Rain Bike Day

The first TM came just before 6am. "are u riding? radar looks bad." A few minutes later a consensus was reached, "Ditto, Woody and Tim said the same. looks like rain all day.....oh well, back to sleep." Back to sleep? Well, I was already awake, so I shuffled down to the basement, pulled the trusty old Pennine (my rain bike) down, and finally got around to swapping out the handlebars and replacing the old Campi brake levers with some beautiful replacements that I'd gotten from Billy Richards some time ago. These are pristine mid-80's Campagnolo Record brake levers with well-preserved gum-rubber hoods. Sweet. I unwound the ancient blue cloth Tressostar handlebar tape, sanded off the accumulated aluminum oxide, and wrestled off the old levers. Then I installed a relatively recent Cinelli Giro d' Italia handlebar (sadly it was grooved, which of course was superfluous on this friction-shifted bike) and slid on those practically new brake levers. I finished it off with some nice black Deda handlebar tape. I'd been meaning to do this little job for at least a year, so it was nice to finally get it done. Needless to say, after that I was going to ride -- rain or no rain.

So after a cup of coffee and a couple slices of toast I waited until around 10:30 to hit the road. By then there was just the lightest of drizzle, and the radar was looking a bit better. As it turned out, I couldn't have timed it better. I was almost all the way to the Destrehan bridge when I saw Steve and Pat coming toward me, so I turned around and rode with them most of the way back until they turned around at the Playground. When I had first left home I was expecting to be returning cold and wet. Thanks to my fenders and meteorological good fortune, I actually got back home quite warm and dry, with a nice 40+ miles of training under my belt.

The rest of the day was mostly light rain interspersed with heavier rain, and the streets are still wet as I write this, so I figure I was pretty lucky today. A few minutes ago I fired off a draft of a Dept. of Education disaster grant application for approval, so hopefully I can get that officially submitted some time tomorrow evening or Tuesday at the latest. Earlier today I had to add a morning meeting to my calendar that will definitely keep me from making the regular training ride. Perhaps I'll be able to get in a few miles in the dark earlier on Monday, though. We'll see how that goes.