then and you also know I'll be running late.
So today I met with someone from City Park to scout out the course we want to use for Rocktoberfest in mid-October. Then I filled out the USAC event permit to make sure I got it in before the late fees started to kick in, even though all of the arrangements are not quite chiseled in stone yet. Hopefully everything will work out as expected. I remember long ago when we would make a single phone call to someone in the City Park police department, tell him when we were planning to have races, and he'd just say "OK." Things were so simple back then. Now, it seems to take an act of Congress to put on a bike race on public property, and the four-digit cost is about the same whether you're expecting 70 of the local riders or 400 people from all over the country. Anyway, it's a nice course for this fun event, and I don't expect we'll have any big problems.
Year three of the post-Katrina era started with a cool northwest breeze and clear skies. Up in Iowa, The Daughter's birthday marked for her another year as well. I was already running a few minutes late this morning when I grabbed the bike off its hook in the basement and dropped it onto the floor. The springy bounce as it hit the concrete told me I had a problem, and a quick thumb check confirmed that the rear tire was down to, optimistically, 20 psi. Since there was no way I was going to get to the levee on time if I stopped to fix it, I grabbed the nearby floor pump and pumped it back up to 120, hoping that the leak was a slow one.
Today's ride was fairly routine with the speeds staying mostly within the realm of reasonability. For some reason the group split up a bit both coming and going, but for the most part things were normal. I had skipped yesterday altogether and was expecting my legs to feel refreshed today, and so I was rather disappointed that they felt, well, terrible. I really don't know quite what to make of that. The big red three-inch diameter lump near my right ankle from Tuesday's bee sting was itching, but I doubt it was responsible for the sluggish legs. Despite our moderate pace, we got back to the start a bit before 8 am because we got rolling right away after the turnaround. All the way back I could tell my rear tire was getting softer and softer, and by the time I rolled it back into the house I could push the tire all the way down to the rim with my thumb. Not really a big surprise, I guess. The real question is whether or not I'll remember to fix it tonight, because you know it'll be totally flat by then and you also know I'll be running late.
So today I met with someone from City Park to scout out the course we want to use for Rocktoberfest in mid-October. Then I filled out the USAC event permit to make sure I got it in before the late fees started to kick in, even though all of the arrangements are not quite chiseled in stone yet. Hopefully everything will work out as expected. I remember long ago when we would make a single phone call to someone in the City Park police department, tell him when we were planning to have races, and he'd just say "OK." Things were so simple back then. Now, it seems to take an act of Congress to put on a bike race on public property, and the four-digit cost is about the same whether you're expecting 70 of the local riders or 400 people from all over the country. Anyway, it's a nice course for this fun event, and I don't expect we'll have any big problems.
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