Cone of Uncertainty

The local area is already feeling the effects of Hurricane Ike, even though we are still safely outside the dreaded "Cone of Uncertainty," and for the morning ride that meant an unusual and gusty wind. The usual group assembled up on the levee and headed off up the river a few minutes late, and it was easy to see that the crosswind was already making it hard for some to hold their lines. We were only a few miles out when Donald rolled up alongside me and quietly said, "Talk about a Cone of Uncertainty," referring of course to the rather sketchy paceline and frequent speed changes. So, as the folks in Galveston and Houston weighed their evacuation options, we worked our way up the levee bike path. Rounding the big curve at the Country Club, we started to pick up more of a tailwind. Woody and a couple others were already up the road a bit, although I hadn't even noticed when that had happened, but when we finally got a good strong tailwind I lifted our pace up to 26 or 27 mph. Unfortunately that split the group, leaving just a few of us, soon to be joined by Steve and Rolan. We rode through a patch of wet pavement and then down The Dip and back up onto the levee, and shortly thereafter I started hearing the click, click, click of something stuck in the rubber of my front tire. After a minute or so the clicking stopped and I hoped that it had come out, but as it turned out, it had gone IN instead of OUT and my tire was rapidly losing air. So I stopped underneath the big grain elevator to pull an enormous chunk of clamshell out of the tire, change the tube, and wait for the group on its way back.

I was kind of surprised by two things. First, the rest of the group never showed up, so I assumed they'd turned around at the Dip. Second, I saw only Woody coming back. By then, Dave had showed up and so we latched onto Woody for the long haul back into the wind. A few miles down the road we came upon David and Luke fixing a flat and learned that Mark D. had gone down pretty hard at the "little dip" which explained why the rest of the group had never shown up. I left him a message but haven't heard back so I'm a little uncertain about the extent of his injuries. I'm hoping he didn't break another collarbone, but at any rate he was able to call for extraction. As we approached Williams Blvd., we saw him and Donald heading down the ramp to the parking lot where I'm sure his wife was meeting him. At that point we picked up a couple more riders so at least we had a little paceline for the rest of the headwind battle. By then, Woody was already late for work, although he was clearly doing us all a big favor by sticking around and taking some long pulls at a slow enough pace to keep the group together.

So Woody pulls off to head to work around Clearview and soon I'm on my own again, plugging away at 20 mph into the wind, pretending I'm on a long steady climb, and I look up and see this huge black and blue cloud moving in from the southeast. Wow! Already a rain band from that rather huge hurricane filling up the Gulf of Mexico. Then, just as I'm rolling down the levee to Oak Street, I hear the train whistle and know I'm going to have another wait.

Bottom line: Got home about 20 minutes late, then it started pouring down rain, so I took the car to work.