Ride Your Bike

This weekend was another one of just riding the bike. No races just finished, no races next week, nothing close enough to even be on the radar. I wonder if perhaps I need to try and register for Six Gap just to give myself something for which to aim. On Friday Kieth sent an email out to City Park to see if we can get that venue for the Rocktoberfest race in mid-October. It would be nice. Really nice. So I went out to the Saturday Giro Ride and for some reason got kind of sucked into the ride unusually early. My legs were feeling good and it was one of those days when everything feels smooth and effortless, and closing a gap seems to require little more than a thought. It would have been a good weekend for a race. Indeed, I could have made my way up to the velodrome in Baton Rouge in the afternoon for a quick little track meet, - Rob even offered to lend me a pair of wheels - but by then the feeling had evaporated and I was out looking for oil-based paint and antique cabinet hinges. I felt bad about it later when I learned the turnout had been disappointingly low and that the Baton Rouge recreational folks, who reluctantly manage the track, are talking about bulldozing it to make another soccer field or something. On the plus side, the folks at the local Sherwin-Williams store gave me the family discount because my brother in Orlando works for them. Just for the record, you won't find much in the way of oil-based paint at the local Lowes. Also, just for the record, latex paint really sucks when it comes to things like doors and cabinets. Maybe its the humidity down here, but the stuff never seems to really dry properly and stays kind of sticky.

There was still a lot of concern about Hurricane Dean down in the Caribbean Saturday. Our wimpy mayor declared a state of emergency. Sheesh. This state is being run by someone who reminds me of my fifth grade teacher, except that my fifth grade teacher was a good deal smarter and a whole lot better looking. BTW, if you know anything about local politics and want to read something I can only describe as "tragically hilarious," you should check out the current issue of The Levee. The cover story of last month's edition (the current edition doesn't show up on the web until later) starts out with:

A joking and jovial Jesus Christ, choosing The New Orleans Levee newspaper for his first interview since the crucifixion, said it is apparent to him that Louisiana has, in less than two years, rebounded “beyond pre-Katrina levels.”“I’ve been keeping an eye on things down here, reading The Times-Picayune online, and the headlines coming out of your state show that Louisiana is back, better than ever,” Christ told The Levee after a photo opportunity beneath his portrait at Slidell City Court.

Speaking of things to read, you really should check out Jill's writeup and photos from her little solo weekend ride in Alaska and Canada. Something like 370 miles in 48 hours, solo, on a loaded bike in the middle of nowhere. Shoulds like a little bit of heaven.

It can be hard to get out on the bike this time of year, and sometimes I resort to old Eddie B's immortal quote concerning the three most important things aspiring bike racers need to do: "Ride your bike, ride your bike, ride your bike." So with temperatures still up in the stratosphere and the grass on the neutral ground slowly turning brown, I headed out the lakefront this morning for another round of the Giro. Along the way I caught up to Rob K. The Sunday ride is always kind of confusing to me, and this week's was no exception. The group, such as it was, left a bit early and was kind of mixed in with the smaller group that usually leaves earlier. A bunch of the Bicycle World guys disappeared on Lakeshore Drive to do some motorpacing, so the horsepower to wheelsucker ratio was really low today. Eventually, though, things got fast enough to salvage a pretty good workout, and we spent a long time on Chef Highway in a nice double paceline until, as usual, somebody got impatient with the pace and things devolved into a fast single paceline. So a small group of us continued to take pulls at the front in to the increasing headwind all the way out to the turnaround where I was shocked to discover that the rest of the group had dropped off and turned around early. Although there were a few good surges, for the most part the ride back today was pretty civilized.

Hurricane Dean seems to have decided to ravage the Caribbean tourism industry this year rather than visit the U.S. Gulf Coast, so the city is breathing a collective sigh of relief. Now if we could just get a little rain around here to cool things off, that would be nice.