Roadkill and Elvis on Oak Street

Yesterday's Giro Ride started out nice and tame, and I thought it would probably stay that way. As usual, however, I was sadly mistaken. By the time we started down Chef Highway, after a frantic bit of chasing along the service road, there was one break already down the road and another little chase group bridging up to it. It was pretty windy, so I thought I'd stick with what was left of the main group and work the nice double paceline that always develops under such conditions. That paceline did, in fact, start to come together, but after Howard hit the front and surged the pace up by 5 mph it's fate was pretty much sealed. I tried to keep the rotation going at the front, but by then most of the group was afraid to pull, no doubt fearing another big surge they couldn't quite handle in the wind. So a couple of us would take out turns at the front, pull off, and then nobody would come through. At one point I was sitting there on the left behind another rider who had just pulled off and I hear Charlie behind us screaming "pull off!" I had to laugh. We were already "pulled off." The problem was that even though we were trying to drop back, the riders behind us wouldn't come around. And so, needless to say, the group up the road disappeared pretty quickly at that point. Now, after the turnaround, when we picked up a nice tailwind, suddenly everyone was superman. A few of us rolled off ahead of the main group and after a while the pace picked up with Jay sitting at the front on his TT bike towing the rest of us at around 29-30 mph. A mile or two before the Goodyear sign we're still rolling at like 30 when we suddenly get swarmed from behind by riders going about 34 mph. It felt suspiciously like an attack, and right away I was off the saddle going 36 mph just to close the gap. The pace stayed up above 30 the rest of the way to the sign sprint. Somewhere on the service road my rear tire suddenly blew up and as we rolled to a stop I heard someone behind say "thank God!" I guess there were a lot of tired legs by that point. Anyway, it turned out that some big sharp piece of glass or something had slashed my *brand new* tire, so Big Richard gave me a piece of Mr Tuffy to use as a boot and I rode it all the way back with about 50 psi just to be on the safe side. That was just one of four flats we had that day (one of which was something that went right through a tire liner). When I got home I stitched in a more permanent boot, so we'll see how long that lasts.

The Monday morning levee ride was just Arlow, Brady and me, so we kept the pace nice and moderate, maybe 20-24 mph, the whole way, taking long pulls and looking at the scenery. The boot I'd put in my rear tire seemed to work fine, so maybe I'll get a few more miles out of that new rubber. Anyway, as we came down from the levee at Oak Street I saw a chance to slot in neatly behind a car without slowing down, which was great, but of course it meant that I hit the railroad tracks at about 25 mph. Well, when I did, out of the corner of my eye I saw something bouncing along the road behind me and immediately knew what it was. My Vista tail light had unclipped itself and launched despite the rubber band I keep around it specifically to prevent that from happening (this wasn't the first time). I hit the brakes pretty fast and rushed back through the dangerous intersection, risking life and limb, to try and save it, but by the time I got there it was already roadkill. The red lens was smashed into a hundred little pieces scattered around it on the asphalt like the classic blood splatter they like to talk about so much on CSI. I picked up the carcass since the batteries probably survived, and brought it home, but after a quick autopsy it was clear that this trusty little light was not going to rise from the dead this time. After that little incident, we're riding down Oak St. and come to the intersection with Carrollton where we have to stop for the traffic signal and I look up to see a guy in an Elvis costume standing on the corner advertising the little breakfast place on Oak St. I'm confused. Elvis? 8 a.m. on a Monday? Advertising a eggs and bacon place? Somehow the connection, if any, escaped me, but hey, it was getting some attention, so I guess it was working. I always wonder who's inside those big plastic heads, though.