Riding in the Spray Zone

Life in the big city. Yesterday we're leaving work in the car, with my bike stuffed in the back, and as I come to a stop at Gravier St. alongside the now defunct Charity Hospital, a car coming from the left runs the stop sign without even slowing down. The guy's entire front bumper is basically underneath the car and pieces are flying off in all directions. I immediately said, "he must be running from the cops." Sure enough, a second later an unmarked police car comes screaming through the intersection. I make my right turn and almost get creamed by another undercover police car with a teeny tiny anemic flashing blue light on his dashboard. By the time we got another two blocks down the street they already had the guy out of the car and in handcuffs. Everyone else just eased around the scene and continued on their merry ways.

A bit later in the evening we headed back downtown to the new Home Depot on Earhart at S. Claiborne, working our way through the Superdome traffic (the Saints once again pulled defeat from the jaws of victory) to help the sister-in-law make some decisions on a bathroom vanity. Some how we missed the homicide that happened around 7:30 just a few blocks away near Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. Of course the newspaper reported that as an "Uptown" murder. That's not even lower Garden District and a number of miles from anywhere I'd call uptown, but for some reason they like to call anything upriver of Canal Street "uptown."

So anyway, when I got up this morning my first thought was to look out the window because although it was dark, the forecast had been calling for rain. The street was wet, as if a shower had come through some time earlier, but there was no rain, so I fired up the computer and checked the radar. I stared at the slowly moving blobs of green and yellow for some time, trying to make a decision, as the clock ticked down toward 6:15. It looked like I'd get wet, but the temperature was warm so I pumped up the tires of the old 5-speed rain bike and hit the road.

I have to admit, I was a little surprised to find anyone at all for the morning ride, but waiting up on the levee were Big Richard and Scott and Luke and eventually a couple others, so we started out about on time. The road was wet, and in some areas it was really wet. We hadn't gone more than a few miles when a light rain started, but it soon stopped, so we decided to go as far as the little dip and then turn around. I was glad to have the rain bike with its full fenders, but of course fenders don't help much when you're trying to draft in the Spray Zone. Everyone was taking long pulls, probably because it was actually much more comfortable to be pulling than it was to be drafting with spray in your face. I spent a lot of time riding a bit off to the side to lessen the amount of gritty water coming at me, but it was still mostly uncomfortable. At least the fenders kept my feet from getting too wet. I mean, they weren't exactly dry by the time I got home, but it definitely could have been worse. We were just getting close to the Country Club on the way back when I noticed that familiar sponginess indicative of a soft tire. Ordinarily I would have stopped and fixed it, but the road was wet, the tires were dirty, and the leak in the front tire was fairly slow. So I stayed at the back trying to keep the weight off of the front wheel and made it all the way to the playground before it bottomed out. Luckily Richard dropped back and gave me a good shot of CO₂ that proved to be just enough to get me home without having to get my hands dirty. As usual, the reward for riding on wet streets was grit in my face and another flat.

So on the agenda for today is a check with the contact at James Business Park to make sure things are set for our race on Sunday, then I need to call Gary in Jackson because he needs to send in a signed event permit form because we moved the TT from LA to MS, and finally I will need to start packing up my office, tagging old computers that aren't coming with us, boxing up the files, etc. I'll leave the computer and a few files unpacked through tomorrow, but by Thursday morning everything will need to be ready to go. I also need to call the Orleans Parish mortgage office to officially record the fact that the house mortgage is now fully paid off. Any trip to a city office is a painful one and just serves as a reminder of how screwed up and incompetent and antiquated our city government is. Of course, I'll get to pay them money for that experience since apparently the 50 percent of us who support the other 50 percent don't ever seem to be contributing enough to avoid having to pay a special city fee for practically everything. Who needs taxes when you have "fees?"