Antisocial Behavior

I rode out to the levee this morning to meet the 6:15 ride and didn't even feel the need for a blinky light. It must be summer. Indeed, the temperature was warmer and a stiff wind was blowing out of the southeast. The river level is finally starting to drop ever so slowly, exposing dead and waterlogged grass and impressive amounts of once-floating flotsam including everything from trees to plastic bottles and Styrofoam.

So the group started out as usual, but for some reason there was a big gap between the trio of Chad, Jeff and me, and the rest of the group. We weren't going all that fast, at least not until Chad went to the front and started ramping up the speed somewhere around the playground. Soon we were rolling downwind at around 27 mph and I remember thinking, "this is rather anti-social behavior" as I looked back in search of the rest of the group. But hey, I was already committed, so I tried to hold the pace when my turn at the front would come up. Even so, I have to admit that we were slowing down a bit every time Jeff or me would hit the wind. After a while Eddie caught us after what must have been a pretty serious effort, and shortly thereafter Jeff dropped back. By then I was already taking shorter and shorter pulls, knowing full well that we'd have a long and mostly upwind haul for the return trip.

After regrouping at the turnaround, things were relatively civilized for a long time, and we were just beginning to get really rolling again when we came across a rider walking his bike who apparently was in need of a valve extender. So a few riders continued on, a bunch of them stopped, and a handful of us just soft-pedaled. I don't know what the hold-up was, but it took forever for the main group to catch back up to us. Anyway, I got in a pretty good amount of exercise this morning before having to rush off to work. I'm not sure what I'll be doing this weekend. There's a lot of deferred maintenance stuff to which I need to attend around the house, but otherwise I'm hoping the weather will cooperate so I can get in a few miles.