Cleat Surfing

I had just pulled on my shorts when I heard the rain. Outside, illuminated only by the orangish street lights, puddles were already forming in the street as a steady rain poured down. It was still early, around 5:45 am, so there was hope. I stumbled down the hallway and fired up the computer to check the radar. There was an isolated shower passing right over us, but all around it looked clear. Well, except for the huge red and yellow line of thunderstorms over by the Texas line ahead of the next cold front. So I waited it out and the minute the rain stopped I was out the door on the trusty old Pennine, headed for the levee.

"Why the hell won't this cleat engage?" I reached down and fiddled with the shoe cover, thinking perhaps it was in the way. Then I remembered I was wearing the shoes with the Look Keo cleats rather than the ones with the old Look cleats. Damn. The fronts of the cleats were engaged, but being shorter than the old style, the rears were only thinking about being engaged. No worries, I thought. Surely I would be riding by myself at a nice even pace on the wet bike path anyway. So I continued on. The plan was to get in a quick hour and be back in time to hitch a ride to work with The Wife in case more rain was imminent.

A couple of miles down the road I saw three headlights coming my way. I'm not sure exactly where they were coming from, but when we passed Chad and Jeff and Max turned around and so we ended up with a nice little group, picking up David a bit later, just flying up the river with a nice tailwind behind us. Chad and I were planning on turning around at the parish line. The rest were going to continue on to the end of the bike path out at Ormond plantation. The road out in Jefferson was completely dry, and I felt a little cheated by that fact since I was all kitted out for a rain ride. Now, I was just overdressed and riding a bike with suddenly irrevelant fenders. Plans.... Anyway, when we got close to the parish line I saw Chad accelerate past the group to make a final surge and thought it would be fun to see if I could catch him. So I pulled out of the paceline, got out of the saddle and took off in pursuit, completely forgetting about the tenuous pedal engagement issue. Of course, I immediately pulled my left foot right out of the pedal while off the saddle, resulting in some unplanned cleat surfing and leaving a nice little bruise on my shin when my leg came down on the vacant pedal. Although I left a fair bit of grey Look cleat plastic on the asphalt, at least I didn't leave any skin!

The ride back was into an increasingly strong headwind and crosswind, but since it was just Chad and I it was relatively easy for me. For Chad I guess it was a little harder since he probably didn't get any draft above the handlebars. Then again, he should be used to that by now.

It's almost noon now and the really bad weather is still moving extremely slowly in our direction, and it's looking like the timing may be just right to wash out tonight's parades, most of which will then have to take rain-dates by following other scheduled parades over the next day or so.

I got a call from Dan Bennett who will be in town this weekend and is planning on making it out to the Giro Ride.

Oops! I just got an email saying that tonight's Krewe of Muses parade has been postponed until tomorrow after THREE other parades, so no glitter shoes tonight. So that means four parades in a row tomorrow night.