Up and Down and Round and Round

I was up early Sunday and by 6:30 am Ed and I had departed Starbucks and begun our caffeinated drive up to Enon to meet six other riders for some road miles in the country. Just a couple of miles before Enon, the road comes over the infamous "watchtower hill," yielding a nice panoramic view to the north and, for the last thirty years or so, a rough and bumpy road to the Bogue Chitto bridge. So I was thrilled to come over the crest to see a magnificent and silky smooth road of nice fresh asphalt stretched out before me. Finally! And this was the real thing, not that chipseal crap they usually like to use on country roads.

So anyway, as we headed north out of Enon I remember thinking that the air felt rather pleasant -- a little cooler and maybe just a touch drier than usual. The really unusual thing, though, was that it was coming from the North. We almost never get a North wind in August around here unless something unusual is going on. That unusual something happens to be a little tropical storm that is developing in the northern Gulf of Mexico a couple hundred miles to the East.

Our group didn't waste too much time this morning before the pace ramped up, and I knew right away it was going to be a pretty hard ride. The pace stayed pretty brisk but steady as we worked our way generally North to Highway 10. After that, I always feel like I'm in uncharted territory on this ride. The roads are hilly and winding and without many landmarks, and the route makes a few rather complicated loops so I'm always kind of disoriented up there. It didn't help that my head felt like it had been stuffed with cotton thanks to some moldy house cleaning up in Baton Rouge yesterday. It feels like we're riding around in circles the whole time, which, apparently, we are. Anyway, despite my cartographic confusion, the roads are great and the terrain challenging, and today this group was taking no prisoners. I think by the time we stopped at a store after fifty miles or so everyone had about ridden himself to near-exhaustion. By then it was getting pretty damned hot and I treated myself to a nice cold Coke, half of which I poured into my water bottle, mainly to prevent myself from sucking down the whole thing in one swig.

As fast as the ride had been up until that point, it was even faster all the way back thanks to a nice tailwind. After the Enon sign sprint, contested by just Keith and Jason (I think), I arrived back at the car pretty well toasted and happily pulled a beer out of Jason's ice chest for rehydration purposes.

So I was sad to see that Chris Horner broke his collarbone yesterday up at Elk Grove. Maybe I'm just sensitized to it this year, but there sure seems to be a collarbone epidemic this year.