Bikes and Moving Trucks

Saturday started, as it often does, with the Giro Ride. I was just crossing Esplanade Avenue at the entrance to City Park when I looked down and saw that the computer had just clicked over to 80,000 miles right on schedule. That computer will be eight years old some time around next June. I sat up and snapped a photo and wondered if the flash had caught the eye of the police car coming the other way. The sun wasn't quite up yet. A mile later I noticed that the new bike path along Bayou St. John was open so I thought I'd give it a try. As I expected, though, it was pretty lame, full of crazy curves, with stop signs at the intersections where it comes in behind the traffic signals. It's a nice try, though, and I guess a step in the right direction.


So Saturday's Giro seemed pretty fast. I didn't spend much time near the front, but got a pretty good workout anyway, finally putting in a big push up the overpass at the end. The new chain and cassette were meshing nicely and the weather was about as good as it gets. I really hated to go home, because I knew what was waiting for me there.


The moving truck must have just arrived as I rode up to the house. The sister-in-law's stuff was moving out of the basement where it has been since shortly after Katrina to the newly renovated, but not quite finished house at Calhoun and Willow. We made a number of trips back and forth transporting the more fragile items and as the Fireball Movers guys unloaded the truck we were in the back yard trying to clean up the flooded furniture. A lot of the stuff came out OK, but of course anything that had relied on glue to hold it together was falling apart. The real excitement, though, came when we opened a couple of drawers from an old oak cabinet that had been in the kitchen. Someone had forgotten to empty the drawers and there had been stuff like cooking chocolate in there. After three years in my basement, the drawers were full of huge and very satisfied-looking cockroaches. I would estimate there were at least a couple hundred roaches in there. At least. So a big roach-stomping party ensued, followed by chemical warfare and a good scrubbing down with the garden hose. It was like something from a Hitchcock movie. Anyway, by the end of the day I was pretty tired and sore.


Sunday's Giro started out pretty tame, which was fine with me because aside from a sore back I was suffering from headache caused, no doubt, by all of the dust and mold and roach debris I'd inhaled the day before. Robin and Tim had a long "discussion" about the pace on Hayne Blvd. that I think has something to do with not wanting to chase down Mike and his practically handlebar-free TT bike, both of which can be pretty dangerous in the group. Anyway, by the time we got rolling on Chef Highway into a headwind we had a nice long paceline going that only disintegrated toward the end when people started getting tired. I thought the return trip would be easy today, but it definitely wasn't. Three guys on TT bikes, including Brett and Mike, rolled off the front early and so eventually Tim started picking up the pace. Soon it was just Tim, me and Darren. Tim was doing most of the pulling and after a while we were up to about 30 mph, but the gap wasn't closing very fast in the tailwind. Then I heard Tim's derailleur clunk down another cog or two and I knew it was about to get serious. For the next mile or two Tim towed us at 32-34 mph until we closed the gap. Just sitting on Tim's wheel was a challenge, and I didn't envy Darren who was himself trying to draft off of my skinny ass.


There was even a sprint on the service road today, and I thought maybe that would be enough, but we ended up going pretty hard down Hayne Blvd. as well. I had a feeling that Mike was going to sprint for the top of the Casino bridge, and sure enough he took off as we started the climb just as Tim was finishing a long pull. I hesitated for a moment but couldn't resist, and went sprinting up the bridge in something like a 53 x 13, closing in on Mike. Just before the top I heard some wheels coming up on my left and saw Jaro go flying past, easily overtaking Mike by the top. That was fun.