Let Downs

The weekend races are over and nothing's on the calendar for a couple of weeks. The Tour de France has ended and the Vuelta seems an eternity away. The only real cycling news is about which relatively unknown athlete has tested positive for an appetite suppressant and might not be able to compete in the Olympics. WADA is completely out of control and reveling in it. The Olympics are still barely on my radar, and it seems that unwelcome reality is rushing in to fill the temporary void. The free weekends are rapidly being usurped by obligations rather than passions. It's not 9 pm yet and I've just refilled my glass with the last drops of the leftover wine. On the SciFi channel I just heard the line, "That photon blast must have somehow supercharged her microprocessor.... it'll take a fusion reactor to do her any good." Everything just feels like a bit let-down today.

It must be Tuesday.

After riding Monday on the Cervelo, I finally broke down last night and swapped out cassettes so I could get the Orbea back on the road today with its regular training wheels. This morning, though, it seemed particularly dark when I took off down Neron Place for the bike path. With my Oakleys stuck into the holes in my helmet I could see some dark clouds looming in the southeast, and together with an unusually strong morning wind it wasn't making me very optimistic. Nevertheless, we rolled out about on time and with Tim at the helm for the first ten miles or so the pace gradually increased. Although I thought we'd have a headwind most of the way out, it was really more of a crosswind. Even so, the pace stayed pretty fast all the way out to the turnaround, and indeed my legs still seemed to be feeling Sunday's little sprint. As it turns out, one should sprint more often than once every three months for best results.

Anyway, as soon as we turned around and looked at the sky that had been behind us, Max wisely said "let's not hang around here too long."

Well, despite our best efforts, we didn't quite make it back before the rain started. Gabe, who was with us on his last ride in New Orleans before heading back to his normal life, said it looked like his last ride would be like his first. Well, not quite. Although we got a fair amount of light rain, it was nothing like that particular ride in April, and I arrived back at home with just a little bit of water sloshing around in my shoes. The rest of the day, well, was basically all downhill from there.....