Evening Riding

After work yesterday I hopped on the bike for a little evening ride out to City Park to check out the old Roosevelt Mall circuit. We're considering using it for our upcoming Rocktoberfest race and I needed to see how bad the road surface is nowadays. The bottom line on the road is that we can make it work as long as we keep the race in the right lane on the back side of the loop to avoid the bad centerline crack, and patch a couple of holes. For some reason, though, I thoroughly enjoyed my little ride out there amidst the Carrollton Avenue traffic. My legs felt good, the temperature didn't seem too oppressive, and it was nice riding around the old loop where, for all practical purposes, bicycle racing in New Orleans was reborn back at the beginning of the 70s. I was also glad to get in a few extra miles, because I knew my riding would be limited on Wednesday.

The Wife had an appointment this morning for some upper and lower GI endoscopy (nothing like getting it all over with at once) and apparently my presence was required. As it turned out, though, once she was admitted there was nothing I could really do, and since my office was only a block away I ended up working all morning waiting for the phone to ring. It finally did around 1:30. The Wife was not a happy camper after five hours of having her insides photographed, either. Nausea, vomiting, cramps -- the whole works. So I took her home so she could sleep until the bad stuff wore off, and made some Jello. You always have to have Jello after something like that. They even serve it to you if you're in the hospital. It's kind of the 70's version of chicken soup, I guess.

I ended up going out for an hour on the levee around 6 pm. I think the thing I enjoy about riding in the evening this time of year is that it always feels so much cooler as the sun starts to go down and I ease up for the ride home. That's one thing I always remember about the old Tuesday/Thursday races -- the ride back home from the Lakefront with tired legs, a lingering endorphin high, and a breeze that felt cool as it blew over my wet jersey. Anyway, two evening rides in a row is unusual for me, but as they say, "change is good."