The Blue Streetcar and Getting Nailed
It was better this morning. It was colder, to be sure, and I'm still enveloped in some kind of blue funk that I can only attribute to the change in the weather and my own neuroendocrine instability. As I often do when I'm feeling tired and unsettled, I reached for "comfort clothes" today, which is to say that I was nicely overdressed but quite cozy as I made my way out past the Willow St. streetcar barn to the levee. For the last couple of months I've noticed a peculiar blue streetcar sitting there in the barn. Now, you should know that New Orleans streetcars do not come in blue. The original ones that are supposed to run only along the historic St. Charles Avenue line are painted kind of an dark olive green with brick red trim. When they started up the new Riverfront line some years back, they went out and bought some "used" streetcars and for the most part painted those red. Likewise, the modern air-conditioned Disneyworld style replica antique streetcars purchased for the revived Canal St. line a few years ago were painted red. So the lone blue streetcar remained a mystery. As I was running a couple of minutes early today, and there were a couple of guys standing there at the entrance to the streetcar barn, I figured I'd stop and see if I could get some answers. I was told that the blue streetcar was the only one of the Riverfront line that had survived Katrina and that it had been painted blue because they were experimenting with some different colors at one point (and apparently still are if what the guard told me was true). The rest of the streetcar barn is mostly full of red streetcars in various stages of restoration, and from the looks of things it will be some time yet before they have a full fleet out on the tracks again.
Sooo, anyway, I continued on to the levee where we had a smallish group today for the Wednesday ride. Thankfully, yesterday's strong wind was long gone and so we had a nice smooth paceline ride in the 21-23 mph range. I have to say it's really been nice having the sun come up early enough to leave the lights at home. The bad news, however, is that this will be the last week for that since we change to DST on Sunday. This is both bad and good, however. On the bad side is the fact that it will be dark again for the morning training rides, and even worse, Sunday's Rouge-Roubaix will start an hour earlier, relative to sunrise, which will make it even colder up in St. Francisville where the Sunday morning forecast is now showing a temperature much too close to the freezing point of water for my taste. On the good side, though, is the extra daylight we'll have in the evening, meaning it'll be time to get some people together for some Tuesday hammer sessions (or training races, or whatever) on the lakefront.
By the time I split off from the group to roll back down the levee and head home I was starting to feel better. Coming down the ramp from the levee I looked behind and selected a nice between-car gap to aim for, shifted to a bigger gear, and stood up to accelerate to River Road speed. Just as I hit the bottom and tucked in behind a pickup truck I heard, and felt, a huge "thump, thump, thump" coming from my rear tire. I knew immediately I'd been nailed and no, Rob, I'm afraid Tuffy's wouldn't have prevented this one. The inch-long roofing nail had completely trashed the new innertube I'd installed just last week, but at least the hole in the tire casing wasn't so big that I needed a boot, at least not yet. I guess I pick up something impressive like this once or twice a year, which isn't too bad, really, because the streets of New Orleans have been littered with all manner of roofing nails ever since the hurricane.
It was better this morning. It was colder, to be sure, and I'm still enveloped in some kind of blue funk that I can only attribute to the change in the weather and my own neuroendocrine instability. As I often do when I'm feeling tired and unsettled, I reached for "comfort clothes" today, which is to say that I was nicely overdressed but quite cozy as I made my way out past the Willow St. streetcar barn to the levee. For the last couple of months I've noticed a peculiar blue streetcar sitting there in the barn. Now, you should know that New Orleans streetcars do not come in blue. The original ones that are supposed to run only along the historic St. Charles Avenue line are painted kind of an dark olive green with brick red trim. When they started up the new Riverfront line some years back, they went out and bought some "used" streetcars and for the most part painted those red. Likewise, the modern air-conditioned Disneyworld style replica antique streetcars purchased for the revived Canal St. line a few years ago were painted red. So the lone blue streetcar remained a mystery. As I was running a couple of minutes early today, and there were a couple of guys standing there at the entrance to the streetcar barn, I figured I'd stop and see if I could get some answers. I was told that the blue streetcar was the only one of the Riverfront line that had survived Katrina and that it had been painted blue because they were experimenting with some different colors at one point (and apparently still are if what the guard told me was true). The rest of the streetcar barn is mostly full of red streetcars in various stages of restoration, and from the looks of things it will be some time yet before they have a full fleet out on the tracks again.
Sooo, anyway, I continued on to the levee where we had a smallish group today for the Wednesday ride. Thankfully, yesterday's strong wind was long gone and so we had a nice smooth paceline ride in the 21-23 mph range. I have to say it's really been nice having the sun come up early enough to leave the lights at home. The bad news, however, is that this will be the last week for that since we change to DST on Sunday. This is both bad and good, however. On the bad side is the fact that it will be dark again for the morning training rides, and even worse, Sunday's Rouge-Roubaix will start an hour earlier, relative to sunrise, which will make it even colder up in St. Francisville where the Sunday morning forecast is now showing a temperature much too close to the freezing point of water for my taste. On the good side, though, is the extra daylight we'll have in the evening, meaning it'll be time to get some people together for some Tuesday hammer sessions (or training races, or whatever) on the lakefront.
By the time I split off from the group to roll back down the levee and head home I was starting to feel better. Coming down the ramp from the levee I looked behind and selected a nice between-car gap to aim for, shifted to a bigger gear, and stood up to accelerate to River Road speed. Just as I hit the bottom and tucked in behind a pickup truck I heard, and felt, a huge "thump, thump, thump" coming from my rear tire. I knew immediately I'd been nailed and no, Rob, I'm afraid Tuffy's wouldn't have prevented this one. The inch-long roofing nail had completely trashed the new innertube I'd installed just last week, but at least the hole in the tire casing wasn't so big that I needed a boot, at least not yet. I guess I pick up something impressive like this once or twice a year, which isn't too bad, really, because the streets of New Orleans have been littered with all manner of roofing nails ever since the hurricane.
No comments:
Post a Comment