Another Fast One

Donald heads back after the turnaround

It was so dark this morning when I got up that I immediately checked the radar for rain. There wasn't a trace, but the combination of changing orbital inclination and a completely overcast sky sure made it seem dismal. For the first time since Spring I wore my clear lenses instead of my dark ones. When I arrived at the levee Woody was already there but it was otherwise deserted. It seems that Woody is starting a new job out around Elmwood, so we may have the opportunity to be pummelled by him on a more regular basis. With a nice little tail/crosswind the pace picked up fast today for the long levee ride and before long the number of people rotating through the paceline began to dwindle. My legs still felt sore from Sunday's ride, but I couldn't resist going kind of hard today. Woody and Donald, among others, were pushing the pace today. It was already looking like it would be another fast one by the time we hit Kenner, and soon thereafter Jeff, who was just ahead of me in the paceline, pulled over and waved me past. I think the pace had surged up to something like 32 at that point and the group had already split. I was already skipping pulls, and then for the last few miles I just sat at the back letting the other guys in ahead of me. Survival mode.

It didn't look like many, if any, of the riders not in the front group ever made it to the turnaround, but we picked up some more people on the way back and the pace was relatively calm for a few miles. We were riding into a pretty good headwind, and although our speed on the way out had been in the 26-29 mph range, we were now down to something more like 23-25. When Woody came to the front, with me on his wheel, he held 24-25 for what seemed like five miles. He was cruising along with his forearms on the bars and I was scrunched down low trying to get every bit of draft I could. You would have thought I'd have been rested enough, but when he finally pulled over for me to take a pull I probably got in 25 pedal strokes before I started slowing down and had to pull off. Suffice it to say that we had a pretty good fast training ride today that left me drenched in sweat. I spent quite a while at home stretching out my tired legs after that one. Somewhere out there the old ErgoBrain clicked over to 78,000 miles.

So it looks like there's a recall of 2004-05 Look Keo pedals. I'll have to check the date stamp on mine because although I got them less than a year ago, when you buy your stuff from those shady underworld types who advertise on eBay, you never know! The Giro de Rankin race got officially moved so as to avoid conflicting with Six Gap today, so it looks like it will be a pretty busy Fall season around here. August, as usual, will be pretty quiet with just one big LAMBRA event, but September will have something painful every weekend. It sounds like a lot of people want to do Six Gap this year. Also today I got a call from the Race Clock people who are fixing the LAMBRA clock that got wet. It seems that the keypad shorted out, so repair costs will be reasonable and we should have it back inside of two weeks.