Bikes and Barristers

The air felt calm and cool, and I could hear the sound of my tires on the road as I threaded my way through the quiet city streets on my way to meet Keith at Puccino's. I knew it wouldn't last. We were headed across the lake for another Sunday morning group ride, and the only two options for the day were hot sunshine or pouring rain. I was hoping for the former. Our planned 7:30 am start had slipped to nearly 8:00 by the time the 18-rider group started rolling north toward Enon, and I was pleased to find that there was still just a bit of coolness to the air. The legs were feeling fairly good, despite the prior day's Team Time Trial effort, and the group was smooth and steady for the first 25 miles or so. By the time we made the right turn way up at the top of the 65-mile Enon- Plainview loop ride, I could tell that a few of the guys were starting to have trouble.

The next section of this ride features three significant climbs that sometimes split the group. The first one is the longest, climbing fairly steadily around a long curve so that you can't really see the top from the bottom. Nobody attacked that one and everyone went up at a moderate tempo. The next two are the short but steep little climbs that are more typical in this area, and I think we lost a few people as the pace surged. By the time we got to the right turn at Sie Jenkins Road, we were four or five riders short, but went ahead and pushed it a bit on Sie Jenkins anyway, since it's only a couple of miles long. After regrouping at Plainview, three or four riders decided to do their own thing and ride back a bit easier. We eventually all, or mostly all, came back together when we stopped at the Enon store. By then it was getting pretty hot and everyone needed fluids for the last leg back to the Lee Road School. I refilled my water bottle and remember thinking how delicious the gas station water tasted. I must have been really thirsty! The pace stayed fairly fast for the last stretch, and by the time I got back to the cars I was, as usual, drenched in sweat. It was another good training ride. Better, as I later heard, than the Giro Ride back in town where Eddie Delgado reportedly crashed and broke his collarbone. I think the official collarbone count for the year now stands at 2 -- considerably better than last year, anyway -- and not including VJ's femur break.

After a nice easy recovery ride Monday morning, I was back at the Criminal Court building in the afternoon for Jury Selection in a 1st degree murder case. Things were running nearly an hour late and the temperature in the courtroom must have been in the mid-60s when my little 10-person group was seated. The chairs, by the way, must have been installed by a very tall person because although they are nice and cushy, my feet don't even touch the ground. Between that and the temperature, I was really uncomfortable the whole time. So it turns out this case is a quintuple murder and the lawyers from the state were mainly interested in weeding out anyone who would be unable to consider the death penalty, while the defense attorney was also trying to get a feel for whether people would consider both the death penalty and life in prison. This lawyer was a real classic. He had a huge overhanging belly tugging at the buttons of his big white shirt, a bow tie, and black and white shoes. I was amazed that he wasn't wearing a blue and white searssucker suit. He talked a lot but didn't make a whole lot of sense. In the end, they released only three and the rest of us have to return next Monday for the final selection. In the meantime, they will be going through a number of other groups between now and Friday, so I guess they'll end up with fifty or so for the official Voir Dire on Monday. Anyway, I still have a bad feeling about this. Being sequestered for a week would definitely put a kink in my training, if not my mental stability.

It was another hot and humid long training ride on the levee this morning with a somewhat smaller group than usual. With nobody really pushing the pace into race simulation territory, things stayed together at 24-25 mph on the way out and perhaps a bit faster on the way back. As typically happens, the number of riders rotating pulls at the front started to dwindle dramatically by the time we were halfway back. A couple of times I took a longish pull hoping to give everyone a chance to get things together, only to pull off and find a big gap just a couple of riders back. That always feels kind of frustrating because you're expecting to have a nice long time to recover before coming to the front again. Once that doesn't happen, you're always unsure about where to get back into the rotation, and of course you can't pull at the same speed if you're not going to get the same recovery. Anyway, that's a fairly typical scenario and nothing to get bent out of shape about. I just drop back and take a little rest when I need it, and then move back up into the rotation when I can. Today I think the group split toward the end, and by the time we got back to the playground and VJ pulled off to go home it was just Big Richard and me.