Wind and Women

This morning it seemed the wind was blowing even more strongly than yesterday. Thanks to the wind, I was still feeling a little chilly in my arm-warmers as I waited atop the levee for the rest of the group to arrive. Once we got going, though, the headwinds and crosswinds kept us working pretty hard. We had a couple of triathlete women on the ride this morning. One of them (Tanya) rides with us pretty often. The other I didn't recognize, but I think I'll remember those short shorts next time! I'm sure three or four of the guys asked me if I knew who she was. Anyway, at least the general level of attractiveness of the paceline got a hefty boost today.

On the way home I stopped for a few minutes for a cup of dark roast at Zotz on Oak Street, where I had to navigate around a road closure where they are fixing some of the granite "cobblestones" that were just installed a month or so ago. I guess these guys don't have a lot of cobblestone experience. I had noticed last week that some of them were already coming loose. They're mainly there to slow down the traffic, but I suspect that today's modern suspension systems just laugh at that sort of thing. The interesting thing about them, though, is that they were recycled from the original stones that the street was originally paved with. They had mostly been covered up with asphalt for the last fifty years or so, so it's kind of neat that they dug them up and used them as "traffic calmers" at the intersections.

Later in the day I went over to Country Day school to meet with a couple of students who are trying to get a cycling team started. The instigator, Marc, moved here with his family from Spain fairly recently. I gave them some information on bikes, training and racing. Hopefully they will be able to get something going. In the meantime, Michael is working on the annual LAMBRA meeting, currently scheduled for Dec. 5 in Jackson, MS, and is ordering a batch of LCCS jerseys for this year's winners. I think we may try for a new design for 2011 and offer whatever leftover jerseys we end up with to current and former LCCS winners at a big discount. I need to write up the order for the LCCS awards and Cup, and while I'm at it I want to see what it would cost to get some kind of trophies or plaques to give to our District Champions, at least for the Road Race and Time Trial. The problem, of course, is that we have so many age groups that it could easily get too expensive. Perhaps we'll just give awards for the skill-based races. I dunno. We'll have to see about it.