Short Week

The Wednesday ride somehow felt harder than usual this week. I think perhaps it has something to do with all that Halloween candy I've been eating. Somehow we ended up with a fair number of little leftover Hershey bars, Skittles, and other tempting products of the modern petrochemical industry. Anyway, the only interesting thing was that there was a film crew working at the Maple Leaf. Somebody told me which movie it probably was, but of course I immediately forgot. The had a big base camp set up near where the ride starts, and as I rolled past I could smell breakfast cooking. Those film crews sure do eat well.

This morning I didn't really know quite what to expect of the ride. The group was pretty long, and right from the start I could see that Rob was going to be pushing the pace a bit. Woody was there on his track bike, so I knew he was still in off-season spin mode, but with a light wind and the temperature in the low 60s, I figured it might get unseasonably fast today. It turned out to be OK, though, at least on the way out. Not slow by any means, but also not blazingly fast either. After the turnaround, the paceline was starting to get little erratic when VJ suddenly sat up. He'd broken a spoke. We were still a long way out, and so most of us waited around so he could stop and deal with the flailing spoke and make sure he'd be able to get home on the wheel, which was something along the lines of a Zip 404, I think. After a quick check, it looked like it would go the distance, so we got going again, but by then a little group was way up the road. The rest of us weren't all that worried about trying to catch them, but pretty soon Mark G. went to the front and took the pace up a couple of notches. That kind of got things going again and after a while we could see we were starting to gain back some of the ground we'd lost. By then the front group had lost a few riders who had turned off to head home, while at the same time our group was getting smaller and smaller. I think we were down to just three for a while, and then Mark left for home, leaving just two, and finally near the there was just me and Ali who had dropped off of the front group. After Ali turned off at the playground, I think there was just Rob up ahead.

So it's a short week for me because tomorrow morning I'm off to Colorado Springs for the USA Cycling Local Associations Conference. It should be interesting. Hopefully none of the more crazy of the proposed rule changes will get past the USCF Board of Trustees. At least the trip there and back will give me a little time to think about getting our LAMBRA meeting together. I've got two delinquent events I'm still trying to get cleared up, one of which was a small NOBC race. I have a feeling I'm going to end up doing the chief referee report myself even though I wasn't even in town for it. That's assuming I can get my hands on the one-day license forms that I was promised would be mailed to me a few days ago. Looks like we're going to have to crack down on the officials and promoters and make sure they don't leave the race site before filling out the forms and writing the check.