Summertime in the City

There is only the faintest hint of coolness now at 6 am when I step outside for my morning training ride, and what there is of it doesn't last very long. The air this morning was thick and humid with only a barely perceptible breeze. The current 10-day forecast offers little more than heat and sunshine with low temperatures near 80F and highs in the mid-90s. The chance of rain doesn't rise above 20% until the 25th. Up on the levee, the Mississippi has receded back down to near normal, leaving behind rotting vegetation, tons of debris, and stagnant ponds all along the batture. The smell of hot and festering plants and aquatic life wafts heavily over the levee from the river along the bike path, but in a week or two the new grasses and plants will have taken over the flooded areas and there will be just the piles of wood and thousands of plastic bottles that drifted downstream from our northern neighbors. It's summertime in the city and people, including me, are already starting to move more slowly.

The long Tuesday ride started out with mostly the usual group plus Dan Bennett who has been in town since The Tour. I rode for a while at the front alongside Dan, and somewhere around the bridge he asked, "so when does the pace get fast?" I responded, "about when we get off the front." I drifted back down the line of riders and sure enough the pace started to rise. Most of the riders were taking pulls but the pace kept escalating and by the time we were out around River Ridge people were already getting tired and opening gaps. When I pulled off the front after taking a pull, I saw a couple of bikes coming the other way, so I slowed down and dropped all the way back near the end of the paceline. Next thing I knew there was a big gap with Rob, Dan and Woody up the road. The front of the group didn't seem all that interested, but as I moved back up toward the front one of the guys on a TT bike put his head down and started trying to close it. I held onto his wheel until he motioned for me to come through. He had gotten us within striking distance, so I dropped down another cog and made a big effort, taking me up to around 30 mph before finally catching the draft. Soon afterward I heard Chad come up behind me. That was it, though. Woody pulled off to return home, but the pace stayed pretty fast all the way out to the turnaround. The ride back was a bit more civilized, at least at first. Then, as we started getting close to the country club it seemed that Rob and Dan started attacking each other. Well, the rest of the group didn't last long after that, and soon the duo was rolling up the road by themselves. Our group was holding about 25 mph much of the way, but Dan and Rob had at least a minute on us by the time we got back to the playground. I got home dripping sweat and with empty water bottles. Summer indeed.

Tomorrow the A/C guys are supposed to be coming to the house to install a whole new system, and empty out my checking account, so I guess I'll be working from home and hoping they can get it working without any big surprises. All I know is that it isn't cheap, I'll be eating a lot of rice for the next few months, and those entry fees are really going to sting.